virtual worlds – Nonprofit Commons

August 4, 2016

Whole Brain Health for the August 5th Nonprofit Commons Meeting

This Friday, August 5th, TechSoup’s NonProfit Commons in Second Life will feature Lynne Berrett (Wisdomseeker Lissena in SL) and Szavanna (Sunshine) who will introduce you to the Inspiration Island community and discuss some of the “brain training” activities offered through the Whole Brain Health Group. Grown out of her commitment to making open source and creative resources to everyone, Szavanna will also share info on the Sunvibes Workshops, and the impressive collection gathered of free resources and full perm materials which can be used in Second Life and Open Simulator.

http://youcanwriteit.typepad.com/whole_brain_health/

Join us in Second Life!

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting

Friday, August 5th, 8:30 AM PT / SLT

Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater

http://bit.ly/NPCinSL

AGENDA (all times below PT)

8:30 am Introductions
8:40 am TechSoup Announcements
8:50 am Mentor’s Central
9:00 am Featured Presentation
9:45 am Open Mic / Announcements

Immediately following the meeting, Wisdomseeker and Sunshine will lead a field trip to Inspiration Island: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Inspiration%20Island/201/99/27

The Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is a program sponsored by Caravan Studios – http://caravanstudios.org, a division of TechSoup Global, http://techsoup.org. The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

http://nonprofitcommons.org

Written by: Rhiannon Chatnoir

July 29, 2014

Video and Trancript From the July 25th Community Discussion with Ebbe Linden

Friday, July 25th, TechSoup’s NonProfit Commons in Second Life featured a community discussion with Ebbe Altberg (Ebbe Linden), CEO of Linden Lab, and Peter Gray (Pete Linden), Director of Global Communications.

Linden Lab has been engaging with educational, nonprofit and other communities recently by Ebbe holding community conversations with groups in Second Life.

Below is a roughly edited realtime transcript of voice conversation from the event. The transcript was created in realtime by a Certified CART provider. It has been roughly edited, and intended as notes of the proceedings only.

You can also view an archive of the text chat here and listen to an audio archive here.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: So, let’s start this off so we can kind of get going here. So good morning, all. Normally we do this in text, as I was just saying. But welcome to our usual Friday meeting of the Nonprofit Commons. And there you go. So you can actually view the live transcript there, for those following along with text.

Just as a bit of that kind of precursor, the Non‑Profit Commons in Second Life is sponsored by TechSoup Global, of which Susan is part of through Caravan Studios. And today we’re doing things a little differently. We’re going to still go through our introductions and I’ll prompt that in a second, and then we’ll ‑‑ Susan will kind of get a chance to set the context and a little bit of history on Nonprofit Commons, just a bit of chat on that. And then we’ll get a chance to kind of have a conversation with Ebbe and Pete.

So, as we do usually for introductions, what will help here is if you can please type in chat your location and the organization you’re a part of, and any other ways we can find you online.

I’m actually going to directly paste this into the transcription as well. So even if you want to stay fairly anonymous, just at least sort of type your name and that way we can get you on that and they have kind of a good spelling of your avatar name when they do the transcription.

[08:38] Rhiannon Chatnoir: Http://nonprofitcommons.org/.

[08:38] Sister (sister.abeyante): Yup, also here: Http://www.streamtext.net/player?event=nonprofitcommons

[08:38] Rhiannon Chatnoir: You can view the live transcript there

[08:39] iSkye Silverweb: Hi Aeon!

[08:39] Rhiannon Chatnoir: Please type in chat, your real name, geographic location, org, and the ways we can find you online.

[08:39] iSkye Silverweb glances at Coughran, how’re you doing?

[08:39] Æon Jenvieve‑Woodford (aeon.woodford): ISkye! Hey, there!

[08:39] Coughran Mayo: Hi iSkye!

