Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting
August 10, 2012, 8:30 AM SLT / PST
Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater
AGENDA
8:30 AM Introductions
8:40 AM TechSoup Announcements
8:45 AM Mentors Central
9:55 “Behind the Scenes at IDRAC2012” with Gentle Heron and iSkye Silverweb Bond of Virtual Ability, Inc.
9:30 AM Open Mic / Announcements
http://nonprofitcommons.org
– Unabridged Transcript –
Introductions
[08:28] Zinnia Zauber: Good morning!
[08:28] Gentle Heron waves at all those brave pioneers who managed to
get in this morning.
[08:29] Zinnia Zauber: Good to see everyone!
[08:29] Zinnia Zauber: Folks are having trouble getting inworld.
[08:29] Zinnia Zauber: So we are happy you made it!
[08:29] bulaklak: Thanks, Zinnia. I got bumped out.
[08:29] Zinnia Zauber: yeah
[08:29] Zinnia Zauber: it happens to the best of us.
[08:29] bulaklak: Seeing the egg bodies again hehe
[08:30] Buffy Beale: must be my lucky day today
[08:30] Zinnia Zauber: I am trying out my new mesh dress I made.
[08:30] Zinnia Zauber: So, I might be a mess to some people.
[08:30] Sister Abeyante: A mess or a mesh to some people. hehe
[08:30] Bathsheba Vizenor (bathsheba.darkfold): Does Firestorm show Mesh Ok?
[08:31] Gentle Heron: Firestorm should.
[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: Welcome to the Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting
sponsored by TechSoup!
[08:32] Gentle Heron: iSkye still can’t log in, but it looks like we
hve an audience!
[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: I am Zinnia Zauber and thrilled to have you here today!
[08:32] Oronoque Westland: iSkye was here for a mere second than offline again
[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: Let me share the agenda for today.
[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: AGENDA
8:30 AM Introductions
8:40 AM TechSoup Announcements
8:45 AM Mentors Central
9:55 “Behind the Scenes at IDRAC2012” with Gentle Heron and iSkye
Silverweb Bond of Virtual Ability, Inc.
9:30 AM Open Mic / Announcements
[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: Hopefully iSkye will make it in.
[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: Let’s start with Introductions!
[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: Our transcripts are made public, just so you know.
[08:33] HB Eternal: Harold W Becker, The Love Foundation, Florida,
http://www.thelovefoundation.com @lovefoundation
[08:33] Buffy Beale: Buffy Bye, Bridges for Women, Victoria BC Canada,
http://www.bridgesforwomen.ca @bridges4women
[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: Please type into the text chat your real life
name, organization, physical location, URL , and twitter handle.
[08:33] Sister Abeyante: Sister Patrice Colletti, SDS Milwaukee, WI
*** @SisterAbeyante http://4equalrights.blogspot.com/ ***
@TechTips4Usds http://techtipssds.blogspot.com/ *** as well as a
volunteer with Virtual Ability, Inc. http://www.virtualability.org
[08:33] Buffy Beale: heh heh HB
[08:34] Zotarah Shepherd: BEACH College, Santa Rosa, CA
[08:34] Gentle Heron: Virtual Ability, Inc. www.virtualability.org
Blog about IDRAC blog.virtualability.org
Pictures from IDRAC www.flickr.com/photos/virtualabilityinc/
[08:34] Bathsheba Vizenor (bathsheba.darkfold): Katie Vizenor,
Washington DC, PhD student Anthropology and Senior Researcher American
Foundation for the Blind PUblic Policy Office
[08:34] Dancers Yao: Kara Bennett, Elder Voices, Los Angeles, CA
Health Care and Human Rights
[08:34] Oronoque Westland: Roberta Kilkenny, Hunter College, City
University of New York (still not a good twitterer or is it not a
twit?)
[08:34] alebez: Ale Bezdikian, TechSoup Global, SF, Ca, @TechSoup, @alebez
[08:34] Bathsheba Vizenor (bathsheba.darkfold): @kvizenor
[08:34] Zinnia Zauber: Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond, Sequim Humanities
and Arts Alliance, Sequim, Olympic Peninsula, Washington.
http://www.sequimartsalliance.org
http://www.facebook.com/sequimartsalliance @renneemiko
[08:34] bulaklak: Michael DeLong, TechSoup Global, San Francisco, CA,
www.techsoup.org, @MichaelDeLongSF @TechSoup
[08:35] Adalace Jewell: Corine Van Hellemont, RoSa Library Brussels,
Belgium http://www.rosadoc.be @adalace
[08:35] Ozma Malibu: Sandy Andrews, Floaters Org, tech outreach in AZ,
Mexico and On the Road, @ozma
[08:35] Glitteractica Cookie: Susan Tenby, Online Community and Social
Media Director, TechSoup Global SF, CA USA @suzboop @techsoup @npsl
[08:35] Zinnia Zauber: Great!
[08:35] Zinnia Zauber: Let me share some links too.
[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: Remember, you are welcome to introduce yourself
throughout the meeting.
[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: Please don’t be shy.
[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: Here are the many ways to can get involved with the
Nonprofit Commons in Second Life:
Nonprofit Commons Blog: http://nonprofitcommons.org
Wiki: http://npsl.wikispaces.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/npsl
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nonprofitcommons
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/TechSoup-Second-Life
Google Calendar: http://bit.ly/2tMEYh
http://flavors.me/nonprofitcommons
[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: About TechSoup the sponsors of the Nonprofit Commons:
http://www.techsoup.org/stock/howtousetechsoup.asp
http://flavors.me/techsoup
[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: Join us inworld:
NPC Weekly Meeting on Fridays, 8:30 – 10 AM SLT Plush Amphitheater,
Plush Nonprofit Commons (91,127,26)
NPC Mentors Meeting: Fridays, 10:10 – 11 AM SLT Plush Amphitheater,
Plush Nonprofit Commons (91,127,26)
Wharf Ratz Tuesday Night Extraordinary Dance Extravaganza, Every
Tuesday 7 – 9 PM SLT Preferred Family Healthcare on Aloft, Aloft
Nonprofit Commons (168,223,22)
CommonGround – Color Themed Monthly Networking Event on 3rd Thursday,
5 – 7 PM SLT CommonGround on Aloft, Aloft Nonprofit Commons (59,68,25)
[08:36] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): Magic Pathfinder
(any1.gynoid), Faculty at New Citizens Inc (NCI), Teaching hands-on
Artificial Intelligence and Pathfinding in Second Life – More Info:
http://any1gynoid.wordpress.com/ – FYI Pathfinding is EVERYWHERE in
SL! Now!
