CNN || Going to the virtual office in Second Life

As travel budgets are squeezed and slashed in the recession, companies are increasingly seeking innovative ways of bringing employees together for conferences and meetings remotely.

Virtual community Second Life is seeking to tap into that market by creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks.

The company's Enterprise tool will let employees' avatars -- animated alter egos -- meet in virtual worlds from the privacy of a company's own network, rather than the public networks used in standard Second Life. That extra security could encourage more companies to take up the technology.

The ability to collaborate effectively using virtual tools may now become an increasingly important skill as technology offers more options than, say, video conferencing.

According to Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, more than 1,400 organizations -- including large companies, educational institutions, government agencies and even the U.S. military -- use Second Life to hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently.

Linden Lab says 14 companies are currently using Enterprise in its beta phase. One of those companies is IBM, which is an old hand when it comes to Second Life.

Rashik Parmar, IBM's chief technology officer for Europe, told CNN that last year about 350 of its technical leaders from around the world met for 72 hours via Second Life to brainstorm about new technologies.

"We had a whole range of environments, from auditoriums and collaboration pods to social areas where the avatars could pick up a beer around a log fire, or walk around a sculpture park and talk," Parmar told CNN.

IBM sells its own virtual meeting tool, Sametime 3D, which allows businesses to share ideas and collaborate in a 3D world, and the company is currently testing a more advanced version of the product.