Following on from the vBusiness Expo which is in progress right now in Second Life, Clever Zebra are pleased to announce the launch of The vBusiness Executive Bootcamp.

The bootcamp is a one day virtual worlds seminar held entirely in Second Life with the aim of getting managers, decision makers and stakeholders up to speed with the fast paced growth of 3D immersive environments and their use in the enterprise. The vBusiness Bootcamp costs just $195 per person.

Request a program and overview here

The full program (PDF link) for the vBusiness Expo has been released including biographies of every speaker, a full schedule of the events, and details on what you can expect to find when wandering the expo. Press releases about the expo hit the net today as well, and have already received attention at CNN Money.

If you'd like a sneak peek while the place is still quiet, the islands are open right now and you don't need to join any special group to take a look around. For those of you still without a Second Life avatar, you can create a new account through Clever Zebra's vBusiness Second Life Portal and be deposited right on the Expo grounds themselves. You can then join the online community at vBusiness Central and meet others interested in the shape of business in virtual worlds.

Tomorrow the big event begins. See you then!

I'm very pleased to announce the launch of the vBusiness Second Life Portal today. Now visitors to Clever Zebra virtual events such as the vBusiness Expo and the vBusiness Central Community can register for Second Life, and arrive via a clean, simple set of fast tutorials designed to get business users up to speed quickly.

It takes about 4mins to learn Second Life to the degree necessary to enjoy an inworld event. There is no flying, no appearance modification and absolutely nothing you don't absolutely need to take that first step into the virtual world. As a vBusiness Community member there will be ample opportunity to not only learn basic skills, but also explore all kinds of ideas around the topic of virtual worlds as a platform for business.

I hope you enjoy the new portal, and if you're an experienced SL'er, do give new folks a hand if you spot them coming in...

As Caleb mentioned yestereday, we are closing the vBusiness Expo Registration in just a few hours. If you've not registered and would like to attend, please do so now.

thanks everyone!

After some number-crunching we've decided to keep registration open for just one more day. We will be closing registration tomorrow, however, so if you haven't yet this may be your last chance. Registered users get notified of ongoing changes to the schedule, as well as placement on the access list in case the sims fill up.

Ensure your place at the vBusiness Expo right away!

The vBusiness Expo is about to begin. A total of 35 speakers will participate over four days in an effort to answer one question: what is the practical purpose of virtual worlds?

From April 24th to 27th representatives from Kelly Services, IBM, Avnet, Sun Microsystems, Brand Games, Accelerate, Gartner, Forrester Research, SRI-BC and Linden Lab (to name just a few) will give lectures and participate in panels to make the business case for virtual worlds. SLED will also have a strong presence, bringing us educators who have practical experience applying virtual worlds to the task of training. We even have daily post-session entertainment lined up from Second Life's rich pool of amazing talent.

Response has been enthusiastic. So much so that it looks like we'll have to close registration early! It remains free to register, however, so sign up now to ensure your place. You do not want to miss this!

The legal panel for the vBusiness Expo has been finalized and will run Friday, April 25 at 12:00 noon Pacific time. Moderated by Benjamin Duranske of Virtually Blind, a range of legal specialties are represented that impact the way we do business in virtual worlds.

• Doug Wolf - Specialist in intellectual property law, both in the US and internationally.
• Dave Elchoness - Founder & CEO of VRWorkplace, as well as an experienced attorney and HR consultant.
• David Naylor - Partner at Field Fisher Waterhouse (UK) and current president of the Second Life Bar Association.

The panel will begin with a structured discussion, followed by a period for questions from the audience.

Last week when we released Zebra Corporate, our free, open source enterprise solution for Second Life, I struggled to get the product page finished in time for our launch party inworld. The page got published, but it was missing a few details.

Last year I had the good fortune to meet John Boring, CEO of Accelerate. His company has perfected the use of virtual worlds for getting worldwide employees oriented to a company's inner workings and outer image. His talk at the upcoming vBusiness Expo, On-Boarding New Hires With Virtual Worlds, promises to shed some light on best practices in this arena as well as tell us how the Active Worlds and Multiverse platforms can be leveraged to the greatest advantage.

If you'd like to hear about these things and a good deal more, make sure you're at Zebra Crossing in Second Life® at 10am Pacific time on the 25th!

Bryan Carter, who works in Corporate Communications for Avnet, Inc. will be at the vBusiness Expo on the April 27th to tell us about the company's experiences using social media. This involved the construction of a real life museum in Phoenix, AZ that was mirrored in Second Life, and complimented with a variety of Web 2.0 tools like Flickr and Digg.

Since the museum was built Bryan has been carefully gathering metrics on what works and what doesn't, which has yielded insights available almost nowhere else. "Our Second Life efforts have really been the cornerstone of our self-education efforts in learning about Social Media and Web 2.0 technologies, and the information gained has been priceless to the business."

The end result is a benefit both to the internal workings of the company and developing external relationships. Come and discover what was learned from the experience and gain your own understanding of how to guide projects in virtual worlds.