[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: Super!
[08:37] Sister Abeyante: @Zinnia- are all those links on a poster
someplace here at NPC? Those are great resources.
[08:37] Zinnia Zauber: I am working on a new notecard with them.
[08:37] Buffy Beale: nice one a1 🙂
[08:38] Zinnia Zauber: They are listed on the board behind me.
[08:38] Sister Abeyante: Ah- ha… so much for rezzing well. hehe Sorry
[08:38] Zinnia Zauber: I will pass out the notecard I have via the
group notices. Great idea Sister.
[08:38] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you!
[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: So, it sounds like some of our NPC Peeps are
struggling to get inworld.
[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: And, we are happy you all are with us!
[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: You made it!
[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: Yay!
TechSoup Announcements
[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: Okay TechSoup Announcements!
[08:40] bulaklak: Hello, folks!
[08:40] Buffy Beale: yay bulaklak!
[08:40] bulaklak: So first up I want to call attention to a recent
article on the Stanford Social Innovation Review by our very own
Shettal Singh
[08:40] bulaklak: Oops, Sheetal
[08:41] bulaklak: She looks at the movement around hackathons and
other direct action, civic oriented problem solving methods and how
traditionally structured nonprofits might benefit from adopting some
of those models
[08:42] bulaklak: It’s an interesting read, and there is a great
conversation happening in the comments section. Please feel free to
add to it if you have something to say about the topic.
[08:42] bulaklak: http://bit.ly/RxlOPe
[08:43] bulaklak: And speaking of nonprofits working with these types
of movements, TechSoup hosted the MozillaIgnite Idea Jam last night
and it was a pretty fantastic event
[08:43] bulaklak: They teamed up with ZeroDivide to ask “What if the
internet had no limits?”
[08:43] bulaklak: You can see some of the action on the hashtag #usignite
[08:44] bulaklak: And please check out the blog on TechSoup for some
updates later today from our blogger Susan Chavez
[08:44] bulaklak: http://bit.ly/NWFvxP
[08:44] Glitteractica Cookie: there will be more real-time updates on
our team wiki
[08:44] bulaklak: There were five teams separated along different
verticals such as health and green tech.
[08:45] bulaklak: And some of the solutions they came up with were
quite interesting.
[08:45] bulaklak: Susan Chavez will link the wiki notes from the blog
entry I posted upthread and a full recap with video from Alebez will
come by some time next week so stay tuned!
[08:46] bulaklak: Lastly, we have two excellent events next week
[08:46] bulaklak: On Wednesday, August 15 we are producing the next
episode of NPLIVE around the topic of social media policy and
workiplace online privacy
[08:46] bulaklak: That is at 11am PT and you can register for that here
[08:47] bulaklak: http://bit.ly/MzqOPG
[08:47] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): <– dreads this part of the
meeting… because I can never make these times… Suggestion: Could
you announce newly posted content of the webinars we just missed>>>
[08:47] bulaklak: And then on Thursday, August 16 we have a webinar
with our partner Acteva that will teach you how to manage events with
ease — everything from registration lists to logistics
[08:48] bulaklak: Great point, Magic. All of these events are recapped
and archived.
[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: That is a great suggestion and we
archive all of our webinars
[08:48] bulaklak: And going forward I will make sure to post the
archive links the following week.
[08:48] bulaklak: Thanks for the suggestion!
[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: I have an update
[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: I’m hiring
[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: We (our team) are looking for another team member)
[08:49] Buffy Beale: do they have to live in San Francisco?
[08:49] Glitteractica Cookie: This is an online/offline/on-the-ground
events producer
[08:49] Sarvana Haalan: Hello, Sally S Cherry, Baltimore, Md is back
in town . 🙂
[08:49] Glitteractica Cookie: yes, it’s a local position to SF, due to
the local in-house events part
[08:49] Buffy Beale: ok thanks
[08:49] Coughran Mayo: how retro!
[08:49] bulaklak: Let me just post the link to the events webinar real
quick and add that if you would like this event to be live
transcribed, please request that 72 hours in advance. More info at the
link: http://bit.ly/NEISXp
[08:49] Glitteractica Cookie: but if you knw anyone in the SF bay
area, plz tell them to go to techsoupglobal.org/jobs and look for the
events producer job
[08:50] Zinnia Zauber: Great!
[08:50] Zinnia Zauber: More Techsoup news?
[08:50] Glitteractica Cookie: coughran… there are online and
in-house events, so NOT retro
[08:50] alebez: yes me!
[08:50] Glitteractica Cookie: the person would be responsible for
doing mixed reality, for example
[08:51] Glitteractica Cookie: we need someone with ability to run
things like speakers and ability to stream, but also is comfortable
producing and hosting webinars
[08:51] Coughran Mayo offfers Glitter a sense of humor
[08:51] Eme Capalini laughs
[08:51] Glitteractica Cookie: Glitter accepts and counters with a HUGE WINK
[08:51] BELOVEDROX: NSIP has a webinar on n Accessible Transportation
on 8.15.2012 http://www.serviceandinclusion.org/index.php?page=conf
[08:52] Glitteractica Cookie: (ahem)
[08:52] bulaklak: lolz
[08:52] Glitteractica Cookie: Alebez, go for it
[08:52] Zinnia Zauber: Please
[08:52] alebez: thanks
[08:53] alebez: i’d just like to remind everyone here at the NPC to
share stories of impact into the community. my colleague trichetriche
and team are working hard at collecting amazing stories from all
around the world to put up on TechSoup Global Local Impact Map. We
would truly love to represent all the wonderful, innovative work done
here and in your orgs. Share your story with
impactmap@techsoupglobal.org
[08:53] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you alebez!
