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!

Running a conference - one idea (from the BlogHer Conference in SL)

Saw a cool thing at the blogher conference - a sign with help for using the multi-media. What a great idea especially if you want to do an event that will attract new SL users - like many of the students in class. People in the audience were giving advice - how to turn the video stream right side up, how to deal with lag. Then someone noticed the sign and started pointing people to it to save screen space. Everyone got better use of the media and new users didn't have to out themselves as newbies

DIane Gayeski came by the island for a few minutes. She is new to SL. Very cool that she is trying out the virtual worlds.

posted by Kim Chihuly on Park Communication using a blogHUD : [permalink]

redecorating the welcome center - it needs signage. And I put a notecard dropbox so people could request more info. Of course - now i need a notecard giver with info on the different programs - I'll use that script from the syllabus class - that should work out great

posted by Kim Chihuly on Park Communication using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Everybody here is Press

someone at the live event in Chicago just said that - interesting concept with a host of issues - lots of people blog anonymously - if htey don't want to be "outed" then they can't talk in a meeting? Can't have their pic taken? Kind of a new area for conference attendance.

At the conference

Here are a couple of notes from the opening - audio problems, the video stream didn't work (they originally were doing something with flash - you can't do flash in SL I think it's just qt)) but they're working on it - but things to learn for any conferences we do - test the audiovisuals before hand

Cool stuff - nice big space so easy to move around and get to the chairs and see the screen, good exhibitor space wiht interesting mix of booths - lots of neat designs for the booths themselves as well as business ideas. They gave all the participants some cash when we signed in the first morning so we could buy some stuff from the vendors. Since a lot of people are brand new to sl this was a very cool idea - they could buy some neat clothes or donate to non-profits and learn a new SL skill.

Going to BlogHer in SecondLife

I ust signed up for the SecondLife part of the BlogHer conference for next weekend. We're supposed to introduce ourselves on our blogs. So here is mine.

I teach at Ithaca College. I have students in all of my classes blog - about topics in their field, as research notes for qualitative research class, to share ideas. I blog about SecondLife since that's what I am fascinated by right now. To me blogging is a way to share cool things I find. It's also a place to get my thoughts down so i can go back to them and reconsider them, combine them. I always lost those little notebooks and diaries you were supposed to use to write down big thoughts (or shopping lists) - i can't lose the blog. The password, maybe, but not the blog. See you all in SecondLife.


blogme2007

New features in the left hand column

In SL my avatar wears a blue bracelet on her left arm. It's from SquawkNest and it lets me type in SL and have the text show up in Twitter. I put a twitter feed widget in the left side of this blog so you can see little bits of what i'm doing inside SL as I do it. That's probably the only place I"ll twitter from. Since this is my SL blog, the twitter feed will let me share more frequently about what i'm doing in world.

I like widgets. I also added a search box for creative commons media. It's not SL related but it's an interesting widget. It may not stay around - i may move it to my homepage. On my homepage i now have a Meebo widget so folks can IM me right there. And I have a flower greenhouse widget from a new advertising project that's really pretty to look at. And here - the twitter and search widgets.

Enjoy

Starting to build on the Indy Media Center island

I started playing with BackHoe - flattened out the terrain, made a little ridge. Want to do more playing around. But man you ahve to be careful where your avatar is standing when you upload - i accidentally wiped out the Park Communication island. I had flown a few feet back to see the whole indy media center island and accidentally crossed the border. So - poof - my mountain and small hills disappeared. Linden Lab support guys are great - they had it back within the hour.

I started building a conference center space on the Indy Media Center island. I put in a space where you could give a talk and 2 halls for photo/graphics display. And then outside I have been working on a garden. I went on a tour of a knot garden and took that idea to our island. I built one garden square and then copied it to make a bigger square. and so on. Then i put a big tree in the center and some lights around the edge and paths through out. It's really formal right now. Maybe on another side i will make a less formal, more curvy garden. There are a lot of trees, shrubs, and flowers. I need a fence tho. I think i will play around with some metal textures to make a fence.

Last Presentation Update

Two more seniors presented their research results last night. They conducted an online survey about Facebook and students reactions to it, including whether they'd be willing to pay for it (less than 2% said they'd pay!)

Since Sarah Naylor and Ekta Batra aren't skilled SecondLife users, we streamed their presentation in world. It was a good test for me too - turns out we need microphones and a more powerful computer than my poor little laptop to run these presentations.

