Mingle2 – mingle
Thanks to Rob (linktribution), I have exact data on the problem.
My blogging here has been sporadic due to blogging directed elsewhere… After our week long conference held in Second Life (I hear you snickering out there)… I was blogged out having tried to blog the summaries of events over at the NMC Campus Observer, at least the 9 hours worth of a 12 hour schedule per day I was present.
It was another 2 days of catch up, editing recorded audio, syncing a few slideshare sessions, pushing about 500 images to flickr…
Yes, whether you nod with Forbes.com that everyone in Second Life is a loser or sweep broadly with brush strokes that it’s “just cyber sex and gambling”, we feel it is important to actually give this environment a good run before dismissing it so candidly. So we ran eight days of activities– and in contrast to many conferences, 9 out of 10 sessions were active, with people participating in activities, making things- almost no mumbling over slideshows.
Rather than just taking polarized stance on the value of voice chat (technology which just became final days before the event), we used it extensively, and found it to be a mixed bag of blessings and downsides- when it worked, it was valuable- it opened up communication channels, and in most sessions at most 1-2 people could not get it to at least a point where they could hear. At the same time, we realize it is not fair to assume everyone present has the ability to hear audio– but it does not translate into abandoning voice communication.
There was significant emergent behaviors, such as several times where people spontaneously started transcribing in chat if it became clear that an audience member could not hear the audio.
There was a sense of “play” here at the same time we covered serious topics, and at every session I detected a level of energy far beyond what you get in those beige hotel session rooms, nestled in those tight rows.
And when you hear feedback like:
Lttle did I know when I took a week’s vacation to attend I would be entering a new world that would put me in creative overdrive, make me stop and ponder my life’s goals, and open my eyes to the possibilities of a whole new direction I would never have dreamed. I was already excited about SL and the possibilities.. I’m taking the red pill tonight, no problem!
I say there is something there there. This feeds into a theme I have had the last few months, where I get a bit riled when I come across sweeping generalizations applied to rather complex diverse systems, mainyl web technologies, but more broadly, networked environments. How can anyone truly ascertain that X technology is universally Y? Who really has that kind if breadth of experience to survey something that is on a daily expansion growth?
But I digressed from the start of this post… Blog addiction? Does it lead to harder stuff? Is there a program? I think i can stop…. and I will… for tonight… well, for the next hour.. maybe….
You scored highly because of your dozen or so blogs 🙂 I’ve managed to keep to just one…
You dog.
But you know, its pretty easy to game these kinds of surveys as it is pretty obvious from reading them where the big points lie.
You make an interesting point about the sweeping generalizations people make about various technologies.
It seems to me that those generalizations matter less and less. Groups form around the things that work for them no matter how much bad press someone might give it. And the groups don’t have to be large, just passionate. It’s the long tail of a different kind.