Alison Booth is leader of Techwatch at the consulting division of IT services company Atos Origin. She recently asked one of the new graduates entering the company to study the online virtual world Second Life to see if there was any value in the company becoming more involved in the virtual society.

Booth says there are a number of reasons for taking such a methodical approach to what many might still see as an unimportant virtual community.

‘The first thing about this is that we are continually looking at our solution portfolio,’ she says.

‘This idea is closely linked to product innovation. Second Life is just a different way of dealing with people and businesses. We have observed some other technology companies on there, some product-based companies such as Reebok are advertising, and recently we have seen the launch of virtual cities, such as virtual Tokyo.’

Booth does not have one specific objective for the Second Life research project, Atos Origin is first looking to unearth its untapped potential.

‘We have looked at the environment in some detail already and realised that it is generating a lot of interest among businesses,’ she says. ‘I don’t really know where all of this will lead, but there is something in it; so many people are involved and interacting in this environment. Those of us used to a certain way of doing business are not attuned to the environment yet.

‘We see no need to rush into this virtual world. Before we enter into the world of Second Life, we want to be sure that it will really help us better run our business. At the moment, with the focus on reducing business travel and companies’ carbon footprint, we believe that it could add value as a conference forum and are looking to host a global, internal event.’

Booth says Atos needs to do detailed research to really tap into the way Second Life works, not just gather some opinions from a newspaper. ‘It is evident that young people today are on all the social networking sites,’ she says. ‘The way that kids interact with each other through this medium is amazing ­this is the way people are going to do business in future.’