Jonathan Reichental, director of IT innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says IT professionals must first understand that realizing the business potential of virtual worlds involves much more than creating avatars.

They need to look at virtual worlds as they look at any other technology and understand how they can improve business functions and processes, how they can help the company reach its internal and external goals, and how they can be implemented to do all that, Reichental says.

Even when companies opt to outsource the work, IT has to be prepared to evaluate providers and manage the relationship. For instance, IT support manager Brad Bartman says his department made sure Text 100's work with Second Life was secure and that it didn't cause any problems with the agency's infrastructure. IT also worked on various projects in support of the initiative.

The main message for IT: Get involved and see where all this leads.

Even champions of virtual worlds don't see them as a replacement for the real thing. There are times when face-to-face interactions are the only way to go. And, yes, there are times when a simple telephone call or e-mail exchange will suffice. But there's a growing list of advantages to working in-world, too.

"Will it replace real life? No, it will not. Will it replace e-mail? Probably not," Stucky says. "But for those already in the virtual world, it's an authentic experience. It will just be a while before we get to that point for everybody."

IT's role in the virtual world

The IT department's role vis-a-vis its company's virtual-world activities will vary based on what the business wants to accomplish. If executives want a presence in an existing virtual world for marketing reasons, IT's role might be limited. But if they want a virtual world built behind the corporate firewall for meetings, IT will have a whole different set of responsibilities.

Here are some issues that you may have to address:

Access. Some IT departments have blocked access to virtual-world sites, so they will have to open ports if they want to encourage workers to experiment.

Public or private? Companies that want to try this technology for internal uses might decide it's better to build a platform that's behind the corporate firewall, while others might decide there's a business value in creating a presence in one or more public sites.

Hardware requirements. Some virtual-world sites have robust hardware requirements, and many companies' desktops and laptops lack the horsepower required to support them.

Security risks. IT needs to determine whether -- and, if so, what -- additional technologies need to be deployed to mitigate the risks associated with opening ports to the virtual world.

User education. Conversations in Second Life and other public virtual worlds aren't necessarily private, so users should be warned about disclosing proprietary information.

Build or buy? If the decision is to buy, IT has to consider how to evaluate a provider; if it's to build, IT has to determine which skills and equipment are needed.

Updates. Some virtual-world sites need to be updated every week or even every few days. That means IT will be very busy handling those updates, or it will need to allow tech-savvy users to handle them on their own.

Sources: Dave Kamalsky, program manager/software architect for virtual worlds research at IBM; Jonathan Reichental, director of IT innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers; Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group.