Avatars - what can they offer you?

The other day I was thrown off completely when I heard my mother say, "My avatar has red hair." I was stopped in my tracks wondering when, how, and why my mom starting having an avatar? Apparently it's for an online bridge gaming site and she loves it! She called her avatar her alter-ego.

A week or so later, I was looking over my husband's shoulder as he signed into his fantasy football site and I got a glimpse of his avatar. Now, his actually looks just like him, complete with glasses and his standard blue shirt.

To me, creating an avatar is sort of the animated version of playing with paper dolls. Depending on the site or software you're using you can have dozens of body types, facial features, hair colour, clothing, and accessories to choose from. Put together, along with a personal screen name, you can create an image that represents yourself in a 3D virtual world.

If you haven't explored 3D virtual worlds and considered their educational and counselling impact, you can check out some of the most successful: Second Life is a popular social world. Most recently you will find that commerical businesses are setting up real stores within this virtual world. Whyville is a virtual world designed specifically with youth in mind. Active Worlds is another that makes it easy for users to create their own virtual world and avatars.

Avatars certainly aren't a new phenomenon. Today large numbers of online tools and communities are using them to give users ways of expressing themselves online. I have found it interesting that my mom has used this opportunity to have the hair style and earrings she'd never actually wear in real life. Meanwhile my husband worked hard to ensure his avatar matched his real self perfectly.

Both my mom and my husband were participating in entertainment activities. However, their approaches got me thinking about how they might use the avatar experience if they were learning online. Would their approaches change if they were using an avatar to explore their real world career path in a 3D virtual world? Would this temporary paper doll exercise give them the freedom to step into their alter-ego? Or would they make attempts to replicate their current reality?

ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) has set up its own virtual island in Second Life. Check it out as you consider how you could support your clients in self exploration, self expression, communication, visualization, or even interview prepartion using an avatar?

See the clip for more details or follow the link to go directly to the island. ASTD Island

Unleashed!

We know that our clients are online – surfing, chatting, Skyping, socializing, blogging, and vlogging. They are registering for classes, paying bills, selling stuff, buying stuff and getting driving directions. They are planning vacations, “googling” the names of old friends, updating their virus software and downloading music. They are following sports, following politics, and following reality TV. If it works for them – they are doing it online.

Whether we are involved with them online or not – their career choice, outlook, and management ARE impacted by the energy of the online world. How we approach the design of our online career services must take into account that our clients are no longer in the top-down, expert knows everything state. You see, in an effort to help clients not feel overwhelmed by information we might be tempted to narrow their searching, focus their chatting, and limit their socializing?

But what if we didn’t? What if we designed our online services to expand, in fact, unleash the potential of web 2.0 for making sense of this new world of work?

Unleash– it is such a scary word for those of us trained in “classroom management”. But it is a beautiful word when you think of its alternative – Contain. Contain the information. Contain the interaction. Contain the creativity.

Here is our challenge. Our online services need to release clients to explore, create, collaborate in untold numbers of situations but also create space for summarizing, reflection, and application. Here’s the bottom line – there is no one way to go about it. So – unleash yourself!

Just when I get a little overwhelmed by pace and volume of information out there, I get wowed by another cool tool. Here is one I have come to appreciate. It is the social bookmarking site - http://del.icio.us/.