[08:54] alebez: of course
[08:54] alebez: we’d love for more
[08:54] Zinnia Zauber: That is a perfect lead into our next part of the meeting!
Mentor Central
[08:54] Zinnia Zauber: Mentor Central!
[08:54] Zinnia Zauber: So, we have a few things to share today!
[08:55] Zinnia Zauber: As ale mentioned, stories….
[08:55] Zinnia Zauber: We have been creating stories here at NPC.
[08:55] Zinnia Zauber: Nonprofit Commons – “Wishes Granted: Stories of
Positive Impact” These huge books tell real life fairy tales.
[08:55] Zinnia Zauber: The stories are about how nonprofit
organizations have had an encouraging and constructive influence on
the lives of others. Inside the “fairy tale” books are insightful
notecards, landmarks, and gifts from the unique nonprofits.
[08:56] Zinnia Zauber: Discover there is an opportunity, as
individuals and as a community, to impact the lives of people who join
us in the virtual world and those we support in the physical world
every day, many of whom do not even log in to Second Life.
[08:56] Zinnia Zauber: How many of you had a book created to be part
of Wishes Granted?
[08:56] Dancers Yao: Elder Voices has appreciated sharing this story
of Kasuku Magic..thanks to Zinnia
[08:57] Buffy Beale: Bridges for Woman have
[08:57] Zinnia Zauber: You are more than welcome, Dancers!
[08:57] Zinnia Zauber: This is an ongoing project to share our stories.
[08:58] Zinnia Zauber: They could be for the local impact map
[08:58] Eme Capalini: Is this what you had at the SL Birthday celebration?
[08:58] Zinnia Zauber: Please think about sharing them there.
[08:58] Zinnia Zauber: Yes, Eme!
[08:58] Zinnia Zauber: And, that is the perfect lead into the next bit!
[08:58] Eme Capalini: Oh wonderful
[08:59] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you, Eme!
[08:59] Eme Capalini: I saw the VAI one, any chance we can update it?
[08:59] Zinnia Zauber: We are going to celebrate the Nonprofit Commons Birthday!
[08:59] Sarvana Haalan: I talked about the exitence of “Stories of
Positive Impact” at a recent conference
[08:59] Zinnia Zauber: We have picked Sept 21 as a day to celebrate!
[08:59] Sarvana Haalan: *existence
[08:59] Zinnia Zauber: And, we want to create more books for the event!
[09:00] Zinnia Zauber: So, please contact me directly about having a
book made for your org or group.
[09:00] Sarvana Haalan: awesome way to share the stories
[09:00] Zinnia Zauber: I bet you have a wonderful fairy tale to tell.
[09:00] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you, Sar!
[09:00] Sarvana Haalan: 🙂
[09:00] Zinnia Zauber: Also, if you want to be on the team for the
birthday celebration please contact the Mentors.
[09:01] Zinnia Zauber: Anyone want to add to this?
[09:01] Sarvana Haalan: Is this news time? 🙂
[09:01] Zinnia Zauber: (we need teams of volunteers from all timezones)
[09:01] Sarvana Haalan: I will volunteer to help
[09:01] Zinnia Zauber: no, not open mic
[09:02] Zinnia Zauber: Buffy is taking names!
[09:02] Buffy Beale: yes please let me know if you’d like to be part
of this exciting team
[09:02] Zinnia Zauber: Okay, more on this later and please Stories of
Positive Impact!
[09:02] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you everyone for your support!
[09:03] Buffy Beale: thanks Sar you’re on the list 🙂
[09:03] Sarvana Haalan: cool
[09:03] Zinnia Zauber: Okay
[09:03] Sarvana Haalan: missed u guys… RL has been busy
“Behind the Scenes at IDRAC2012” with Gentle Heron and iSkye Silverweb Bond of Virtual Ability, Inc
[09:03] Zinnia Zauber: Gentle, please join me up front.
[09:04] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you!
[09:04] Gentle Heron: Hi everybody.
[09:04] Gentle Heron: I had planned to present today with my colleague
iSkye Silverweb.
[09:04] Gentle Heron: She’s still having trouble signing in, so I’ll
do my best to move ahead through our presentation. Please forgive me
if this isn’t as smooth as we had planned it to be.
[09:04] Gentle Heron: Can everyone see the slides, or do we need to
ask Zinnia to move the books?
[09:04] Buffy Beale: yay Gentle and aww too bad about iSky
[09:04] Zinnia Zauber: can you see?
[09:04] Sarvana Haalan: Woot, woot for Gentle!!
[09:04] Namaara MacMoragh: (applause) Yay Gentle!!
[09:04] Eme Capalini: She’s trying
[09:04] Buffy Beale: I can see ok yes
[09:05] Gentle Heron: Thank you all…. can everyone see the slides?
[09:05] Gentle Heron: Today we’re going to take you behind the scenes
of our recent IDRAC2012 Conference, that we held last weekend, August
3 and 4.
[09:05] Gentle Heron: We’ve had several other conferences at Virtual
Ability, so putting on a conference was not new to us, but last year
was the first year for something bigger.
[09:05] Gentle Heron: Virtual Ability’s corporate mission is to “to
enable people with a wide range of disabilities by providing a
supporting environment for them to enter and thrive in online virtual
worlds.”
[09:06] Gentle Heron: Within that mission, we provide lots of
information and advocacy for our community members, as well as doing
outreach on the importance of disability issues to the general
population in virtual worlds.
