Virtual worlds, particularly worlds like Second Life, are rapidly becoming more popular for enterprises and government agencies as global-meeting places where people can talk and interact without having to deal with the expense and trials of planes and hotels.  An article over at ComputerWorld discusses how several companies have begun to integrate virtual worlds into their regular workflow, focusing heavily on the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center.

Back at NUWC, training has become, literally, larger than life. “I can log into Second Life as an avatar and walk into a USS Virginia [class] submarine attack center, which is the command-and-control space, where the commanding officer positions and executes missions,” explains Aguiar. Using Teleplace on an internal network in the prototype virtual attack center, operators can go in as their avatars and run the actual shipboard systems.

Avatars rising in the enterprise.