They were a little nervous at first - talking to the camera is new for them. But they got progressively more confident. They answered questions from the small but interested audience. One person encouraged them to consider publishing their article.

Another Student Presentation

Mike Palumbo, known in SL as Shmapple Patrono, presented the results of his independent study project on intellectual property and other legal issues in virtual worlds on the Park Communication island on Tuesday. The topic seems to be very popoular; his talk attracted a lively crowd. Mike dealt with a variety of tough questions. Some he could answer, and others he'll have to take to law school (which he starts in the fall).

Mike identified a variety of issues that residents of virtual worlds need to consider. He interviewed lawyers in world and visited a variety of law related spots.

We've gotten some local television attention

Two tv stations from Syracuse came down to Ithaca last week to film class and talk to students in my qualitative reserach class. The students thought it was neat to be interviewed and to get to show off what they've learned about SL.

Here is a page from CH9 with 2 stories - a general story about the qualitative research class using SecondLife and a second story about how political candidates are using SecondLife, featuring some research and quotes from students in the class. Not sure how long the link will work.
http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=81957841-8eab-41ad-8a4d-96d2f9a8ae5f

Here's a link to the story from CH5 Syracuse - it's just the text of the story.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18488491/
They came down and interviewed several students about their experiences.

Research Presentation in World

Austra and I presented the results of our research on religion in SL tonight. We had a few people attend. They asked good questions and gave us lots of encouraging feedback. It was really stressful tho - whew. You don't get clues about pacing that you might get in RL - like polite coughing and foot shuffling. Everyone looks attentive (and young and beautiful) in SecondLife.

Austra - a senior about ready to graduate - is getting to be an old hand at conference presentations. She presented her own research at a state level conference, this research at the annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association, and now this in world presentation. She answers tough questions well. She dressed up the area with a slide show of pictures of churches, and a collection of items she's collected at churches through out SecondLife. We put together a landmark laden notecard and a notecard dispenser. We need to add some text to the notecard for people who come to the display when we're not around.

I hope to get the students to do more of these presentations next year - and not wait till the end of the semester when everyone is stressed. I think the students in qualitative research could do presentations about their observations. And in audience research - it would be interesting to get them to present about their companies in world or about the pros and cons of different media - and invite folks from different marketing companies.

We have 2 more presentations on Tuesday. I'll post about them Wednesday and put up more photos.



And - the last picture is one i took of Austra's avatar buried in the dirt - it should be labeled "when terraforming goes horribly wrong" - ha ha! Our benches kept sliding down a little hill. I was trying to raise the land up just a little and smooth it out. Poof - I buried Austra up to her neck when she was away from her computer!

Dr Dobbs Life2.0 Conference

I got to go to the conference a couple of days last week - I do love live events in SL - chance to hang out with people from all kind of companies and backgrounds. This one had great speakers too - Mitch Kapor (creator of Lotus 123) and Philip Rosedale were keynoteres. There were tours of interesting builds, sessions with scrpters and builders. All designed to give people a better understanding of what's going on in world.

Check out my Slide Show!

Another live event

We streamed a talk onto the island today from the RL auditorium. David Macauley was there. What a great speaker. He is famous for his architecture books like Castle and Cathedral. He's working on a book about the human body. He held everyone's attention for over an hour.

A few people came by the Park Communication island to watch part of the talk. We wanted to see if the stream would stay up - and it did. One thing we need is at least 2 computers - one for the broadcasting software and one to use to run SL to interact with visitors and help them get hte video stream going. If we every got a lot of visitors it would be nice to have someone greet them, give them a welcome pack with notecard about the event and maybe an event tshirt. The greeter could offer people Teleport links if needed and just generally answer questions.

We're learning a little more with each presentation. We reached out to a few groups - we'll do more of that in the future. I need to get things on the schedule early enough we can try for some blog coverage - like being in New World Notes and their calendar post each week. I know that's where I find neat stuff to do.

Streamed a presentation live

Saturday morning, David Spiegelman from New Line Cinema gave apresentation to about 25 students on campus in Ithaca. We also streamed it live on the internet and into Secondlife. Here are a couple of pictures. It went pretty good. We had 4 or 5 people come by, including one from Australia (it was 1:30 Sunday morning there).

Thursday 4/26 at 7:30pm EDT (4:30 SLT) we're going to stream author David Macauley. Stay tuned for more details about that.