Whilst out cycling and dealing with a rather annoying puncture on the cliff top overlooking the Solent I was struck by the description of a concept that I needed to think about some more and then share. The solent has often been the gateway to some great exploration, it has some significant history around Portsmouth and Southampton and it is also a safe port for many a vessel.
This trinity of classification seems to apply to the adoption of new ideas, new ways of working, new products.
The Explorers go out and discover, they invent, they sing the praises of the new world. They risk a great deal, but the risk is the reward for many.
The Anchors offer a safe haven, keeping things in place, giving an explorer somewhere to launch from and return (triumphantly) to.
The Historians remember, capture keep and preserve both the good and the bad. They keep old ways of doing things alive.
We need all three, but sometimes the system goes out of balance and that can be any one of the set but the most frequent in my experience is the following.
The Explorers head out, discover and return. The Anchors worry about having to haul anchor, find ways and means of not accepting what the Explorer has found. The Historians back up the Anchors with the “this is the way we have always done it” or “it did not work last time so…”.
Generally the Explorer will battle with the Anchors to justify the expedition, but a strong Anchor just has not reason to move.
In reality the Explorer should target the Historians, showing them there are other ways of working to preserve, new exhibits and generally forget the Anchors altogether.
Why does this make sense, well if the Anchors are in control the system stops completely. The explorers wont go out and find anything, the anchors wont move on and so the historians have nothing to preserve as old. Everything will remain static and the same just as the anchor needs it.
If the Historians demand history to record, and the Explorers find new ports to anchor in and provide that change then the system works.
So, and excuse the pun, don’t let the Anchor’s drag us down.
It is not the free and fancy explorer that is the trouble maker here, nor the Historian seeking to preserve the old ways is the Anchor.
I speak as an explorer and sometime historian, which of the three are you?
metaverse
You have to explore, its the wild west
All the virtual world work I do, whilst having a playful side to it is still all about business, my Second Life interactions in particular I have some very good friends but we are all in the business. We talk about making things, persuading people, and share some experiences we have had. Travel in virtual worlds also broadens the mind. Having explained in my previous post, and in the presentations this week that places like Second Life mean lots of things to lots of people and those things can coexist it was by chance I read New World Notes and saw about a roleplay sim for Deadwood. This is historical recreation, there are actually more rules than you would find in a business meeting, to ensure the immersion of character is not broken. Now I love westerns, and I really enjoyed the Deadwood series. So… I joined up.
It was interesting of course that I had to alter my look in order to enter. So the fun of shopping and choosing at least the first outfit and getting a hat to fit was taking me back to the first days in SL. However, I am still maintaining the high degree of honour and strength that one would associate with the scifi predator. i.e. don’t prey on the weak.
So, in the course of a few days I have spoken in world in at “serious” work event, jumped over to a feeding edge consulting piece of work building some very advanced training facilities, and now slipped into something that made me feel slightly nervous and gave me the sense of exploration I had nearly 4 years ago.
I literally bumped into a community leader as I arrived in Deadwood, and those initial conversations really set the tone. These role play arenas have a fascinating feel to them as once again they are more like acting than gaming. Even Eve and Wow there feels a detachment for the purposes of the game. Who knows how long I will survive or how much I can immerse myself, but I am intrigued (and unarmed I should add!).
This is of course work in some sense, in experiencing this type of use of a virtual world, and being in it, whilst at the same time being part of the industry I am soaking up anecdotes for other people to hear about.
Explaining Second Life inside and out
This week I had the pleasure of driving to the NEC in birmingham and presenting the a body of people attending the Events UK trade show. The presentation was quite last minute, I was offered the chance to fill in for Linden Lab/Second Life.
The show came in two parts. The first was presenting at the NEC live, the second was doing the same presentation in Second Life so that there could be a compare and contrast.
The show featured myself, Justin Bovington(Rivers Run Red) and Kevin Aires(GPJ) with moderation by Adam Coulter for the Institute of Travel and Meetings(ITM)
The NEC version was an interesting stage open and in the corner of Hall 8. The other corner past all the trade stands was a battle of the bands expo. This made for some interesting competing sounds for us and the delegates. I was accompanied by a Michael Jackson tribute and Kevin was battling against a version of the Kings of Leon Sex on Fire. Justin had some guitars to compete with though it may have been an original tune.
This was of course out of anyone control in the hustle and bustle of a trade conference. It does of course highlight a massive benefit of a virtual environment where you can make sure that you only get the distractions you want, passers by etc. So it became part of the conversation when we did the SL rerun of it all.
You cannot get away from the irony of an audience question “So what are the measurable benefits of business meetings in a virtual world”, and having to ask them to speak up because the guitars drowned out the question 🙂
In world was interesting too, as clearly doing a pitch about SL in SL does not really need the powerpoints. For Justin he was really showing the Immersive Workspaces off by us all being in there, and for Kevin, as he was talking about alternatives and different ways of getting online interaction again we were already in there.
