Informa Embraces Virtual World Of Second Life To Help Employees Plan Careers And Enhance Business Opportunities

Released : 22 November 2007

‘Depth of information available to employees in the virtual world of Second Life a first’

• Second Life will help Informa employees develop their careers, while helping the organisation to retain talented people
• Full information on job functions, competencies and skill gaps shown as easily as if browsing a store
• An assault course, football tournaments and meeting rooms in Second Life bring international staff and management together on a business and social level for the first time, while also showing innovative potential business tool to Informa entrepreneurs
• Informa is using a virtual world, rather than banning it, to encourage employees to achieve their own career goals and to think innovatively about their own initiatives

Informa, leading international provider of specialist information, is adopting the virtual world Second Life as an innovative way to help employees develop their own careers.  The virtual world enables employees to wander around ‘Transformed Careers Island’ so they can map their career progression by gaining information on job functions and the competencies required to perform those roles.

They will also be able to meet career ambassadors from around the business as well as other colleagues within the global Group.  In addition staff can participate in individual and team games like tackling an assault course and playing football.  Informa’s aim is to enable employees to develop their own careers and to retain talented people, whilst encouraging the business to innovate and look at new platforms as possible business tools.

Vicki Ansell, group marketing and operations for Informa, explains, “Transformed Careers started out as a paper brochure distributed to staff, then as with the trend in the business world it moved online to enable immediate access via the intranet - it’s a natural progression that it should become more interactive.  To maintain our competitive edge in the market place, Informa businesses are always finding new ways to provide intelligence to our customers through all our product channels. These include publishing, conferences and courses, right through to our information services - so it’s important to provide useful information to our employees in an innovative way too.

“Informa is a business made up of entrepreneurs in over 100 businesses in 43 countries, so we want to encourage that spirit and channel some of it into exploring the value of virtual worlds that are out there.  One of our businesses in Germany used Second Life to host an event – it’s that type of spark we encourage.”

Employees ‘teleport’ to the Transformed Careers island and can visit 14 job function regions, such as sales or editorial.  Once there, they can view the day in the life of the ambassador for that region, read and save the competencies required to reach different levels within those roles and see what training or experience gaps they have in meeting the competencies for the role they want to move to.   They can also chat to the ambassadors and view internal job vacancies in all of the global Informa businesses.   They can also choose to move around the island by underground train, which relates to Informa’s internal strategy map.

Peter Dunkley, founder of depo consulting, the virtual brand experience specialist which created Transformed Careers Island, says, “My understanding is that there is no business using Second Life like Informa.  Many are using it for client and internal meetings, which means they can sit in a pleasant virtual environment to discuss business, but Informa is taking it to a much deeper level.  They are providing a great deal of information for staff, yet the way it’s presented enables people to wander around and look at things, just like they would in a store. It’s simple and logical.  They can also talk to someone to get quick feedback wherever they’re based in the world”.

Alison Chisnell, Informa’s HR Director responsible for Transformed Careers, comments, “There are many opportunities within Informa and we stress to our employees that we want to retain our key talent.  Many people wish to create new career challenges for themselves and we want to support them in that goal, helping them with their own career progression. 

“We understand that using Second Life flies in the face of the pessimistic reports expressing that too many employees spend time on social websites, but we believe in trusting our employees to achieve their goals. 

“A much more interesting perspective is to use social websites responsibly, to encourage employees to achieve their own goals, as well as use them to improve business performance.”

www.informa.com

For press information, contact: 
Vicki Ansell, Group Marketing & Operations, +44 (0) 207 017 7137, +44 (0)7824 356723, vicki.ansell@informa.com
Alison Chisnell, Informa HR, alison.chisnell@informa.com

Kay Phelps, kay.phelps@theprdepartment.net, + 44 (0) 7710 043244

Rassami Hok Ljungberg; rassami@rassami.com,  + 44 (0) 7712 675898

About Informa

Informa plc is the leading international provider of specialist information and services for the academic and scientific, professional and commercial business communities. Informa has over 100 offices in more than 40 countries and employs 10,000 staff around the world.
Informa is the largest publicly-owned organiser of conferences and courses in the world with an output of over 12,000 events annually. Informa publishes over 2,000 subscription-based information services including academic journals, real-time news and structured databases of commercial intelligence. Informa's book business has more than 40,000 academic and business titles in print.

About depo consulting

depo consulting, the virtual brand experience specialist, delivers a range of strategic and tactical solutions for a range a clients including professional services firms, advertisers, media and creative agencies.

depo consulting delivers an enhanced virtual brand and working experience for companies’ internal audience as well as to consumers, effectively creating new cost-efficiencies and revenue opportunities.

depo consulting expert services include creation of tools and practices for business collaboration, improved business process management, as well as consumer marketing strategies in virtual worlds, all leading to improved business performance.

depo consulting does this with and for professional services firms, advertisers, media and creative agencies of companies with a large customer base, e.g. automotive, FMCG, retail, financial services and telecoms industries.
 
Founded in 2001 by Peter Dunkley, depo consulting is an independent specialist.

Clients include: Field Fisher Waterhouse, Market Truths, Codexx, Jefferson Salt, Astralcom, Greythorn Group, Non Profit Bridge, Pure Trust, OracleContractors.com, BBC, Informa

For further information, please contact:
Peter Dunkley
T: +44(0)7908542173
E: peterdunkley@depoconsulting.com

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