[08:39] Calla Rossini: Deborah Foster Salsa, Norther California, TeamFox Second life part of the Michael J Fox foundation for Parkinson’s research, http://www.teamfoxsecondlife.com/ TeamFox, Aloft Nonprofit Commons (150, 129, 38)

[08:39] ThinkererSelby Evans (thinkerer.melville): Selby Evans Blogger, Basics: UWA offers free online courses to help newcomers start in virtual worlds http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2012/11/kit‑edu‑education‑in‑virtual‑worlds.html

[08:39] Buffy Beale: Buffy Bye, Bridges for Women, Victoria BC Canada, http://www.bridgesforwomen.ca Twitter: @bridges4women, Facebook: Https://www.facebook.com/bridgesforwomen.victoria

[08:39] Zo (zotarah.shepherd): BEACH College, Santa Rosa, CA

[08:39] Frans Charming: Jeroen Frans ‑ Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Technology Specialist @ http://www.vesuviusgroup.com ‑ Twitter: @Frans

[08:39] Grizzla (grizzla.pixelmaid): I still can’t hear anything ‑ so I’m going to leave, to let someone else take my seat 🙁

[08:39] GentleAlso Afterthought is an alt for Gentle Heron, Virtual Ability, Inc. Www.virtualability.org

[08:39] Ethelred Weatherwax: Dave Dexter, The Museum Collective, Oklahoma USA

[08:39] Pathfinder Lester: John Lester, Montreal, ReactionGrid, http://about.me/pathfinder, Twitter: @Pathfinder

[08:40] Jerome Newstart (jeromenewstart): Jerome Newstart, First Un ited Church of Christ

[08:40] Ebbe Linden whispers: Ebbe Altberg

[08:40] Oronoque Westland: Roberta Kilkenny, Department of Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies, Hunter College, City University of New York.

[08:40] Loren Alunaia (reeveskd): Loren Alunaia (a.k.a. Keith Reeves), director of distanSLab Educational Technology Resource Center on the mainland (www.distanslab.org) and Director with the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (www.VSTE.org), which maintains a state‑level presence here in SL on VSTE Island.. Online at www.KDReeves.com.

[08:40] Beth Ghostraven: Beth Ghostraven, middle school teacher‑librarian in RL (northern Virginia, US) and owner of the Book and Tankard Pub in Victoria City, Caledon in SL; unofficial liaison between education groups in SL. For information on events for the educational groups that I work with, see the ISTE SIGVE Massive Open Online Calendar at http://sigve.weebly.com/calendar.html@booklady9

[08:40] Sister (sister.abeyante): Sister Patrice Colletti, Milwaukee, WI (Sister Abeyante‑ Virtual Ability)

[08:40] Rhiannon Chatnoir: / is Joyce Bettencourt, Boston, MA, community manager of NonProfit Commons, http://joycebettencourt.com, @RhiannonSL

[08:40] Ari (arisia.vita): Earl Kiech, Tullahoma, TN, International Spaceflight Museum, https://www.facebook.com/International.Spaceflight.Museum

[08:40] Aldo Stern: Aldo Stern Rocca Sorrentina Project

[08:40] Zinnia Zauber: Renne Emiko Brock‑Richmond, Sequim Humanities and Arts Alliance and Peninsula College, Sequim, Olympic Peninsula, Washington. Http://www.sequimartsalliance.org http://www.pencol.edu @renneemiko

[08:40] Wisdomseeker (lissena): Lynne Berrett, metro NY area, Founder of Wise Brain Project on Inspiration island in SL

[08:40] iSkye Silverweb: ISkye Silverweb, Virtual Ability & VWBPE

[08:40] Tredi Felisimo waves at Gentle’s afterthought 🙂

[08:40] Chayenn: Monique Richert, Protect Yourself 1, Inc., Baltimore MD, protectyourself1.org, facebook.com/PY1US, @PY1US

[08:40] Dancers Yao: Kara Bennett, Elder Voices, Inc Los Angeles, CA Human Rights and Health Care www.eldervoices.net

[08:40] Don Setzer: Don Setzer ‑ Virtual Ability

[08:40] Coughran Mayo: Dick Dillon, Innovaision LLC, St. Louis MO www.innovaision.com @Innovaision on Twitter connect with me on LinkedIn

[08:40] Par (parhelion.palou): Parhelion Palou, near Baltimore MD, generic volunteer, no web, Twitter, etc.

