One Life to Live? Make it Two.

by Ron Daly

I was sort of stunned when I first read about SecondLife, the online program designed to let people be who they want to be in a 3D fantasy world. From what I'm told, you can fly about, dress in crazy clothes, date, get married, get a job, earn money...and some stuff that's just not fit to mention here. Click here to see the official website. 

But the oddest concept is the "LindenDollar", money that is used in SecondLife that actually takes real money. There are conversion rates between dollars and Lindens and you can use real money to increase your balance of fake money. Use your LindenDollars or "Lindens" to buy houses, land, ad space, food, clothing...and again, stuff I won't bring up. Jimmy [Marks, my blog manager] says some of that stuff might violate our "Don't Make Us Wash Your Mouth Out" rules (click here). It's that kind of thing. 

But back to Lindens (named after Linden Labs, which develops SecondLife, not after Hal Linden from Barney Miller). Someone's got to teach youngsters how to manage those Lindens if they want to succeed. Enter Filene's i3 project and Scott Moriarty, who came up with a special learning space on "Credit Union Island" in the SecondLife world that's aimed at helping younger SecondLifers learn smart money management. Click here to read the CU Journal article on the topic. 

I'd have normally joked this concept off. Fake money in a fake world with fake people living in it? Who's got the time? Or the mindset? 

But then I started reading into the article above and the aims of Filene's team. I also read this article, about people who fall in love on SL and decide to leave their spouses (click here). Go ahead and read that sentence again. 

It sort of saddened me, the idea that people were trying to strike gold in SecondLife and throwing the shovels of dirt on their FIRST life. But then, there's the catch: people aren't thinking of SecondLife as a game, but an actual, parallel life they're leading, complete with real love and real things and real money. 

Maybe the CU Island efforts are going to be a big success. The CU Journal article: 

This month, Athens High School, Athens, Ohio will roll out Virtual Finance to 100 freshmen, sophomores and seniors in five classrooms. Rollouts will continue in Wisconsin, New York, and Maryland this spring.

Filene is really trying to create a learning environment around saving, spending, and budgets. I don't know that I'm the biggest proponent of SecondLife, but I am a HUGE proponent of financial education. Schools obviously aren't doing it how they should, so maybe it takes something like SecondLife to teach the ins and outs of money management.

The CUs involved: 

Ohio University CU

Sunmark FCU

Point Breeze CU 

Altra CU

Jimmy has told me he's spoken with some folks at Filene, too, that might give us more perspective. If you work for one of these CUs or know someone who does, encourage them to come give us their take here.