Doing Business Gets a Second Life

On Oct. 26, Doing Business turned its attention to the virtual world by launching Doing Business 2008 in Second Life. During the three-hour event, I presented the report and took questions from Second Life residents on Activ8 Island. In total, almost 700 residents and their online personas, known as avatars, attended. Another 1,000 tuned in by audio. It was the largest audience we have ever reached in a single event. It was also the first time for the World Bank to appear in Second Life.

Second Life is an online, virtual world created by its users, also known as residents. It offers a platform for communication, business, and education. Besides residents from North America and Europe, more than 1 in 5 residents logs on to the virtual site from Latin America, Asia or Africa. This may seem like old news to some of you. To me, it was really a news flash.

I simply had not even heard of Second Life until my colleague, Ramin Aliyev, suggested we launch there. I was surprised to learn that there is a virtual and vibrant world out there in Second Life.

We have used online distribution for the previous four issues of the Doing Business report. This year, we added Second Life to the report’s distribution strategy because of the platform’s ability to broadcast a message to a large international audience with shared interests through real-time interaction.

To me, this was more that an exciting new outreach event; it represented what may be commonplace in the foreseeable future.

Second Life, as a global community with residents from more than 100 countries, is an ideal venue to host a virtual launch of a report that compares how easy it is for people to start and operate a business in 178 economies. Second Life is on the frontier of collaboration and technology. It brings people from around the world together by removing boundaries. That is exciting.

Through Second Life we aimed to reach business owners, investors, aid donors, and other interested people with the findings of this year's report. The event was an open forum where policy makers and the public from around the world, including Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, can ask questions, challenge the findings, and contribute to a global business dialogue aimed at stimulating reforms that improve the business environment, and ultimately create more business startups, job opportunities, and economic growth.

One of the most interesting questions I got from the audience was whether or not Doing Business benchmarking methodology could be applied to the economy of Second Life. I had to think about that one for a few seconds. My answer was that yes, in principle, it could. To the degree that economic activity in Second Life and across its various islands is regulated by laws and procedures, it might be possible to rank where it is easiest to do business.