Meet me in my avatar's office

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Employees of tomorrow will inhabit virtual worlds like Second Life to hold live weekly meetings with co-workers, catch up over lunch with financial advisers, and join friends on virtual shopping excursions after work.

That's if IBM's vision pans out.

"Success (in the future) will depend on how well you play the game, literally," Doug McDavid, executive research consultant at IBM's Academy of Technology, said here Monday night at an SDForum event titled "Virtual Worlds: Ready, Fire, Aim."

"A generation (has) lived in these environments, and they'll bring that perspective into the workplace. How this plays out is in the integration of work with this playful perspective," McDavid said. He added: "This is an unstoppable phenomenon."

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