Your Avatar Means Business!

Posted on 11. October 2009 by HumanRaceHorses

Business Imagery in Virtiual Reality

Would you wear this at the office?

Take off that Valkyrie bra. Get rid of the Elton John glasses. Drop that red feather boa! Stop running amok like Lady Gaga and Madonna on Saturday Night Live!

There have been a number of posts recently about the need for social media policies at corporations. Sharlyn Lauby, the HR Bartender had an interesting post on Mashable that discussed the need for companies to do planning for social media damage control. Sharlyn has also posted on the corporate dress code.

Now Gartner, Inc warns that businesses need to start worrying about how the avatars used by their employees are using being used professionally and to consider how that look might impact the business.

Are we really ready for an avatar dress code?

Gartner recommends six tactical guidelines for your consideration as human resources professionals and other managers begin to come to grips with this fretful new concern.

1. Help users learn to control their avatars.

2. Recognize that users will have a personal affinity with their avatar.

3. Educate users on the risks and responsibilities of reputation management.

4. Extend the code of conduct to include avatars in 3-D virtual environments.

5. Explore the business case for avatars.

6. Encourage usage and enterprise pilots.

is anyone out there dealing with this right now? If so, what are you doing? I’d love to hear about it!

Additional information on this topic can be found in the Gartner report “Avatars in the Enterprise: Six Guidelines to Enable Success.” which is available on Gartner’s Web site here.