[09:06] Gentle Heron: For several years, we put on an annual ADA Day
celebration of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act,
which is landmark legislation in the history of accessibility and
disability rights. This yearly event was our large production as a
community.
[09:07] Gentle Heron: But after a few years of celebrating ADA Day, we
finally realized that in SL we live in an international environment,
and we decided to broaden our perspective. Last year was our first
International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference, IDRAC2011.
[09:07] Gentle Heron: In 2011, we had panelists from all over the
world, and speakers from countries in Europe and Asia. It was an
international effort among the presenters, but the behind the scenes
work was mainly Gentle and iSkye. Boy did we learn!
[09:07] old memories (oldmemories): hi
[09:07] old memories (oldmemories): iam sam from egypt
[09:07] Gentle Heron: ***
[09:07] Gentle Heron: We found out that scheduling presenters back to
back was NOT a good idea. We really need time between, for takedown
and setup, and generally making sure that each presenter has time to
get ready.
[09:07] Zinnia Zauber: Old memories, could you please sit with us not
in the front.
[09:08] Gentle Heron: (hello Sam from Egypt. Please take a seat)
[09:08] old memories (oldmemories): ok iam sorry
[09:08] Gentle Heron: And best of all, we realized that if we
delegated tasks, things actually went better than if we tried to do
all the work ourselves. Since we’re here to talk about how this year’s
conference came about, let’s begin at the beginning, which was
choosing a date.
[09:08] old memories (oldmemories): but were i can sit
[09:08] Zinnia Zauber: You are welcome to join us, just that Gentle is
presenting.
[09:08] Gentle Heron: When it was an ADA Day Celebration, it was easy!
The ADA was signed on July 26, 1990.
[09:08] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you!
[09:08] Gentle Heron: So we put the ADA Day Celebration on the weekend
nearest to July 26.
[09:09] old memories (oldmemories): ok
[09:09] Gentle Heron: Why did we choose a weekend? It worked best both
for our presenters and our audiences, who we drew from folks already
in Second Life.
[09:09] Gentle Heron: But now, detaching the event from that specific
date gave us a little freedom, but only a little.
[09:09] Gentle Heron: Now we had to determine dates that did not
conflict with other major SL events, or with our VAI officers’
combined personal schedules.
[09:09] Gentle Heron: What’s more, as we opened up our thinking to
having presenters from outside Second Life, we realized that many
would only be available on a weekday.
[09:09] Gentle Heron: That meant we were scheduling now for Friday and
Saturday. We also realized we would need some time before the
conference to provide orientation for these presenters, as it would be
their first time in Second Life, let alone giving a presentation.
[09:10] Gentle Heron: Inworld presentations are done differently to
those in RL, as I’m sure many of you know.
[09:10] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:10] Gentle Heron: I think I was the one who figured we ought to
have a theme.
[09:10] old memories (oldmemories): iam just escaped from my life my
country is not in stability case these days
[09:10] Gentle Heron: Themes need to be narrow enough to give
direction as to which presenters to invite, yet also broad enough to
allow us to invite the presenters we are interested in hearing from.
[09:10] Gentle Heron: The first year of the new expanded conference,
our theme, more or less, was about the conference title: International
Disability Rights. That one was easy and obvious. But what to do for
our second year?
[09:10] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:11] Gentle Heron: I had recently attended the annual conference of
the Society for Disability Studies and had been impressed by a couple
of presenters who talked about how people with disabilities integrated
into their local communities.
[09:11] Gentle Heron: I knew that was an interest area of our inworld
community members.
[09:11] Gentle Heron: So I suggested that our theme for this year be:
A Community of Communities, recognizing that we all are members of
numerous interlocking communities. That worked out well, as we began
to invite presenters.
[09:11] Second Life: Items successfully shared.
[09:11] Gentle Heron: We knew that if we wanted to expand our audience
to not only be wider within Second Life, but potentially also bring in
audience members from outside, we needed to also broaden our list of
presenters.
[09:11] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:12] Gentle Heron: We knew it was unlikely that all the presenters
we invited would accept our invitation, so we invited more than we
needed.
[09:12] Gentle Heron: I don’t know what we would do if they all
accepted – I guess we would have to expand the conference!
[09:12] Zinnia Zauber: 🙂
[09:12] Gentle Heron: Inviting and scheduling involves a lot of record
keeping. We used Google Documents to create a spreadsheet and kept
track of the presenters we invited, who accepted, who said no (and
those who said, “No, but please invite me next year”).
[09:12] Gentle Heron: ***
[09:12] Gentle Heron: We included entries for keeping track of the
presenters who needed orientation and training in basic inworld
presentation skills and the use of presentation materials.
[09:13] Gentle Heron: We’re truly pleased to say that nearly half of
the presenters at IDRAC 2012 were newcomers to Second Life, and we’re
gratified that they had a very positive experience, despite some
glitches.
[09:13] Gentle Heron: We created another spreadsheet to include
specific information about the presenters – blurbs, bios, and so
forth.
[09:13] Namaara MacMoragh: wow! That’s great!
[09:13] Gentle Heron: These were used on VAI’s website, blog, and on
notecards for our introducers.
[09:13] Gentle Heron: Gentle helped the newcomer presenters set up
their Second Life accounts, and as soon as she knew their names, she
added them to our spreadsheet in Google Documents.
[09:13] Gentle Heron: We both made sure to friend them, and one or
both of us were on hand to welcome them and start training them.
[09:13] Gentle Heron: I really believe, as many mentors do, that the
personal approach is the best. One-on-one or even two-on one contact
is so crucial to a good first experience in SL.
[09:14] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:14] Gentle Heron: I had notecards inworld to keep track of the
progress of each new presenter I was working with, and I kept the
Google spreadsheet updated with each one’s progress.
[09:14] Gentle Heron: We wanted to balance presenters with a specific
disability or Second Life focus with those who had a broader
perspective on community involvement for people with disabilities.