[08:40] JJ Drinkwater: RL: University of Michigan & ACRL‑VWIG, SL: Alexandrian Free Library, Caledon Library,

[08:40] Serene Jewell: Kathleen Watkins, San Francisco, virtual world builder and anthropologist@serenejewell serenejewell@gmail.com

[08:40] Tredi Felisimo: Donna Davis, University of Oregon

[08:40] Barbie Alchemi: Barbie Alchemi‑ Founder of Creations for Parkinson’s and owner of Creations Park

[08:41] Josephine Junot: Josephine Dorado (NYC), President of Fulbright Association’s New York Chapter and Professor at The New School. Http://funksoup.com Twitter: @funksoup

[08:41] Red (talkwithmarie): Marie C.‑talkwithmarie, aka Red. From Greater Boston, Founder of Girls project/Girl TV/Talk! With Marie, The Four Bridges Project Event Hostess, http://youtube.com/girltvlive, http://youtube.com/talkwithmarie, @talkwithmarie

Http://blogtalkradio.com/talkwithmarie

[08:41] Maika Giordano: Mari Carmen Gil, University of the West of England, Education Innovation Centre, MA Education in Virtual Worlds

[08:41] Tori Landau: Patricia Dean, N. Ireland, currently redeveloping the Terra incognita sim, formerly a volunteer with the Open University in Second Life and the Open University’s Deep Think campus. I’m independent.

[08:42] Ozma Malibu: Sandra Sutton Andrews, Floaters Technology Outreach to Vulnerable Populations and Floaters Gallery at The Millet House, Arizona, Mexico and On the Road! Http://themillethouse.com http://facebook.com/themillethouse @ozma

[08:42] Glitteractica Cookie: Susan Tenby, Online Community and Partnership Director, Caravan Studios, a Division of techSoup, SF CA @suzboop @caravanstudios

[08:42] Maika Giordano: Http://www.uwe.ac.uk/eic/

[08:42] Full Sim Sensor: Visitor status update

New visitors:

• emapen.juliesse (emapen Juliesse)

[11:43:37 AM] Joyce (Rhiannon) Bettencourt: [08:43] Jerome Newstart (jeromenewstart): First UCC at http://www.FirstUCCSL.org

[11:46:28 AM] Joyce (Rhiannon) Bettencourt: [08:44] Æon Jenvieve‑Woodford (aeon.woodford): I’m a professor of language arts and philosophy at a small university. We share art and literature at our sim, Ce Soir Arts. My wife is the creative one. Contact her at mireillejenvieve@gmail.com. 🙂

[08:44] Red (talkwithmarie): Yes

[08:45] Æon Jenvieve‑Woodford (aeon.woodford): Red, Mireille sends her greetings!

>> SAFFIA: Hi, is it possible for names to be read? The camera ‑‑ at the moment I’m just picking up the sounds of a lot of people typing.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Well, there’s quite a few people here. It’s probably ‑‑ and they’re going to add it to the transcript. But you’ll have it ‑‑ you can add it to the transcript ‑‑ to the notes of your video, is probably the easiest way to do it afterwards, Saffia.

If you can make sure ‑‑ anybody who has a open mic ‑‑

>> PAR: It’s still open.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: If you haven’t introduced yourself already, please do so. Also in preparation, if you have any key questions ‑‑ I know we had a few that I’ll sort of start off from last time. But if you have any key questions, you can start IM’ing those to me and then we can use them to kind of start the discussion.

Glitter, it’s up to you, whenever you’re ready.

For those who may not know, Glitteractica Cookie is Susan Tenby in real life and is the director of Community and Social Media at Caravan Studios, which is a subdivision of TechSoup who hosts these communities.

>> GLITTERACTICA COOKIE: Hi, can you hear me? So yeah, I don’t really have anything formal prepared. I just wanted to give context to the new Lindens that I haven’t met and to the new members here. Basically the history of the Nonprofit Commons starts with my background in online community management. I’ve been working in online communities since 1997, in various forms: Listserv administration and message board launching for TechSoup.

I joined TechSoup in 2000 to launch the site, so I’m kind of the last ‑‑ I don’t want to say surviving’s because they are still alive but last current employee at TechSoup from the launch team that actually launched the site and I was writing articles for the site and I did the first listserv for the site which is the newsletter we still have called “By the Cup.” I launched the message boards and just started growing online communities for non‑profits as they evolved. As online communities evolved, I was using them and looking at them as a way to organize non‑profits.

