Abstract
Virtual worlds, as electronic environments where individuals can interact in a realistic manner in form of avatars, are increasingly used by gamers, consumers and employees. Therefore, they provide opportunities for reinventing business processes. Especially, effective knowledge management (KM) requires the use of appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) as well as social interaction. Emerging virtual worlds enable new ways to support knowledge and knowing processes because these virtual environments consider social aspects that are necessary for knowledge creating and knowledge sharing processes. Thus, collaboration in virtual worlds resembles real-life activities. In this paper, we shed light on the use of Second Life (SL) as a KM platform in a real-life setting. To explore the potential and current usage of virtual worlds for knowledge and knowing activities, we conducted a qualitative study at IBM. We interviewed IBM employees belonging to a special workgroup called 'Web 2.0/virtual worlds' in order to gain experience in generating and exchanging knowledge by virtually collaborating and interacting. Our results show that virtual worlds - if they are able to overcome problems like platform stability, user interface or security issues - bear the potential to serve as a KM platform. They facilitate global and simultaneous interaction, create a common context for collaboration, combine different tools for communication and enhance knowledge and knowing processes.