On Friday I was lucky enough to be asked to join a panel at a Governance in Virtual Worlds event in SL. It was hosted for Sandra Day O’Conner College of Law Arizona State University by the guys at World2Worlds
We were there to discuss “are the trappings of place-based governance the best model for virtual worlds? Given a choice, do people prefer corporate-style management to political government? What are the opportunities and perils of each model? Are hybrid forms evolving in virtual practice?”

It is always interesting to be a panelist or presenter at hosted events like this, as just as in a physical venue it is no always apparent the amount of organisation and attention to detail the goes into getting everyone where they need to be.
Kim/Rissa and John at World2Worlds (and the rest of the team) were busy all the time during the event.
From the initial elements of having a reception for panelists and attendees complete with catering


to the more technical challenge of the panelists being in a specific Skype chat as well as in SL in voice to help bridge and mitigate any voice issues and broadcast what we had to say to the web. The initial gathering for this was akin to a green room at a physical event where we chatted and got organised before taking to the stage.
I am often struck with how people can assume that online means easy and no effort, when in fact the effort required is the same from the organizers. Getting the agenda sorted out, dealing with people turning up, advertizing the event (based on a track record of doing good events), getting the great audience that we had to come along all take time and persistent effort.
World2Worlds always do a fantastic job and so a huge thankyou to them from me.