branding

My own TV show?

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Aside from the comparisons in some of my attitudes to Jeremy Clarkson, or my passion for sharing information with people and making then feel involved I have only really ever done on stage presentations, unscripted, face to face meetings, the odd podcast, TV appearance and a stack of virtual world gatherings in Second Life.
I recently came across something Dassualt Systemes have put together that enables us to edit up virtual TV shows mixing simple content and interesting camera movements. Its called http://www.tvnima.com/
tvnima
It also lets you do the 2 photo facial avatar creation which for a first attempt on my part seemed to work quite well I think. (Not really done much with my hair).

You have to currently do this all on IE due to the plugin wanting to be the uploader for content from your machine, and they have not put in an easy to find player (to let you just see my first attempts), and Fraps cant capture it on my machine as the colour palette gets messup. However, apart from that it shows great promise as something very simple to use. 
tvnima3

tvnima2

I basically laid down 1 minute timeline, 2 shots form a keynote pitch, picked some camera pans, closeups the odd gesture and then recorded a voice over to go with it. If I can get the content out as easy as I put it in I will do my most recent pitch all in this as an advert for what I do here at Feeding Edge.

The various panning camera movements and simplicity to string them together was very impressive. No real fighting the interface or trying to sort out a dolly for a camera to move across. 
tvnima4

This is not a live performance tool (yet) and is a single user, but it does show some of the simplicity of interface and user functions that lets us just get on with the content.

Of course having got a a real rush from all the presenting I do and the enthusing I do, if I now get a taste for a TV studio….. Well I am open to offers, failing that I will just create my own show.

Excited about Metaplace

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Today I dived back into Metaplace and I have to say I am now very excited by its potential. I realized I had a stack of invites still so I twittered about it as one does.

So why now? Well I am busy looking at all sorts of platforms and anything that lets people just get on and do things, whilst sharing with others works for me.

metaplace

Some key points.

1. My avatar can have green hair (Something PS3 home and Xbox Live still don’t do for some reason). i.e. flexible to what I personally want to do. It sounds minor but it really is important.

2. The car there as an isometric 3d object that can be rotated through 4 angles has come from Google Warehouse.

3. The image of epredator’s workplace is from my Keynote as the ACE conference. Its imported from my machine (as a jpg but its powerpoint/keynote in world) 

4. You cant see the alien creature I added from the metaplace store. It is a 3d alien, but I clicked the properties to add movement code to it, and selected it should avoid me as a player. So it ran away. Scripts and code…. tick. 

5. I was able to create my own space, in this case a feeding edge room. (group space and branding now playing a part)

So with imports, code to make things happen, all running in flash, backed up by a linked social network its letting people just get on and build. Always a design feature but its working really well.

3 years in Second Life – Autovatar Biography time!

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Today is my 3rd anniversary rez day in Second Life and time to reflect on everything that has happened in that time. Of course I have been online as epredator for a lot longer than just the Second Life existence but the past years have been the most formative of my career. Much of the anecdotes and experience of driving innovation across social media and in large enterprises has been triggered by those early days in SL. It is those years and the successes, failures, highs and lows combined with the personalities involved that really form the basis of the book I am mapping out in between all the other things I am doing. I am even more convinced than ever that people really need to hear the complete story as at every conference and event I go to people ask about it and are usually amazed at just how mad this roller coaster has been.

Visually in SL things have changed a little, but not a greta deal, but my understanding on the depth of engagement, the positive and negative stories alters every day. So despite having this 3 year period of exploration it does not stop here. I often tell people we are all forever N00b.

Part of the most formative story elements are captured here in a Flickr set via Snapzilla.

Clearly these pictures on their own need the narrative woven into them for what was going on in the physical world, but thats part of my job. As the person who experienced it I need to share what I have learned. Just as I have learned to present and to convince as well as my background of being able to create and invent with code and technology this will be an interesting experience. It may end up that many people will benefit from what I have been through, or it may just be a cathartic experience. I will let you know. 

So we go from Roo and I trying to make a space hopper on first land
Postcard from Second Life

A few days later turning a light on and off via a webpage in april 2006 to show external messages being able to interact with this virtual world.
light offlight turns on from the outside world

Before I knew it Rob had joined me too and I was busy showing my message broker in world.(Just another few thousand to go after us 3 got going and 40,000+ people personally talked to up to now.)

broker

… and now director of Feeding Edge ltd with 2 islands to my name and starting as a rental landlord, 
Rez Day 3 years

Those three years have also ended up with a press highlight reel. The most recent being some fantastic coverage in the Irish Times which was a result of being invited to do the opening keynote at the ACE conference.

ACE Conference
 
This of course is part of the continuum that has been the past 3 years, hence the signpost. You can’t go and meet and greet great people, share what you know if you have not spent time doing it and making sense of things. A common misunderstanding that people have of social media in general is that of overnight success. Computers are thought to make things happen quicker, process equations solve problems, move data really really fast. However, people work at their own pace, adoption curves, politics and experience all get enhanced by digital technology but reputations still require effort and building. So in sharing what I have been doing on blogs and in social media and metaverses, and the next phase of sharing, hopefully in print and on Kindles all over the world the personal story is really the key. Of course understanding the balance of the positive nature of the support and the less than positive challenges that have been faced on the journey will take some thinking through.

Wish me luck and any authors want to offer their perspective please feel free to share 🙂

Live on Metanomics, a first interview for Feeding Edge

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The first in the title is done with a hint of irony at all the firsts we used to hear about and claim in virtual worlds over the last few years. However I am delighted to have been asked to appear on Metanomics this coming monday representing Feeding Edge and myself. It is the first interview or public conversation I have had since starting Feeding Edge a whole week ago (just to put it into context it is still very early days).
Metanomics
I am intrigued as to where the conversation and the questions may go. I have of course the things that make up what I intend to be doing with Feeding Edge.

  1. The history of creating a movement like eightbar and mass adoption via social media of an idea within the constraints of a corporate environment, dare I say the birth of enterprise 2.0.
  2. Metaverses and virtual worlds themselves. What have we done so far and what can we do next. What are the sorts of applications we can expect to see layered on top of the experiences we already have today. The recession, corporate activity, open source platforms etc.
  3. Where are we going now? The future of Augmented Reality,Rapid Fabrication/3d printers, merging with the games industries etc.

Any of you who have heard me speak before know that I am more than willing to go off topic. I find in those off topic areas is where both inspiration and serendipity reside.
I am also looking forward to being amongst a knowledgeable audience, it is nice to mix evangelizing about this to people who have yet to fully appreciate the enormity of what is happening, with those that we don’t need that onramp conversation and can challenge points based on experience.
So feel free to come along the Metanomics site has a multitude of ways to interact.
This should be fun and challenging all in one tasty virtual package.
The link to the video is here