Questions of Dress for Real and Virtual Worlds

In a follow-up to a post about making decisions about how to dress for Second Life, I thought I'd share a couple of tidbits I have run across dealing with how appearance affects perception.

Jeremiah Owyang, a Sr Analyst at Forrester Research was speaking at the Olympic Club in San Francisco and arrived wearing the standard tech guy outfit. Unfortunately a guard stopped him at the door since jeans are not allowed - social media events or not.

Being an insightful and reflective guy he puts this experience to use, asking

"How is this a good lesson in understanding online communities and social networks?

One should always research their community to understand their culture, behavior, and norms before joining. I’ve done other embarrassing things in public, and learned a lot from them."

OK but he got in, and it's a silly rule.

Whether this is reasonable, discriminatory or whatever other label you want to put on it not is not the question. A private club gets to set it's own standards as do individuals and other groups whether spoken or unspoken; written or unwritten.

Most of them are unwritten - not just in our everyday world but in virtual worlds. It's up to us to figure them out - and use them to our advantage.

In Virtual Worlds Blog Cisco's Randy Sisk tossed around questions that are harder to answer than whether to wear jeans at the Olympic Club.

He was involved with organizing a virtual job fair for Cisco's European partners, tech companies hiring people to work with virtual world projects and recognized that there would be issues to consider.

Randy asked:

"With the richness of customized content available in virtual environments, what is considered proper dress or attire?

"How will employers respond to candidates who may express themselves with a non-human form avatar?

"Will the Sci-Fi looking android appeal to a possible employer’s desire to hire employees who think creatively and outside the box, or will there be an expectation from some employers that candidates should dress “traditional”?

Traditional - oh who cares, it's a fantasy world!

Rowan University's Dr. Darren Nicholson researches virtual reality, computer-mediated experiences, and human-computer interaction and thinks appearance matters.

"When I prepare students for interviews with big companies I advise them how to use the behaviour recruiters are looking for."

So I'm not going to a reception in Second Life to get a job.

Does what I create as my identity still make a difference? Apparently the answer is yes.

"With an avatar you are even more in control. Are you wearing power red? Are you wearing dark blue?

There are so many social indicators that we use in real life that are being transported into virtual universes."

Social indicators. Aha. This means what my avatar wears to events like the Coke Virtual Thirst unveiling tomorrow is actually going to add something to people's perception of the woman behind the avatar?

Maybe I shouldn't show up in the same skirt and blazer I wore to meetings on Tuesday. And I definitely won't wear my casual chic crocs and strategically ripped jeans.

This means shopping.

The best part of shopping in Second Life is that my total cash outlay for a designer outfit will be less than five bucks.

Sweet.