So, launched the TechSoup message boards and then I started kind of hearing about Second Life and I actually was brought into Linden Lab to do ‑‑ the way I discovered Second Life was I was brought into Linden Lab to do a focus group as an online community manager. I ways just brought in by Jessica Linden, who is now still in the city and a friend of mine but doesn’t work at Linden Lab any more. Jessica Kowalski is her real name and so she brought me in as a focus group participant to kind of give feedback on this new virtual world, and I immediately thought of the applications for non‑profits.

So that was back in 2006 ‑‑ or 2005, I guess. And then I started poking around and going around with a little kind of speech looking at Information Island, because that was kind of where the library alliance had planted. So there were several non‑profits there, not that many. American Cancer Society was the big one. So I kind of met the nonprofit leaders in Second Life.

And then Laurie Bell donated part of the library stem Information Island. And then I went to the Second Life conference and I met Angie Chun and she and Gun Chun donated the first Nonprofit Commons sim. And then I kind of moved on from there and kind of got a great group of volunteers together and we all grew this community together. We realized that there wasn’t really an independent collection of non‑profits from all over the world.

So since then we got the Aloft sim donated. That was for gear, and now we TechSoup supports the sim.

The Caravan Studios connections is Caravan Studios is a new division of TechSoup. We spun off ‑‑ six of us spun off as an interpreneurship, as opposed to intrapreneurship, about 18 months ago. And the focus of Caravan Studios is building apps for social benefits. Not apps for specific non‑profits but apps for social benefit. We have three in the marketplace right now that you can put on your phone.

Range which helps locate free meals for youth in the summer months. There are one in six kids in the summer months go hungry because they rely on the school lunches program.

SafeNight which helps crowd fund hotel rooms for victims of domestic violence and human trafficking when there are no available shelter beds. Those are our two main apps.

Our third app is actually not yet available for the public but it’s called 4 Bells and 4 Bells deploys known volunteers in times of emergency.

So you can learn about all our apps at CaravanStudios.org and you can follow at Caravan Studios on Twitter and at SafeNight app on Twitter.

But basically from my perspective I run an online community meet‑up for online community managers. I’ve just been an online community person from the beginning. And so Second Life really seemed to me like a wonderful way to quite easily gather groups of dozens of non‑profits from all over the world. And I have to say, my experience long on being a veteran in quite a young field this is the only place I’ve ever seen where we can have a weekly live meeting with between 30 and 50 people every week since 2006. So give yourselves a hand for that. And I certainly couldn’t do it without all of you and all the members of the volunteer. You guys are so great.

[Applause]

And really long‑standing members, consistent. That’s what’s interesting, there’s always new members but there’s a consistent core of volunteers that self‑organized and became members with all different life experiences and abilities from all different cultures.

So, yeah, I’m just really proud of you guys and this community of non‑profits and hopefully we can continue to meet and share best practices. That’s really what the core of the meeting ‑‑ we’ve kind of seen what works and what doesn’t. We realize fund raising doesn’t work it’s too micro at this level. But what does work is the sharing of skills and experiences and just having a live place to collect and share experiences.

So thank you and onward and upward with the Nonprofit Commons. If anyone ever has any questions for me, I’m really easy to find and my name is Susan Tenby. Thanks.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Thanks, Susan or Glitteractica.

And as she was saying, I passed out a link for the infographic but the idea that this space is obviously vibrant enough and rich enough, as we all know, that not only has it touched a lot of us but the fact we can hold ongoing meetings and it’s been going on enough since 2006 and that we’ll sit here for an hour and a half and all be very engaged and some people sit on for the hour later to the ventures meeting. So that’s better than usual sort of site traffic for any website.

So, I don’t know, Ebbe, if you want to start things off. I know obviously you’ve been outreaching to various community groups. There’s been educators and a library focused kind of communities that you’ve sort of reached out to and chatted with first. And I think some of us also saw your keynote at Virtual World’s Best Practices in Education. And obviously you’re kind of looking to touch back to community groups within Second Life, so it would be kind of good to maybe set the stage for that and, you know, start talking on that for a bit to start us off.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Hello, everybody. Yeah, I don’t know if you already heard I was talking before so I don’t want to repeat myself too much but I try to draw you in and meet all kinds of various groups as often as I can across a broad spectrum of different users that are using [sound going out] to better understand how Second Life I’ve sign use and what we can do to make it better for everybody to take it to another level.