We were using streaming media for the slides, as we all know this is to stop uploading and giving away textures to Second Life for a ppt, to help show there is a secure way to share visuals. However as we all know some people have problems, the play button, the quicktime install etc. So I had some IM’s saying a few people could not see the slides. Handily I had my rezzable clothing presentation and used that to both illustrate the point was on, but also to illustrate the dynamic nature and benefits of being in a virtual world such as Second Life.
I think both shows went very well, reenforcing the fact that this is not going away, there are challenges, but also huge advantages and interesting tradeoffs.
The presentation I used is below. Some of the slides are really just the basics, a vehicle to explain what this is all about people and immersion and engagement with one another and with information.
As I was writing this post I also went over and commented on the great infoworld piece pointing out “19 Century thinking wont cut it in Second Life”
I have pasted my comment here too to avoid repeating myself too much 🙂
“I have been helping enterprises and individuals alike get used to the changes and ways of working online for a long while. As a metaverse evangelist I spend time with anyone who needs hear why, or what, virtual worlds are and what context they can be used in. Due to the visual nature of the environments people often have to go through the stages of exploration that start with “can I do exactly what I do at the moment in here?”. The classic being, if we have a serious business meeting can I show powerpoint? Once you get people into the environment it is much easier to show that there really is no need to restrict yourself to one screen or one room layout. We use ppt in real meetings because we only have one projector and one screen, we cant alter the size or mood of a room or environment. So locking into this area of mirror world thinking is really missing the point and benefits of a dynamic evolving space that can be used to explore the data or subject of any gathering. There is also an assumption that because we are dealing with a technology that in some way this is just one thing, one way of working or engaging. in reality it is a vessel for people and the things people need to communicate. It is the web, but with people live in it too. Hence I am never surprised at any objections that people throw at the technology, but really is is that they are being challenged to work with people in a richer way. You are not hiding behind a mass email you are in the place with the people who need to hear what you have to say. When people attempt to classify any virtual world but focus on one thing they dont like about a particular one it really is like saying they don’t like all literature because some people write historical dramas and they don’t like historical dramas. Many of us in the industry are quite used to these potential misdirected objections and fears (though they are valid if people have them). “I don’t have time to contribute to x, to blog, to twitter to go into a virtual world” – I usually ask what they do spend time doing, wasted travel time, responding to CC emails, waiting for teleconference calls to start rather than being more efficient. “I am not a gamer” – Well its not about games, it can be but its not games. You can send something playful in an email as much as a serious statement, you dont regard email as a game. “People lie and cheat and misrepresent” – Some do yes, but they do that in the office and con men convince people via all sorts of means. Again this is just a medium, a place for things to happen. “There is sex there” – Yes there is, it is the internet, you do not choose to not have a company website just because other people use the web for other means. The list goes on, but the benefits of the degree of engagement that you can have, not to replace face to face, but to enhance your online interactions when you cant move your carbon atoms around the planet are undeniable. You don’t have to use all the tools all the time either, this is not an either or. For me the greatest benefit to a virtual world gathering is memory of where it happened and who was there. As with all memory aids keying into a space and place gives a common context. Which is easier to reference when following up “In the course of the teleconference held on the 9th September at 2:45 pm you mentioned a new product development” or “You know when we were sitting on the park bench in Dublin last week and you mentioned..” or “We were just coming up to the 9th hole at the golf course and..” Space and relative context to one another is important to human communication, social and business, and yes business and social can mix and do already very nicely.”
Using the Evolver Clone. Is that me?
Yet more experiments with Evolver. I tried using the single photo upload and then adjusting the regsitration points on the face. The result is interesting I think.
It was from this delightful glasses removed picture of my goodself. See what you think.
As an avatar augmentalist rather than a realist I think I prefer the more extreme cartoon or enhanced avatars to the photo real. I was getting a little bit of personal uncanny valley each time I try pasting my face into something. So I will stick with the previous AV for now.
The inchventure – come on in.
There a few days left to join in the fun in round 2 of Jerry Paffendorf’s innovative project to create a network of inch size land parcels in Detroit linked with virtual land too. Its intriguing and fun to think where this will go.
To quote from http://7billionfriends.com/
“In my pursuit of ever cooler, grander, more meaningful things that use the network to mix physical stuff with virtual stuff and products with stories, I’ve been working on a project in the wild and wooly city of Detroit, Michigan called LOVELAND: http://makeloveland.com .
In its simplest terms I’m inviting people to move into Detroit for $1 a square inch. More abstractly but importantly, the attraction is to create a tiny new globally networked city within the city that people around the world can own, inhabit, and create in. The physical space will also be mirrored online through “The Inchernet” so in addition to physical scaping it’s perfect for digital creatives like you (games, sites, worlds, models, augmented reality, etc).”
What’s not to love about this ? So Feeding Edge is joining in as you might expect, come join us.