Opening Day

Yesterday, I posted office hours and today marked the opening of STA SLI. I will be working 3 hour shifts for the rest of the week, as we start to build on the fact that we now have a live staff with office hours operating on Second Life. As we haven't made any press releases yet, not too many people showed up....well none.

On the Orientation Island, we started today with STA Travel's SL greeters. When the OI first opened we briefly used some ESC greeters but they proved to be far too expensive and we had to seek alternatives. This week, I have two staff members who will familiarize themselves with the job of greeting people, what's involved and how best to do it. Mostly, it involves having fun, so it's not a bad job at all. Next week, I hope to start building the staff, adding people and hours to the schedule. I've also hired an assistant manager whose job is to help me build the SL staff that STA will be employing.

It's a huge job that I've undertaken. But I absolutely love it. There's just so many different aspects to it. Tomorrow, I have a meeting with a class in Houston who are studying marketing techniques on Second Life and the internet. They were all asked to prepare questions to ask me, I feel like I may've signed up for a shooting gallery. However, the more people with whom I talk, the more ideas and suggestions that I get. In simply talking with the professor who is arranging the meeting (he teaches the class from Paris, mind you), I've already learned a great deal more about what my job is and how to do it.

After the class, I've got a conference call to try an establish a virtual tour for a client who is interested in hiring a tour guide for SL. If this goes well, it may lead to a sustained business of tours of SL, which would be a pleasant surprise. It hadn't initially occurred to me that we could actually make money through virtual tourism, but it may prove to be a source of revenue.

The next major step for me is once the office is wired into STA Travel's computer network, which will allow me to make bookings and check live air fare. Once this happens, I will be able to offer virtually all of the travel services that a RL travel branch currently has. Right now, I can make bookings but as I'm working through another agent, I can't provide the same quality of service for check live fairs. I'm more of a consultant at the moment.

Anyway, that's about it from the weird world in which I now work. I definitely had less naked people at the office today, though the one's that I did get were dancing. Somehow that makes it a bit better.

The Next Step

Where to begin, good grief! Well, I'll start with the now. This afternoon has been spent at work, taking my first client at my new place of work. They're looking to put together a tour of the virtual metaverse that has grown on the internet since the Millenia.

So, I'm making some inquiries with a few tour operators, getting back into the familiar routine of planning a trip for STA Travel.

Yep, that's right, it was an extended leave after all. I once again find myself in the employ of STA Travel; though this time it comes with a bit of a twist.

I have been hired to work in the e-commerce division of STA Travel, working on the virtual platform the recently built on Second Life (SL), which is a rapidly expanding free form virtual world. The word game no longer applies to this program, though its format from anyone who has played a RPG from Legend of Zelda onwards.

For me, this is a dream job. I'm getting to be a part of the latest technological trend and try and do something that hasn't been done before. The potential of SL is staggering, I feel that it will create major changes to almost every facet of current civilization. For me, I get to help create how it will impact travel, what more could I ask for?

My days have been mostly spent figuring out what my job actually is, getting things organized, making the necessary contacts with others either involved with the project or at STA Travel. I've been familiarizing myself with the island group on which I work, learning how to use some of its functions and not destroy anything vital. I am the only travel agent in history who has to worry about inadvertantly destroying the office and having to explain that to upper management. Such is the virtual world, eh?

Mostly, I'm trying to figure out the order of steps necessary to get my job off the ground. Figuring out what needs to be done now, and what should wait till next month, or be filed under future plans. Also, I'm learning what I can and cannot do. Imagine the dojo scene from The Matrix to a lesser extent.

All in all, I'm having a lot of fun though. I find the work exciting, and I've met a lot of great people through the job. It's creative and challenging, and something that my resume is perfect for. In truth, I believe that my travels will be invaluable to this job, as part of it is realizing what the client on the other end of the computer really needs. I was that client, I am that client. I just have the fantastic luck of being on the other side of the desk.

I do get to wear the cowboy hat at work though!