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Break out your sifting pans -- the Second Life Gold Rush has begun! It seems sometimes, in fact, that anytime one logs into the grid anymore, there is yet another famous real-life company planting down stakes and announcing some pretty big plans; although as critics point out, many of these companies have yet to actually build anything substantial, but are instead caught up in the race these days to be announced as a 'first' there. And now into this fray we can add the prestigious Leo Burnett global advertising agency; they too recently announced the establishment of their own space within SL, a place being called "Leo's Idea Hub" for now, but that I was warned will be changing names soon.

Unlike many other RL corporate forays into the grid, however, the Burnett space will not be a showcase for client projects, nor an attempt to drum up business within the virtual world; it will instead be a meeting place for Burnett's own creative professionals, over 2,000 scattered around the world altogether, a lounge of sorts where Burnett employees and the general public will be able to work on informal artistic collaborations within a social setting. The brainchild of Jim Thornton, executive creative director of Burnett UK, the Hub is being created as we speak by a team of four in London, along with the assistance of virtual-creation agency Millions Of Us, with the hope of being open by mid-November.

I recently had a chance to talk with Thornton about Burnett's newest project, as well as art director Rick Brim and copywriter Dan Fisher, two of the four-person team actually creating the space; ironically, though, the Burnett corporate firewall only allows for one computer at their office to be logged into the grid at any given time, which means that my interview with all three was rather existentially conducted through one shared avatar (a dapper tuxedoed Brit known as Cecil, seen in the above photos). The conversation can get confusing at points because of this; I've added notes within the transcript to help clarify who is speaking. Needless to say, I really appreciate the three of them dealing with all the technical headaches involved, in order to participate in this interview.

In The Grid: So let's just start with what was immediately my first question when I heard about the Hub: How exactly does one convince a place like Leo Burnett to invest time and money into a presence in SL?

Jim Thornton: Good question. I think the idea of a virtual community where our network could meet, share ideas, and collaborate not just with each other but other members of SL tickled everyone's fancy. Most people here [already] have 'second lives' in which they do other creative stuff like bands, paintings, photography, books, etc.

ITG: If I'm understanding it right, in fact, the idea of the Hub came originally from another in-house Burnett program, that promotes employees who are also musicians, right?

JT: No -- that's something that already existed but only in Chicago. The idea is that it will be just one of the things we're going to share.

ITG: The team behind the Hub is all based in London, right? Was it simply that you as peers came up with this idea, and then presented it to the larger agency in general?

JT: Exactly that. I think the project was so readily approved because it just excited everyone, largely because no one can say how it will develop. What we do in our first lives is largely predictable.

ITG: So what will the Hub be about, then? My understanding is that it's more a place for Burnett creatives to meet and swap ideas, than necessarily a showcase for the public.

JT: It's both, really. We want to contribute to the SL community most definitely, because that's what makes it interesting and fun. Otherwise it would just be a big intranet site. [For example], we have enough bands around the network to put on a festival, which we could do in aid of a charity we work with already like Greenpeace. Or we could make a film and audition other people in SL for parts. There are so many ideas; we're just trying to pull them all together now. But what we definitely don't want to be is a traditional ad agency.

ITG: Is the idea to also present client projects through the Burnett space? Or is it mostly for employee projects?

JT: I don't want to go there yet, but who knows? Essentially I have just three criteria for an idea: does it contribute to the community, does it contribute to Leo Burnett, and is it fun?

ITG: So it sounds like we can think of the Hub more as a laboratory; a place more for research, fun projects, experiments and the like.

JT: Pretty much, though I'm not sure about the word 'laboratory.' Makes us look like we're on the outside looking in. We want to be on the inside having fun.

ITG: To get back to an earlier subject -- how difficult is it to convince such a large, traditional corporate structure like Burnett to support something as experimental as an MMO lab? It sounds like in this case it wasn't too difficult.

JT: To my utter surprise, no! Largely thanks to the enthusiasm and support of our Global Chief Creative Officer, Mark Tutssel.

