4. Learn about programming for virtual worlds

"Get the basics down of what it means to meet, build and script in a virtual world," urges Steve Nelson, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Clear Ink, a digital marketing company that's added virtual-world development to its services portfolio. "'Script' means create objects that are 'scriptable' in an object-oriented way to communicate with each other and to the outside world."

Also, Nelson advises, begin determining "what are the APIs to processes on the outside -- for example, so your data center can feed data to them and actions on these objects can communicate out."

5. Try getting land and building within Second Life

You'll need a premium account, which costs at least US$9.95 per month; you can rent some land in the main Second Life space or get an "island" (private region). Land has initial and monthly costs.

6. Try deploying a Second Life-type environment internally on a server inside your network

Use the free OpenSimulator server. Also be sure to check out open-source code available through SourceForge (search on "Second Life" and on "Virtual World").

7. Explore more of today's collaborative tools

Odds are, many, if not most, of your new employees came in using consumer versions of Web 2.0 tools like instant messaging (IM) and other presence-based apps, Facebook-type organizers, blogs and wikis -- and many people are probably using them informally for company activity.

Enterprise collaborative tools include security, archiving and other features that IT and the company at large need. If you're using Microsoft Office Live or IBM Sametime, you may already have many of these, in fact.

Qwaq's forums let you create a virtual meeting space into which you can "import" your working materials. It costs US$60 per person per month for use of its hosted service.

8. Identify resources for next steps

Second Life's Solutions Provider Directory lists companies that can help you do a small project, such as integrating one of your management applications, or create an entire island.