Tag: kanter

 

Tressis is a Dutch company with experience in Virtual Worlds and has been an interactive exhibit of Van Gogh paintings in Second Life.  You can actually step into the painting itself.  Wow!

To visit directly, click here.

Written by: kanter

From Fight Hunger’s Flickr Stream.  More photos of real life and virtual world event here.

Susanne Thornqvst of Fight Hunger shared a report on the Walk the World Event on May 13th.  Rik Riel has blogged it over t here.

I did a follow up interview with Susanne to find out what they learned.

1.   What took place in Second Life for Walk the World on Sunday? 

On 13 May hundreds of thousands of people all over the world joined in an effort to raise awareness about child hunger and funds to WFP’s School Feeding Programme. This year we wanted to find new ways of spreading the word, and decided to also use Second Life. We had two walking paths on the island Dragon Moon for people to walk and we had live entertainment for 24 hours to cover all the time zones and reflect the events that were going on all over the world at the same time. Almost 400 avatars showed up and we raised over 1000 US dollars.

2.  What were the benefits to adding a Second Life component to the established event?

By adding the Second Life component we were able to reach people we would never have reached with our traditional events. Especially in the US and Europe were you have so many fundraising events, activities and walks for various causes it is difficult to gather and enthusiasm people to join, but in Second Life these activities are rather new and therefore people are eager to help and contribute.

3.  What was your strategy for promoting the Second Life component?

We mainly promoted the event within the Second Life community but also in various real world blogs. We also got some advertising for the Second Life walk thanks to being mentioned as a new approach in various newspaper articles covering the real world walks.  (Beth’s note:  Rik Riel has some tips about promoting virtual events)

4.  Did anything surprise you about the Second Life event component?

What surprised us the most was the friendly atmosphere and all people wanting to help us with our goal of ending child hunger, especially Ariel Finsbury, Nyna Slate and Demian Caldera who worked very hard to make the event a success.  We also had about 20 musicians who played live for us during the event, even though many of them live in the US were they the same day were celebrating mothers day.

5.  Based on your experience, what advice would you give to others doing an inworld fundraising event?

We were completely new to Second Life, and we could never have done it without the help of our wonderful volunteers. So my biggest advice is to gather a group of dedicated volunteers that knows about Second Life and they can give you advice on what would work or not in Second Life. It also helps to be open minded to new technology approaches and using your imagination.

6. Do you think based on your experience and the results, you’ll continue to have a Second Life Component? 

Yes we will definitely look into having more activities in Second Life! Our list of ideas just keeps growing! We would like as many people as possible to join in and Fight Hunger in the world, and Second Life is excellent for community building and reaching a new audience.

Written by: kanter

Help achieve a world free of multiple sclerosis (MS) by soaring into the virtual world June 11th through 17th. The MS Fly – an expansion of the National MS Societyʼs successful annual walk, is an engaging and interactive adventure dedicated to ending the unpredictable and chronic disease.

Participate in this exciting and cause-worthy event on a week-long scavenger hunt as you journey through the virtual world of Second Life with your avatar and MS Cape. Scour islands for digital tokens that grant you completion of one phase of the hunt. With each new digital token acquired comes a new incentive for the participant and more money to help end MS.

MS stops more than 2.5 million people worldwide from moving. The National MS Society exists to make sure it doesnʼt.

Itʼs Time to Fly! Register now at www.themsfly.org

Written by: kanter

Via Cogdog Flickr Stream

Yesterday on Twitter,  Alan Levine (cogdog) started tweeting about a Stephen Downes talk in Second Life.

Cogdog barked a few tweets:

"Stephen Downes is speaking Second Life"
"Stephen Downes hammering SL "like Star Trek… with casinos"
"The guy secretly loves second life …"

Crap, I’d love to listen to that session live, but I had a few deadlines.   Luckily, Cogdog left some good markings so I could find the url and return later.

What a great example of leaving breadcrumbs across social media sites to enhance findability.  But wait it gets better …

I left a tweet (or was a it a treat) for CogDog

@cogdog you need to use the flickr fdtoys and add something [on the flickr photo]

Cogdog responded with:

@kanter you had to ask … [see flickr photo]

So, not only do we have the findability, but we increase the potential for adhoc collaboration.

So, I was waiting for the blog posts about the session to filter out to the blogosphere, but I had not time to track them down.    So, was glad that Stephen Downes provided pointers to a few and some reflections:

Good summary of the proceedings from yesterday’s Eduserv conference on Second Life. My only quibble is that the advice, "Second Life is here, now – use it," does not recognize the existence of various alternatives, a number of which were mentioned by several panelists. See also this summary  by Shirley Williams. And Kathryn Greenhill offers a really nice detailed summary.  Jo Kay stayed up ’til  one a.m.  to watch my talk and then was disappointed, not because she disagreed with me, but because the wanted to see more emphasis on the projects and the potential. Fine – and  that’s what the other five speakers provided. And if I hadn’t raised the issues (which are genuine) nobody would  have. Is that a fair way to treat people who are trying to  learn about the technology?  Angela Thomas, meanwhile, posted a summary of the sessions as seen through Second Life.   Andrew Stewart‘s longish commentary, to which I’ve added a comment clarifying part of my argument. Barbara Dieu also commented, saying that my criticisms should not prevent people from experimenting with Second Life. I don’t think I ever said that – but I would certainly recommend caution before making a large financial investment.

I think I’ll watch the 3D space a bit more closely in the future, with an eye to mapping out a strategy, the outlines of which I stated in my talk yesterday.

Some of the reflections and criticisms are similar in the nonprofit space. What do you think?

Written by: kanter

Information Architecture Inst. (IAI)
Nonprofit Commons 10
iainstitute.org
Stacy Narayan/Stacy Surla

Why is your organization in Second Life?

To look and see what the practice of information architecture has to offer in the design of shared information spaces, like Second Life. To look and see if any IA-type work. Second, to use SL as a platform for our worldwide community of practice
So, we got an island so members can experiment, use it as a sandbox, have a place to meet, and so on.

What’s your favorite place in SL that other nonprofits should check out?

NMC Campus is a must visit for nonprofits
NMC Campus
slurl.com/secondlife/NMC%20Campus/139/225/42

Written by: kanter

Matt Cowley, Webmaster, WMNF Community Radio
NPCommons Tenant: Space 30
Web Site

Listener-supported, non-commercial, Radio that plays eclectic music and progressive independent news and public radio news.

“We’re here to create a virtual radio station in SL, independent news and public affairs, entertainment and fundraising. We’d like to present speeches and talks for discussion, put on concerts, and things we haven’t realized are possible yet.”

Written by: kanter