ITG: In fact, this gets into a more general question I wanted to ask. It's no secret that Burnett UK is a little different than a lot of the American divisions; you yourself, for example, come from a background of very maverick agencies. Do you ever feel like the 'black sheep' of the Burnett family over there in London? When an idea like the Hub starts floating around, do others raise their eyebrows and say, "Those UK people are at it again?"

JT: No they don't, which I think is largely down to the fact that the Burnett brand still has so much of the founder's maverick but brilliant spirit at its core. There's nothing that any of the maverick agencies I've worked for have done, or believed, that Leo himself wasn't doing 70 years ago.When I read his biography, it could have been the mission statement for somewhere like Mother [one of Thornton's previous employers --Ed.]. He'd love this. We're just trying to keep his spirit alive.

ITG: Yeah, I was going to ask, what do you think ol' Leo would think of Second LIfe? For readers who don't know, the founder of Burnett was a rather feisty gentleman, who wrote many of modern advertising's rules precisely by breaking the old ones.

JT: I think he'd love it. He believed in creativity as the heart of the agency, and as you say, he was a maverick himself. In fact, I think we should have a Leo avatar that walks around talking sense about the stuff most people talk bollocks about.

ITG: Actually, that leads to my next question. How regular of a player are you now?

JT: Not as regular as I'd like. I can barely cope with my first life, let alone a second! But I've got a week off coming up so I'm going to introduce my kids to it. Although Rick thinks I should book into the virtual W instead.

ITG: How many people are on the actual Hub creation team, by the way?

JT: There's just four -- Rick, Dan, Claire and Owen -- and I've got them working day and night, real and virtual, to come up with a better name, as well as our launch events.

(At this point there was a break in the interview, as Jim got called to a meeting and Rick and Dan took over his avatar.)

ITG: So have you worked together before, the four of you?

Dan Fisher: Yes. Rick and I are a creative team. He is the art director, I'm the writer. As for Claire and Owen, we've worked with them too, but not all four of us together.

ITG: And how have you found your RL creative experiences translating here? Have you needed to pick up a lot more new skills, or is the project coming along all right with what you already knew from the traditional ad world?

DF: Rick and I are not a very traditional advertising team anyway -- we think in terms of the idea first, application second. So in that sense the transition to Second Life has been quite smooth. Particularly as we are working with Reuben Steiger from Millions Of us, who has been there to advise us when we've needed him to.

ITG: Is MMO Architect destined to become a new job slot at agencies, like the rash of new "webmasters" in your industry in the mid-'90s?

Rick Brim: That depends on how big the medium gets. At the moment we are content to use Millions Of Us to help execute our ideas; but if MMO really takes off and we start advising our clients on that medium, who knows?

ITG: And what is your relationship like with Millions Of Us? What do they bring that your team doesn't know how to do?

RB: Well, obviously the physical act of building stuff is one thing. Also, as we said before, they have a wealth of expertise in how this medium works; and as we're in a learning curve, that's been invaluable.

ITG: Given how much press SL usually gets as far as entrepreneurs and boutiques, what do you feel is something Burnett gives your team, by being behind your project? That is, what's the advantage of having a large agency behind your project, in a world that's built so well for tiny companies and one-person outfits?

DF: The advantage of being a large network for clients is access to over 2,000 creatives worldwide. And it's the same for us in Second Life -- we have over 2,000 talented creatives to draw from.

(At this point Dan and Rick forgot to signal which of them were talking through their shared avatar; all quotes from here to the end of the interview are attributed to both of them.)

ITG: Jim and I touched on this, but what are your thoughts as well, on what you'd like to see this project do and become?

DFRB: We've always said that one of the best things about this project is that no one knows what it could become. I think as a community it's constantly adapting, and we're excited by the challenge of having to do the same. One thing we will never be is just another office of Leo Burnett, because we have 90 of those in the real world and Second Life offers the opportunity to be so much more.

ITG: That gets to my next question, actually. How active are the two of you in the grid? Do you think it's important to become a part of the culture here as well, on top of being employees paid to be here?

DFRB: We started off here as residents in our spare time. Recently we've been spending time here as part of our jobs because, yes, it's important to be part of the culture and we're trying to learn as much about it as possible. I heard last week that there's already too many places to see [in the grid] in one lifetime.