[09:14] Gentle Heron: We also wanted to involve academic researchers
as well as people with practical experiences of being disabled.
[09:15] Gentle Heron: And we wanted a variety of formats for the
presentations. Having all “talking heads” would have been too boring!
[09:15] Gentle Heron: Accessibility is important to our community as well.
[09:15] Gentle Heron: That’s why we always have transcriptionists.
[09:15] Gentle Heron: Two kinds of transcriptionists, actually: the
more common V2T, and the easier T2V.
[09:15] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:15] Gentle Heron: V2T or voice-to-text allows presenters to use
Voice. Some of our presenters who voice can put out their own text
simultaneously (using SpeakEasy or a similar tool) and the best ones
can also advance their own slides. But many speakers prefer to just …
speak!
[09:16] Gentle Heron: However, some presenters use only text.
[09:16] Gentle Heron: For them, T2V text-to-voice transcriptionists
read the text aloud so that our dyslexic, visually impaired, or blind
members can access it.
[09:16] Gentle Heron: We can always use transcriptionists, especially
those who do V2T. Please refer them to us! We pay for their work at
our presentations.
[09:16] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:17] Gentle Heron: Greeters are also important for accessibility,
as well as for establishing a sense of joining the community of the
audience.
[09:17] Gentle Heron: They welcome people by name, offer assistance
with voice or vision issues, explain the day’s schedule, and help
solve problems that may come up during the presentation. More on that
later.
[09:17] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:17] Gentle Heron: Walking the Talk: Including the Virtual Ability
community in this conference was really a no-brainer for us.
[09:17] Gentle Heron: After all, the theme was about community, and it
was a team effort. No one person had to carry the full load. We
learned first-hand the benefits of delegating, not the least of which
was getting enough sleep at night! Here’s a partial list:
[09:17] Gentle Heron: · Gentle – identified and initially contacted
presenters, trained presenters on voice, introduced, opened and closed
conference, scheduled transcriptionists
[09:18] Gentle Heron: · iSkye – scheduled, trained and prepared
presenters, received and converted presentation materials, held hands
[09:18] Gentle Heron: · Eme Capalini – sim management, created
posters, created at least three different ‘sets’ for the stage for
different presenters, worked with inworld media
[09:18] Gentle Heron: · Pecos Kidd- website, social media
[09:18] Gentle Heron: · Ladyslipper Constantine – organised the Greeters group
[09:18] Gentle Heron: · Sister Abeyante – prepared PowerPoint for Tom
Boellstorff
[09:19] Gentle Heron: · Introducers – VAI community members who
volunteered to introduce presenters:
o Jesse Lefevre
o Roxie Marten
o Treasure Ballinger
o Pecos Kidd
o Vulcan Viper
o Carla Broek (she was also a presenter)
[09:19] Gentle Heron: Reaching out to a broader community means
contacting and inviting partner groups across Second Life and
encouraging their members to celebrate disability rights with us.
[09:19] Gentle Heron: Our event was open to everyone, because everyone
benefits when we all have equal access to community.
[09:19] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:19] Gentle Heron: Involving the audience in a presentation is
community development. We tend to have very interactive audiences. We
encourage that!
[09:20] Gentle Heron: However we recognize that not all our presenters
can deal with presenting plus watching the local chat fly by.
[09:20] Gentle Heron: So we often ask our audiences to hold comments
and questions to the end. It’s not ideal, but it respects the
presenters’ needs.
[09:20] Gentle Heron: Inviting new members into the community is
important to us as well.
[09:20] Gentle Heron: We hope our presenters will become Virtual
Ability members, if they were not already.
[09:20] Gentle Heron: We know there is a steep learning curve entering SL.
[09:20] Gentle Heron: We try to make that less onerous for our new
presenters by coaching them through the entire sign in process,
creating a professional looking avatar, and learning minimal skills.
[09:21] Gentle Heron: Presenters don’t need to learn how to buy things
or organize inventory.
[09:21] Gentle Heron: They need to know how to:
· “sit” to look as if they are standing at the podium or sitting on the bench
· ensure their Voice is working
· look at the slide projector while their avatar is facing the audience
· advance slides on the projector
[09:21] Gentle Heron: That’s about it! iSkye trains them well.
[09:21] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:21] Gentle Heron: We shared news and information about the
conference in a variety of ways.
[09:21] Gentle Heron: Some of these are:
· distributing group notices
· listing on the SL Event Calendar
· sharing information with partner groups in Second Life
· using social media to spread the word about the event in the metaverse
[09:22] Gentle Heron: iSkye used Facebook to announce the conference,
and people like Zinnia picked up on it and shared it (THANK you for
that, every one of you!).
[09:22] Gentle Heron: We sent updates on Twitter before and during the
conference, and we uploaded snapshots to our Flickr photostream – it’s
still there, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/virtualabilityinc/
[09:22] Gentle Heron: We had displays set up nearby with interesting
history tidbits about disability rights.
[09:22] Gentle Heron: We didn’t stop there. We encouraged people to
leave comments and share their impressions of different topics during
and after conference.
[09:22] Gentle Heron: If you attended the conference, it’s not too
late to drop us a note at http://blog.virtualability.org/ .
[09:22] Gentle Heron: We want to make next year’s conference even
better, and you can help!
[09:23] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:23] Gentle Heron: During the sessions, issues do come up, of
course, that require special handling.
For instance, when Philip Linden rezzed in, he had connection issues
and couldn’t see or speak. He had to relog several times (causing much
mirth in the audience, I’m sure) in order to get SL Voice to work.
[09:23] Gentle Heron: Behind the scenes, we were also working to get
him connected through Skype to the Metaverse TV folks, so that they
could record his sound. Always a challenge when connecting two
different systems, but we managed it in time.
[09:23] Gentle Heron: During our last research presentation, right at
the end when the speaker was beginning to answer questions, incredible
lag hit the entire sim.
