Another conference in world

The SLCC - SecondLife Community Conference - is this weekend in chicago and in SL on a lot of different islands. I've been hanging mostly on artificial isle, the main site for hte conference in world. There are different tracks and (supposedly) audio streams for each. They've had serious issues iwth their audio - the conference organizers are blacking it on the hotel's internet infrastructure.

i've mostly been going tohte business trck - some of thepanels I missed because the audio went down. They say they're recording them to listen to later. That will be good.

I heard some good stuf tho - one thing we have to do is improve drastically the new user's experience if we want to grow the user base of SL. Groups are setting up their own orientation experiences and LL is very supportive of that development. I think this is something we could study in qual - the kids will be in that category (new users) so we can study ourselves. I need to come up with some ideas about how to study it.

Here's a pic of some of us listening to hte stream and chatting - that's me in the pink hair.

Creativity Conference Wrap Up

Here are a couple of notes I made during the closing of the NMC Creativity conference held this week in SecondLife (it was amazing by the way - can't say enough good things about the organizers, the organization, the presenters, the presentations, the interactive workshops - all just too much for for words).

Creativity is (or is helped by) collaboration, conversation, conversation, community, complexity, connections, cooperation

when you're creative - it leads to more creativity

in SL we can share the output of our creativity with other SL users

for creativity to besuccessful - there needs to be an atmosphere of acceptance, of play, no restrictions, and tools that let you be creative

SL has the tools - gobs of scripts, building tools, ability to import textures and sounds and animations - we just have to learn how to use them and then get out of the way and let things happen

The teacher is no longer the sage on the stage or even the guide ont he side - someone said we should be the "meddler in the middle" stirring up students so they're more creative, putting out tools and letting them use the tools to learn --- we have to be willing to try new things, to change

One of the tools in secondlife is the ability to make movies, to create sets, costumes, gestures for your actors/avatars. It's a powerful tool - another place to tell stories, to express themselves. Here's the set I built for a machinima I want to make.



Another tool - the ability to build and script (program). Here's a shot from a workshop about live music in SL - we got instruments that have animations built in to make it look like we're playing the instruments




Lots of ways to be creative - theatre, poetry performances, live music, immersive environments, things to do, different ways to "be". You can even create a new culture - like the elven culture.

NMC Creativity COnference

This has been a great conference. Way too many cool things going on - one after the other. I"m sitting in my office at home - and i'm exhausted. SO many new things to play iwth and try out and go shopping for. Things to try on the islands - i can't wait.

Here are a couple of pictures - from workshops, from the plaza, from around the island:

NMC Creativity conference starts tomorrow

I'm excited. I got to sign up for one of a series of intensive multi-day classes on making art in SL - I picked Machinima. other choices included photography and sculpture. I was drawn to the sculpture class (hey - my SL last name is Chihuly) but figured we could get some use from the machinima if we get some more students involved in Park Island.

and it's all in SL. So the registration fee was tiny compared to wht other conferences cost with travel and hotel and meals.


Here's the schedule for the conference

I just found out i have to have a story idea before the first class - oh man - homework!