As you heard, we’ve announced we’ve begun work on the next generation world so we’ll take questions on that as much as we know at this point. There’s a lot for us to still figure out with regards to that so it’s going to take quite a while.

And again we reiterate we’re on course [mic going in and out] times as well.

Glitteractica Cookie can’t hear.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, your volume is a little low and breaking up a bit. I don’t know if maybe ‑‑ obviously there’s a lot of avatars here in a small space.

>> EBBE LINDEN: (Inaudible).

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, maybe lower them down for this. It’s often very easy to have very high draw distance and things like that and then walk into a place like this with a lot of avatars.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Is this better or the same?

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: It’s better. We can hear you much better. Maybe it was the mic you were using.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Actually, okay. This is weird. All right. I’ll do this though. I switched to a different mic this works for everybody? Okay. Strange. This is ‑‑ should be worse but it’s better. Excellent.

GLITTERACTICA COOKIE: Ebbe, would you mind just starting from the beginning, because now I can hear you perfectly and I couldn’t hear anything. This is Glitter, sorry.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Sorry for those who heard me the first time but I’ll do a bit of a repeat.

I was just saying that I like to drop in and meet with a lot of different groups, trying to do it as often as possible to learn more about the communities in Second Life and the use cases of Second Life and what works and what doesn’t work so well and what can we do better. And I also mentioned that yes, we have started to talk about the fact we’re building a next generation virtual world. Not a ton of detail of what it is exactly but I’m happy to take questions and answer as much as we know at this point, which is not even close to everything. It’s very early. It’s going to take years. It will probably start to reveal itself in some sort of alpha beta form later next year.

And yeah, I’m extremely happy to be here. The fact that you guys have had this tempo of meeting once a week for this long is an amazing ‑‑ it’s an amazing thing. And the fact that you guys do so many good things for us and for yourselves and for a lot of people to make Second Life a better place. And so I just really appreciate what you‑all are doing. And I’m looking forward to hearing your questions and spend most of the time on Q&A.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: That’s great. Yeah, as Susan said, you know, there’s a wide variety of non‑profits that are here. Everything from smaller nonprofit groups all the way up to folks like through the years people like Keva and things like that also been a part of it, so it ranges. And we also have a good mix of folks who are librarians, educators, social good technology interested people as well.

So, that kind is the makeup of the audience you’re speaking to, at least here. And you’ll notice there’s a lot of people who have been long, long time Second Life users. For myself, I go back to January of 2005 and there’s a lot of others here that are kind of on that level as well.

As Susan said, they used to have in person ‑‑ kind of picked in person meetings in regard to that. They would bring people to Linden Lab for those focus groups and then they moved to the townhalls and these events are sort of close to that, though targeted on the community level.

And I guess, you know, a lot of folks are wondering, especially with the educators and non‑profits how that fits into, you know, at least the strategy ‑‑ I know the details obviously on the new platform are still going to be evolving as you develop. But I guess the strategy of the nonprofits and educators and those sort of doing projects which are often the kind of early adopters and innovators that are bringing in other groups of people. So what your strategy is kind of for folks like us in that realm.

>> EBBE LINDEN: I wouldn’t say we have an explicit strategy to that level of detail just yet except that what we’ve said is that the next generation will be done in the spirit of Second Life. So, open allow for as much freedom as possible while still keeping it sane and useful to most residents. And so just like in real life and what we see in Second Life, you see a lot of similarities to things that take place between real and Second Life. And we hope that will happen in the next generation platform as well, where the breadth and depth of use cases and companies and organizations and, you know, all the different ways that people do use Second Life today is something that we would be really happy to make sure continues in the next generation.

So I think of it more as a thinking about trying to do a lot of things the same way in what you can do but just make sure you can do it much, much better. Performance, quality, sort of improved user interface. There’s a lot of areas that we can improve, but Second Life is sort of ‑‑ because it’s now, you know, 13 years old technologically speaking and 11 years old in essence the day they opened the doors, there’s a lot of constraints that make it very difficult for us to take it to another level.