[09:23] Gentle Heron: Several people including the transcriptionists
crashed hard. Others of us could not move or type. What did we do?
[09:24] Gentle Heron: We moved to a nearby island!
[09:24] Gentle Heron: Our greeters and other staff volunteers assisted
the presenter and everyone in the audience to move over, with LMs and
SLURLs for those who could TP and walking across with those who could
not TP.
[09:24] Gentle Heron: The presenter finished up at the other venue,
answering remaining questions almost as if nothing had happened.
[09:24] Buffy Beale: nice going!
[09:24] Gentle Heron: Meanwhile, our sim manager rebooted the
conference sim, where we reconvened for the final comedy show. (Maybe
the lag burst was a prelude for comedy?)
[09:24] Sister Abeyante: (We called it a “field trip”)
[09:24] Gentle Heron: ***
[09:24] Gentle Heron: One thing I should mention is Linden Lab support
for the event.
We had asked for and been assigned a “contact Linden.”
[09:25] Gentle Heron: When we got one of those pesky “Your sim is
scheduled for roll back” messages, we simply contacted “our” Linden
and she made that go away.
[09:25] Gentle Heron: With her support internally, our venue was
removed from the list of sims to be rolled on that day.
[09:25] Gentle Heron: ***
[09:25] Gentle Heron: After the conference, we took a day to recuperate.
[09:25] Gentle Heron: Then we started on follow-up tasks:
· feedback notecards from greeters, introducers, other volunteers
· sending conference certificates to presenters
[09:25] Gentle Heron: We also held a debriefing session to discuss the
lessons we’d learned:
· Half hour between was IMPORTANT
[09:26] Gentle Heron: · How to improve on preparing:
o Greeters
o Introducers
o Panelists
o presenters
· The importance of involving community
o Delegating tasks!
o Set a deadline for submitting presentation materials
o Get social media links of presenters
o Should presenters’ slides to be uploaded to SlideShare? Check with
presenters, get permission or links to their sharing sites
[09:26] Gentle Heron: Records of the event were created in several ways:
· Virtual Ability’s Flickr Photostream – iSkye took snapshots of each
presentation, and even a few before the event
[09:26] Gentle Heron: · Metaverse TV recordings of two presentations –
When Metaverse TV learned that we had invited Philip Rosedale, creator
of Second Life, and Tom Boellstorff, researcher, author and
anthropologist, to present at IDRAC, they asked to film these two
presentations. It was a privilege to have them there!
[09:26] Gentle Heron: · Slidesets and transcripts of the presentations
– iSkye handled the receipt and conversion of the images and
PowerPoint presentation images into SL-ready format and loaded them
into inworld projectors, then taught the presenters how to advance
their slides during their talks; transcripts of the talks were saved
as transcriptionists created them
[09:27] Gentle Heron: · Virtual Ability’s blog – details of the
conference and speakers were given, and visitors encouraged to leave
comments with their impressions
[09:27] Gentle Heron: ****
[09:27] Gentle Heron: Zinnia asked us to end today with some
information about how we measure the success of our conference.
[09:27] Gentle Heron: Of course, it’s easy to say something generic
like “if it inspired people, then the conference has been successful.”
That’s true of course, but a little difficult to measure.
[09:27] Gentle Heron: So we look at things like attendance numbers,
comments from the audience, and comments from the presenters…
[09:27] Zinnia Zauber: Check out the interview with Gentle and
Philip… http://youtu.be/AFKbp8ZvOm8
[09:28] Gentle Heron: (that was a LOT of fun!)
[09:28] Gentle Heron: But we also ask people in the audience how they
came to hear about the sessions.
[09:28] Gentle Heron: It is important to us when we find out that
someone read about it in a group notice that we didn’t post, or got a
twitter message that we didn’t send.
[09:28] Gentle Heron: We know that as these messages spread outside
our own immediate contacts, we’ve raised awareness in our broader
audience as we impact other communities.
[09:28] Gentle Heron: ***
[09:28] Gentle Heron: I want to conclude by telling a story from one
of our early presentations on Friday.
[09:28] Gentle Heron: Nola Nash is from the Atlantis Community, an
Independent Living Center in Colorado.
[09:28] Gentle Heron: When I recruited her to present the history of
this community of support for people with disabilities in the physical
world, she was totally unfamiliar with the concept of virtual worlds.
[09:29] Gentle Heron: Her boss asked “Do you mean you are going to
present to The Sims?”
[09:29] Gentle Heron: By the time iSkye and I were done working with
Nola, Virtual Ability’s IDRAC conference had a moving presentation
about what is possible in an urban community where people with severe
disabilities are integrated;
[09:29] Gentle Heron: Nola and her boss had enough of a vision of the
potential benefits and uses of virtual worlds for their clients;
[09:29] Gentle Heron: And the NonProfit Commons will most likely have
a future tenant when the Atlantis Community enters Second Life.
[09:30] Sarvana Haalan: awesome
[09:30] Gentle Heron: I call that a win-win-win for the IDRAC
conference and all our communities.
[09:30] Zinnia Zauber: wonderful!
[09:30] Gentle Heron: Thank you. Any questions?
[09:30] Oronoque Westland: I was able to attend for a few hours. Aside
from it being an EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT conference on the topic, it was
a FANTASTIC model on how to run a conference in SL. I would suggest
that this presentation and slides be made available as a “how-to
guide” for others who are planning in-world conferences.
[09:30] Gentle Heron: (Sorry iSkye is still trying to enter SL)
[09:30] Buffy Beale: excellent as always Gentle, thanks!
[09:30] Gentle Heron: (she has other slides, but I couldn’t get to
them, I’m so sorry!)
[09:30] Bathsheba Vizenor (bathsheba.darkfold): Awesome!
[09:30] Zinnia Zauber: We sure are thankful for iSkye and the whole VAI team!
[09:30] Sarvana Haalan: Kudos to Gentle!!!
