They have the amphitheatre straddling 2 sims (I think) and they have upped the number of avatars allowed on one sim to 80. We had 72 avatars hanging out this morning tho by the end of the scripting lessons this afternoon it was down to about 50. But still - 50 is more than in the past.
Here are some issues I've noticed with conferences -things we need to watch for in the future...
- they had name tags - interesting idea but people played with them thru out the presentation whihc was kind of distracting. And they took up a lot of screen space if you loaded the default info (name, title, company). But it was a good idea to see who was from where since this was a professional conference (altho not everyone acted professionally)
the course materials in a box - one of the best ideas around - we could look at each script the speaker was working with and we have them to study afterwards. It was a quick couple of hours so not much chance to play with the scripts or to put notes in them for later.
People who want to chat or to make comments need to be encouraged to use a back channel like the group IM. With all the text from the objects we were playing with and the side comments, it was sometimes tough to see the speaker.
It's a week long conference. THey've been promoting it on their website. It's conceivable that people might come into sl just for the conference. SO the dr. dobbs folks scheduled a newbie Q&A session for a couple of hours. Thought that was a great idea. I think i need to do that on the island - have some time where people know someone will be there to answer questions
I've seen this at a couple of conferences - signage! how to use voice, how to turn on th estreaming media. Probably need a sign now that says you're not using voice or audio but only text. People seemed confused. Most things on the dr. dobbs island are done using voice so the confusion was understandable. The promotion for hte conference mentioned voice too (the dr. dobbs folks said later in the week (with the main speakers) they'd go voice.
They had a networking "breakfast" at their beach party area. Some people tried out voice. It was kind of awkward this morning - we'll see how it goes tomorrow. But having some social events for this kind of long conference seems to be a good idea. The NMC folks had some social areas and time for people to hang out and talk.
If the conference is taking place at different places on an island, signage and maps are a good thing. SO is a teleport map. So is a big copy of the program. NMC did that too - even if it's on the web since some people can't easily go back and forth between SL and the web.
Have official people there - who can speak for the organization, for intro's, to do a little policing, to help attendees find what they need. Dr. Dobbs has Rissa and John and they were present when they needed to be.
and just a side note - some of the voice/anti-voice rivalry is just weird. Use it or not. It's not a religious decision.
ANd lag happens. Sometimes it's on SL end, sometimes on your end. You have to deal with it - not complain to everyone around you. Log off and come back in - that helps sometimes.
ALl in all - a good event so far. And I'm trying to pick up ideas about having events along iwth the info on scripting in LSL.
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