ITG: Do you find that important, then? Many, for example, argue that there are two groups of players here; "immersionalists" and "augmentalists." Is it important to acknowledge both, and to develop projects with both of them in mind? Is it important that Burnett sponsor some fantastical, out-there things that can only happen in SL, on top of just, say, rebuilding client products here?

DFRB: Rebuilding client projects has never been one of our aims. This project is primarily about uniting our global creative department in one place, not about trying to make a fast buck. But we've got to earn a right to be there; so yes, we want to be involved. If there was a good opportunity for a client we would never ignore it; but we would always adhere to the criteria Jim mentioned before. But bringing clients in here is not the purpose of our entry into Second Life.

ITG: What would the two of you most like to see happen? Are you mostly interested in the ways that Burnett creatives around the world will be able to collaborate here?

DFRB: That is very exciting, yes, and our main role at the moment is to facilitate that. But we're equally interested in interacting with what we think is one of the most stimulatiing communities in the world.

ITG: I was just about to ask that, actually, if there was going to be a way for the general public to get involved with the things that will be happening with your space.

DFRB: Yes, definitely. We believe that is where this project could really become exciting.

ITG: I know that your set plans are still up in the air right now, but in general how would one express an interest in getting involved at this point? And are you looking for people with particular skills? Also, will this be a networking/employment opportunity for the right people too?

DFRB: I think our main objective is to get the space up and running right now, and who knows where it will take us.

ITG: Okay, and this actually leads to a tough question for you, but one I didn't want to end our talk with. It gets into something critics call 'toe-dipping.' These people say that in the rush to be announced the 'first' at something here, many RL companies are doing major press releases without necessarily having anything ready for the public yet. What's your response to something like that?

DFRB: We see SL as a massive oppurtunity for us; but what we don't want to do is offer something substandard and something that isn't thought out properly, hence working with Millions Of Us. Also at the time of our announcement, we had been working with Millions Of Us for some time. We chose to make the announcement when we did because there was a sudden flurry of interest in Second Life within the marketing community, so it seemed like a natural opportunity. As for when are we launching, I can't say when for sure because the logistics of getting over 2,000 people involved are not simple. After all, we want our island to be the work of our global creative department, not just the four of us here in London.

ITG: Although it hasn't happened yet, do you think this rush to gain marketing opportunities will eventually lead to an SL version of vaporware? Lots of islands around the grid from RL companies, with a perpetual "Coming Soon" sign stuck in the sand?

DFRB: I can't speak for other companies, but our 'Coming Soon' is a realistic coming soon. If it's any use, we are currently aiming for mid-November.

ITG: Okay, two more questions. First, what still needs to happen with SL before it can be taken seriously as a business tool? Is it bitter irony, for example, that your company's firewall makes it so difficult to log in from work?

DFRB: We're in the process of getting ports opened for the entire agency in London, and obviously the rest of the network is going to have to follow suit. This is one of the logistical problems we have had to overcome. As for the other part of your question, I don't think it should be seen as a business tool. It's a medium certainly, but not a business tool.

ITG: Well, I mean in terms of you and your peers making advance plans to meet en-masse here at your eventual space. Can such things be reliably scheduled these days, what with client crashes, corporate firewalls and continual denials of service? Or will Burnett's space be run more like a lounge; show up at a random time, see what other cool people happen to be there?

DFRB: [The lounge idea], precisely. One of our inspirations is our expriences at art school, where like-minded people meet, share cool stuf, add to it and exchange ideas and thoughts at random. We don't want our space to be regimented in the slightest. It's more of a case of 'Hey, we're doing this at this time, why don't you drop by and have a look?'

ITG: Okay, and my last question is more about the general chaos which is the ad industry right now. Being at a major agency like you two are, I thought maybe we could play futurist for a moment. When the dust settles on the "ad revolution," where will we be standing? What will agencies look like and do, and will there be as many of them around?

DFRB: The industry is certainly changing, and for the better too. In terms of media, viewers are king now and clients can't expect the old interruption model to deliver any more. It's all about content and engagement now, and that's something we're applying to the way we work. Our Second Life island will be a good demonstration of that.