About Virtualis
Virtualis™ Founder, Dan Parks, President and Creative Director of Dana Point, California-based Corporate Planners Unlimited, Incorporated first learned of Second Life® in October 2006. The virtual 3D world, created by Linden labs in 1999 and opened to the public in 2003 as a gaming platform, soon began drawing corporations and educational institutions in-world. More than 150 educational institutions have a presence in Second Life® and corporations such as IBM, CISCO, Crayola, Toyota, CBS and more are utilizing Second Life® for learning, team collaboration, extension of brand and even new employee orientations.
Parks became intrigued by the technology with the ability to build any type of structure on virtual real estate and saw the opportunity to offer clients another viable option in light of challenging economic times, security concerns and a meeting solution with dramatic impact on the reduction of carbon imprinting as well as the bottom line. Job security was key to development with Virtualis™. Parks wanted to ensure managers, planners and administrative staff had job security. The process in both live and virtual events needs their professional input to drive the programming, ensuring a successful virtual event.
Parks, a provocateur and master at networking, assembled an internal and external team of Certified Meeting Professionals (CMP’s) and Certified Special Event Professionals (CSEP’s) to design a master plan for Virtualis™. This plan swiftly took shape and the virtual blueprints were designed to create Virtualis™ with the ability to expand as needed based upon demand.
While there are other ‘places to meet’ in Second Life®, there are no other virtual facilities in-world offering a staff of experienced industry professionals who understand the dynamics of strategic design and development as well as program implementation, management, execution and evaluation.
Virtualis™ opened their doors with a two-day launch in April 2008, featuring globally renown keynote speakers B. Joseph Pine, co-author of The Experience Economy and Authenticity, and James Carroll, author of Ready, Set, Done, along with notable industry professionals. Customization is key to their winning philosophy.
Parks and his professional team of industry experts have assembled the most in-depth database of resources to make any event concept a dynamic virtual reality.