The one thing that I’m thinking quite differently about for the next generation versus Second Life, at least as we start out, is Second Life today has been primarily I’d say promoted and advertised to the consumer. And Linden Lab is more or less responsible for acquiring those consumers, and so shove those consumers through a fairly narrow front door and its up to them to find relevant communities and experiences once they get inside.

For the next generation platform, we think a little bit differently from the beginning. We more or less think of the creator as the primary customer, as opposed to the consumer, if you will. And we want to empower the creators to be able to create incredible experiences, and those will be, you know, some very similar to what you see in Second Life today but hopefully will look better, be better performance and easier to use and more powerful so they can do even more interesting experiences. And then give those experience creators ‑‑ and experience creators is a very broad ‑‑ many of you have experience creators if not most of you, but give the experience creators the tools to attract audiences into their experiences from the outside world.

Because there’s too much variety inside Second Life for us to successfully market all the different types of users that might find these experiences. So it’s easier for the people to find the experiences from the outside world and come into them and give the creators the tools to attract and retain users to their experiences is a little bit of how we think about it. To me it’s like turning it inside out a little bit.

So, those are some general thoughts.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, and I’m not sure if you’re going along with the chat as well. There was a question sent to me that we talked about at a pre‑meeting last week to kind of sort of set the stage of discussing this. Some of what you’re saying almost harkens back to there used to be a community gateway program that Linden Labs had that would kind of nurture ‑‑ where you still had the general portal that everyone would come through through Second Life. They also had a separate sort of ‑‑ a different sign‑in, where people would be filtered into the community gateway of their interests. So sort of an extra part of the signup process where they would be asked for interests as well as then they would funnel them to a community gateway portal instead of the general Linden Lab ones.

So folks like Virtual Ability or here at Nonprofit Commons, we’re a community gateway. There were some of the prominent educator communities that were that way too, and it allowed people to self‑select on registration that input in. So I think some folks are like wondering in some ways what you’re talking about, if there are ways to kind of triage the tool or bring back something like that whether, you know, either here or considerations for the next gen platform so that way there can be a way to help bring people in even if you’re still using the same main portal.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, I think some of those attempts, like the community gateway and related activities, I think was actually heading in the right direction and I think they unfortunately were discontinued, if you will, prematurely, and I think maybe that could have been ‑‑ whatever it was, leadership changes, layoffs and choices had to be made and unfortunately those sort of went out at some point in time. I think it would have been better off if they continued to try to make those better and better because I think ultimately that’s the only way to scale, is to sort of expose more of what’s going on inside to the outside world and be able to attract people directly into those relevant experiences.

So, we have on our list of things to look at for Second Life as well. There’s a number of projects that are sort of like the community gateway project. We have like three or four things we’re going to meet up and see if we can combine into starting something on Second Life to revive some those concepts and get some traction on that and at least then be able to learn some things in advance of the next generation platform, sort of start of getting up to speed sufficiently to get going at that.

So it’s on the list of things to do. I’m not sure when we would have the resources to start tackling it, but at least that’s how we’re thinking. Empower the creators to create incredible things and attract audiences directly into those things.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, that would be great. And the ‑‑ and kind of relation to that that feeds off of some of the focus group stuff we were talking and that kind of thing. Like these features you’re talking about and obviously these meetings we’re having now and I guess, you know, kind of probably go into this more as we go, but what’s the plan for continuing to kind of interact with and engage these communities of interest, whether they be nonprofit, educational, that kind of thing, in any of the fixes or changes in regards to Second Life or any of the developing of secondary platform. Because I think that’s important beyond these conversations today, you know, what’s sort of the plan of engagement there.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, so there’s fortunately or unfortunately but more fortunately in some ways there’s a lot of different groups with a lot of different viewpoints and great feedback. So obviously I try to bop in on meetings like this as often as I can. Obviously the people that are working on Second Life, I have various meetings as well with various groups to provide and get feedback on their road map. And right now, what we’re doing with regards to the next generation, it’s still so early. There’s like all this obvious plumbing you have to do regardless of where we’re going to ultimately take it with regards to the user experience. So right now we’re dealing with things like rendering engines and physics engines and lighting and terrain systems and all kinds of basic building blocks that you sort of need. And we’re just make sure that each of those are much, much, much better than what we have in Second Life today.

