Categories: Articles

Marketing Magazine Lets Me Look Inside Second Life

The latest issue of Marketing Magazine has a full-page feature titled, Get a (Second) Life, written by yours truly. I was approached a couple of weeks back by one of the editors after news broke that Telus had created a retail environment inside Second Life – the growing online virtual world.
The article is only available online for those who have a paid subscription at: Marketing Magazine – Get A (Second) Life. But, here’s a teaser:
“Why should marketers care? Second Life is another channel that people are interested in and spending money on. These virtual environments provide a place for people to share, meet and grow. The American Cancer Society recently held its annual Relay For Life with a Second Life component and raised US$40,000 just from Second Life.
What’s the point of Second Life? That’s about as easy to answer as what’s the point of life? We’re all still trying to figure it out.”
Immediate feedback from the Marketing Magazine editors was that the piece was truly a “what’s next” story in marketing (the piece was featured under their Top Of Mind section).
My personal jury is still not out on whether or not Second Life will be the prevailing online environment that we all will have Avatars (residents) in. I still have hopes that we will be able to create an Avatar that will be agnostic to platform, be it instant messenger, online virtual environments, etc…

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.