[09:30] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): Did your core team have
regular meetings? or even every day meetings? how did you organize and
coordinate?
[09:30] Gentle Heron: Teamwork, it’s all teamwork.
[09:31] Sarvana Haalan: and her team
[09:31] Dancers Yao: just wanted to add how great it was..excellent
work as always Gentle
[09:31] Ozma Malibu: Thanks so much for this wrap-up.
[09:31] Namaara MacMoragh: great presentation…. great job on the conference
[09:31] Gentle Heron: iSkye and I met daily. The task leaders we met
with as needed.
[09:31] Gentle Heron: iSkye and I used Google docs a LOT to coordinate
[09:31] Gentle Heron: spreadsheets and docs
[09:31] Zinnia Zauber: Excellent!
[09:32] Oronoque Westland: I would suggest that this presentation and
slides be made available as a “how-to guide” for others who are
planning in-world conferences.
[09:32] Zinnia Zauber: Your hard, I mean smart, work showed.
[09:32] Ozma Malibu: You show how important good organization is. You
must have spent all day on this for many days.
[09:32] Gentle Heron: Yes Zinnia, you have to work both hard and smart.
[09:32] Zinnia Zauber: That is a great idea Oronoque!
[09:32] Gentle Heron: Ozma, actually, I got more sleep the 2 days
prior to the conference than I usually do! People cut me slack on my
‘regular’ duties, so I went to bed early.
[09:33] Gentle Heron: Thanks Oro. I’ll see if I can get the rest of
the slideset.
[09:33] Gentle Heron: Thanks everyone.
[09:33] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you Gentle!
[09:33] Buffy Beale: QUESTION: How hard was it to get Philip to present Gentle?
[09:33] Zinnia Zauber: This was super
[09:33] Ozma Malibu: Love the idea of only taking one day off after
the conference, and then scheduling meetings on the day after to make
sure that everything does happen. It’s so easy to fall into exhaustion
after something big and forget the final details now that the audience
is gone.
[09:33] Oronoque Westland: Truly an EXCELLENT conference.
[09:34] Zinnia Zauber: That is a good question to end on.
[09:34] Zotarah Shepherd: Thank you Gentle It was a great conference.
[09:34] Ozma Malibu: Yes, the conference was great.
[09:34] Gentle Heron: Right Ozma, we had a checklist of things to do
AFTER the conference.
[09:34] Gentle Heron: and we knew everyone deserved a break
[09:34] Buffy Beale: the Conference was great and lot’s of good info
[09:35] Zinnia Zauber: I learned a lot and thrilled to have Philip
talk about awesomeness!
[09:35] Gentle Heron: It really was fun to chat with Philip.
[09:35] Zinnia Zauber: Gentle, did you see Buffy wanted to know how
you landed him.
[09:35] Buffy Beale: heheh nice way to put it Z 🙂
[09:35] Gentle Heron: That was easy, Buffy. I asked if he would be
willing to participate.
[09:35] Zinnia Zauber: hehe
[09:35] Zinnia Zauber: That is great! He is so cool!
[09:35] Buffy Beale: That’s great he did Gentle nice going, and to get Tom too
[09:36] Sarvana Haalan: you never know unless you ask… Nice going Buffy
[09:36] Zinnia Zauber: yes! We must have Tom speak with his team soon!
[09:36] Zinnia Zauber: Okay, thank you Gentle! This was super!
Open Mic / Announcements
[09:36] Zinnia Zauber: Open Mic / Announcements
[09:36] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): Congratulations on a very
successful conference! Ty for sharing lessons learned too! Great job!
[09:36] Zinnia Zauber: Who has one?
[09:37] Zinnia Zauber: Gentle – you do.
[09:37] Gentle Heron: actually I do, since amazingly we have an event
this weekend too
[09:37] Gentle Heron: Continuing Virtual Ability’s “Waiting for the
World to Change” year-long series of presentations, tomorrow SATURDAY
morning, August 11:
[09:37] Sarvana Haalan: cool
[09:37] Gentle Heron: Disability in Europe 2012: Is There One European
Community?
(reprise of her IDRAC2012 presentation of August 4)
PRESENTER: Carla Broek
SAT Aug 11, 9:30am PDT/SLT
[09:37] Bathsheba Vizenor (bathsheba.darkfold): Thanks, again! I have
to run. Great Talk!
[09:37] Gentle Heron: and
Ratification Status Update of the UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities in the United States
PRESENTER: Kara Spengler
SAT Aug 11, 11am PDT/SLT
[09:37] Gentle Heron: Both held in the Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual
Ability Island
[09:37] Sarvana Haalan: LM?
[09:38] Zinnia Zauber: Super!
[09:38] Gentle Heron: Anyone else want a landmark to the auditorium?
[09:38] Oronoque Westland: Virtual Ability (54,170,23)
[09:38] Sarvana Haalan: Thanks!!
[09:38] Gentle Heron: Thanks for the SLURL Oro.
[09:39] Oronoque Westland: your welcome
[09:39] Zinnia Zauber: Great!
[09:39] Zinnia Zauber: Other Annoucements?
[09:39] Gentle Heron has a busy events team!
[09:39] Sarvana Haalan: I have one
[09:39] Zinnia Zauber: I am sending out that notecard for everyone –
please look for the notice.
[09:40] Gentle Heron sees Zinnia’s notecard
[09:40] Zinnia Zauber: Go for it Sar!
[09:40] Sarvana Haalan: ok… I just attended CDC’s National Conference on
Health Communication, Marketing, and Media in
Atlanta. (smiles) I am still in Atlanta… time
to relax a bit. In my abstract presentation, I
shared information about capacity building
through social media and virtual worlds for
“Sexual Health in a Digital Age”. Many attendees
(nonprofits) did not know of TechSoup and its
various services. The ones that knew about
TechSoup were not aware of the NPSL community
and the benefits of being part of the community.
A link (http://www.nonprofitcommons.org) was
provided with an invitation to visit and join our virtual community.