And as we get more and more down sort of the path of what should the exact experience be and the exact feature set on top of that experience and what’s the priorities of those things, then we’ll obviously start to engage more and more with the community. And then we’ll obviously open the doors early enough that, you know, none of the extreme decisions have already been made. So the first users that can come in and check this thing out, sometime in the first half of next year is my guess as alpha users, maybe under MDA or something, and we’ll try to make sure we get a cross‑section of different users to be able to come in and create things. And we primarily good creators that can give us good feedback on what can be create and can’t be create and how can it be better.

And then ‑‑ that will be early in the process. And then as we progress, we’ll open Moore and more for more and more people to come in and see what we’re doing and provide feedback and we’ll then start to really think about what kind of teams and what kind of processes do we need to be able to collect as much feedback as possible from a broad range of users and groups and people trying to do different things, what about education, what about games, what about communities, what about social interaction communication, lots of different aspects that will get feedback on.

There will be plenty of time to do that for the next generation product. I don’t think we’re at the pint where it’s going down a particular path that anyone would sort of disagree with yet. So that will come more, like I would say, next year.

As far as the Second Life road map, which is more now and here, we’ve already sort of announced what the things that the team are focusing on. And then, you know, as they progress on those things and start to figure out what to work on next, obviously you guys ‑‑ I’m not sure what the easiest way to interact with that group is, but you know we should make sure it’s easy for you guys to provide feedback to that team on what you think is the most important things to improve in Second Life.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah. There was a structure and a broader ‑‑ I think this got brought up when I watched the video the last meeting that you had, this was a structure of more of a community group and a community kind of focus liaisons within Second Life. There are still are community folks obviously on your team, but much more concerted effort that there were staff members that were sort of assorted to that.

And somebody ‑‑ I think that’s on Ebbe’s side.

>> EBBE LINDEN: We have some questions here. I saw will you expose metadata to users and creators?

Think of it ‑‑ like early on we were thinking a creator that creates an experience should have something like Google analytics or something to be able to understand what kind of activity is taking place with regards to their experience and to help them optimize for what’s going on there. If that answers the question for JJ Drinkwater.

And then will we consider full ADA, America With Disabilities Act, from the ground up? Yeah, I wouldn’t say we specifically thought about that, but clearly that’s something we need to solve for. So we’re trying to think of how do we make sure the user interface is extremely flexible so that it can actually be customized and tailored. We have said we’re not starting the product as open source from the beginning. It’s basically to try and contain complexity. But we want to enable the user interface to be extended and be very flexible and modified and updated so that people can get better ‑‑ can sort of modify the experience and it’s more optimum for them. Whether that’s because of disabilities or other use cases where users want the user interface to be slightly different.

So think of it like being able to have a system of add‑ons or extensions or something to able to modify the user face and experience and provide as much access to those types of developers as possible to modify and extend the user experience.

Let’s see. What else we have here.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: And I have a couple of questions on my side as well. So I can ask you one of those.

So, Loren Alunaia, I’m going to slaughter his name, but he was asking sort of to the point of some of the things you were talking about, that keeping the function while enhancing the ability and performance of things, that those who work in K through 12 public education and I also know this kind of goes through those working with youth and nonprofit things, but those constantly seeking to engage students. They have concerns about, you know, user experience and young user safety and then for that first point in building ‑‑ in building out his project, they realized how steep the learning curve can be, and what are your thoughts on making that initial entrance easy without sacrificing the complexity of the functions that high end users would want.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, I think that’s ‑‑ you know, part of the complexity of Second Life is just the incredible breadth and depth and ‑‑ it’s almost like everything you have on the Internet that’s sort of shoved into one box called Second Life. It’s a communication system, it’s a social network, it’s got build tools, it’s got an economy. That’s like having, you know, Ebay, PayPal, Skype and, you know, some high end 3D authoring tools all in one product, which makes it are really difficult to make it simple.

But I do definitely believe we can do a lot better than we have in the past. And without dumbing it down so that you somehow suddenly become constrained in experiences that you can create, because that’s part of the ‑‑ what makes Second Life so great is just the incredible breadth and depth of experiences that are being created, so we certainly don’t want to limit what can be done.