[09:41] Sarvana Haalan: Much interest was expressed for virtual world
integration
[09:42] Glitteractica Cookie: Sarava, Bulaklak and Alebez are looking
into making it easier for our ambassadors like you to help us share
the work of techsoup and our programs and services
[09:43] Buffy Beale: good idea Glitter
[09:43] Sarvana Haalan: I am compiling a Follow-up resource list per
session attendees request. I will be adding links to TechSoup, and
other sites of topics expressed
[09:44] Sarvana Haalan: great… I always ask if the audience know of
TechSoup… with a note that Nonprofits should be aware of TS
[09:44] Zinnia Zauber: Great, looks like we have more connections to make!
[09:44] bulaklak: This makes me think that part of the ambassador
program needs to be a way our community can keep us in the loop about
conferences they are attending.
[09:45] Zinnia Zauber: Yes!
[09:45] Sarvana Haalan: great idea
[09:45] bulaklak: I will put it in our “idea bank” and maybe we can
brainstorm a system some time in the future
[09:45] Zinnia Zauber: Any other announcements?
[09:46] Sarvana Haalan: can we email links to conference info to Bulaklak?
[09:46] Sarvana Haalan: if so, email please?
[09:47] bulaklak: community@techsoupglobal.org is the best way to get it to us
[09:47] Sarvana Haalan: Thanks
[09:47] Zinnia Zauber: Super!
[09:47] Glitteractica Cookie: community@techsoup.org
[09:47] Glitteractica Cookie: (not sure if
community@techsoupglobal.org works too. it proly does)
[09:47] Zinnia Zauber: lots of ways to connect!
[09:48] Sarvana Haalan: please send me any info on your “ambassdor”
program… sarvonne@gmail.com
[09:48] Zinnia Zauber: Did you guys get my notecard through the group notices?
[09:48] Gentle Heron: yes Zinnia
[09:49] Sarvana Haalan: I need it again… lost it when I crashed
[09:49] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you! Remember Techsoup.org Group is an open group.
[09:49] Ozma Malibu: mine disappeared as well
[09:49] Gentle Heron: It will stay in group notices for a couple of
seeks, Sarvana
[09:49] Gentle Heron: you can pick it up again any time
[09:49] Zinnia Zauber: You can check the past notices there.
[09:49] Ozma Malibu: oh of course Gentle
[09:49] Sarvana Haalan: great
[09:50] Zinnia Zauber: Any other open mic items?
[09:50] Gentle Heron: *any time in the next couple of weeks, before SL
deletes it
[09:50] Sarvana Haalan: will be part of my Netwrk update today… I
have been unconnected for a while
[09:50] Zinnia Zauber: Okay, then I am sharing those links again!
[09:50] Zinnia Zauber: Here are the many ways to can get involved with the
Nonprofit Commons in Second Life:
Nonprofit Commons Blog: http://nonprofitcommons.org
Wiki: http://npsl.wikispaces.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/npsl
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nonprofitcommons
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/TechSoup-Second-Life
Google Calendar: http://bit.ly/2tMEYh
http://flavors.me/nonprofitcommons
[09:50] Zinnia Zauber: About TechSoup the sponsors of the Nonprofit Commons:
http://www.techsoup.org/stock/howtousetechsoup.asp
http://flavors.me/techsoup
[09:51] Zinnia Zauber: Join us inworld:
NPC Weekly Meeting on Fridays, 8:30 – 10 AM SLT Plush Amphitheater,
Plush Nonprofit Commons (91,127,26)
NPC Mentors Meeting: Fridays, 10:10 – 11 AM SLT Plush Amphitheater,
Plush Nonprofit Commons (91,127,26)
Wharf Ratz Tuesday Night Extraordinary Dance Extravaganza, Every
Tuesday 7 – 9 PM SLT Preferred Family Healthcare on Aloft, Aloft
Nonprofit Commons (168,223,22)
CommonGround – Color Themed Monthly Networking Event on 3rd Thursday,
5 – 7 PM SLT CommonGround on Aloft, Aloft Nonprofit Commons (59,68,25)
[09:51] Zinnia Zauber: This has been a wonderful meeting! Thank you
Gentle and iSkye for all the work on this talk today!
[09:51] Buffy Beale: cheering!
[09:52] Gentle Heron feels bad iSkye isn’t here.
[09:52] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you all for attending and please join the
Mentors for help and brainstorming at 10.
[09:52] Eme Capalini: me too….so sorry iSkye couldn’t get in
[09:52] Glitteractica Cookie: Thanks all
[09:52] Zinnia Zauber: Please share with here we missed her.
[09:52] Buffy Beale: yes sure did!
[09:52] Gentle Heron: will do, Zinnia and Buffy
[09:52] Zinnia Zauber: thank you!
[09:53] Gentle Heron: She sounds awful frustrated at the moment.
[09:53] Sarvana Haalan: Great job!
[09:53] Buffy Beale: thanks everyone and have a beautiful week
[09:53] alebez: thank you everyone! have a good one.
[09:53] Buffy Beale: see you at 10 🙂
[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: Looking forward to seeing you all next week!
[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: Please take care!
[09:57] Dancers Yao: have a good week end….if you have a chance
please look at Kasuku Magic’s story…she loved being here, and was a
wonderful doctor. bye thx
[09:58] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you Dancers for sharing
[09:58] Zinnia Zauber: we miss her
[09:59] Dancers Yao: thx,.I know people didn’t really have a chance to
know her ….but she was a volunteer physician who saved many lives…
[09:59] Zinnia Zauber: yes, wonderful.
[10:00] Dancers Yao: I would also like to thank Gentle for her
personal support to us…she has been very kind…
[10:00] Buffy Beale: back
[10:00] Gentle Heron: (((Dancers)))
[10:00] Dancers Yao: bye for now
[10:00] Zinnia Zauber: take care!
– End of Line –
Written by: Zinnia Zauber