And with regards to the safety on how do you get, you know, education to be more comfortable to send people into these experiences, well, if we make it a lot easier for someone to create an experience, choose who can access that experience and have a very easy way to bring users directly into that experience without having to go through our generic front door to get to that experience, I think that will make it very ‑‑ much easier for people to comfortably create ‑‑ would more or less feel like stand‑alone experiences where they can sort of keep it a little bit more contained to what they want their users to see and do so those are some of my thoughts on.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, on the kind of continuation that kind of jumps off on that, in regards to say bringing in youth, teen it agers and that, obviously you probably know from the history of Second Life there used to be a withhold teen Second Life grid, and several of us, myself include, were part of educational programs for many years and then the lab took that away.

Obviously it wasn’t as economically viable to keep it separate and ‑‑ but those of ‑‑ those that are doing work with teenagers, like is there any thoughts about how that demographic could fit into even that next generation world, whether, you know, that you’re developing, those that don’t fall into that age group that are coming into Second Life now and parking back to the teen Second Life.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, so there’s different ways to slice and dice this pie. Today Second Life is like one pie with some ratings for whether there’s pepperoni can only be on one side of the pizza and not on the other side. But I think it would be much more flexible with the next generation where the notion of different grids, if you want to call it that, or domains will be a lot easier to it do.

We still have to think about whether we want to have multiple name spaces. Like do you have to ‑‑ if you come to different experiences, do you have to register all over again or can you have the same tea across now? For now we’re saying you can have the same identity across all and communicate across all and have a social network across all. But you could have a user obviously be constrained as to which parts they could access or which parts ‑‑ or which users you want to it allow into your experience.

So, as long as people are comfortable saying a student ‑‑ call it a sub‑grid and students come straight into that and everything has been sort of approved by someone, not necessarily us but someone, to be part of that part of the world, for that side of the pizza, they ‑‑ you know, those users could still of course find their way out of there and go to the other side of the world where they might interact with something that that educator would not necessarily be approving on ‑‑ approving ‑‑ you know, wouldn’t be happy if their kids went to those places.

So it’s a little bit like a city or a country, where we all have our identity, we can go anywhere we want, more or less, and you just try and tell kids don’t go to that neighborhood.

But I think it will be a lot easier in the future with where we make it easy for people to have their users, sort of have direct access into a particular experience or set of experiences. Where they can more control the messaging and how ‑‑ what the experience for those users are.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yep. And I think you see some of that development or concept of that development if you look to the open source movement that has spawned off of Second Life and opening the viewer, where you have the concept of the hypergrid. And even Second Life has the ability through like the registration API capabilities to kind of set the lock people to a region or allow people in through the stated settings.

So obviously I think that continuing on and refining that would make those things better.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah. So a lot of this is possible today. But today just takes a little bit of rocket science to set it up. So this should be super easy for an educator to sort of do out of the box, not have to become sort of a master of API’s and ‑‑ I mean even just trying to configure your land to know who can go there and who can’t go there, it takes some understanding to do that today. And we can obviously make that a lot easier.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: And okay. I think we can probably sort of drop to Pathfinder’s right now. Can you share a particular functionality broad future that the current SL completely lacks but that could be enabled in the future, spiritual successor to SL. I think Frans Charming also posed a question about that. What’s sort of would be possible in that next gen that’s not possible now?

>> EBBE LINDEN: Well, I think with better tools, better scripting languages, basic core capabilities, you know, more interesting experiences will be created from that. So it’s not necessarily that it’s specific features, it’s just all of the features we have being done better. I mean like we’re just rolling out experience keys right now which will sort of open the door for a whole new set of experiences that couldn’t be done before in what would be at least a reasonable user experience. So that’s just one example.

So I mean you could almost do anything in Second Life that you could do in any game engine, it’s just the results wouldn’t be as good. And if they’re not good enough, then your conversion rate and the ability or, you know, having users stick around in those experiences will obviously be challenging.

So, in some ways we’re thinking about a lot of just being related to quality, performance, scale are sort of the core areas we’re focusing on now. And then on top of that, you start adding ease of use, easier interface that are easier to understand. And all those things combined, you will have experiences that you’ll see in the next generation that you just could not create in Second Life. You might be able to create the same idea, but not with the same level of sophistication and quality of execution.

So, that’s probably sort of what we’re thinking about mostly.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, and I misread Frans’ part of that, which is the converse of that. In the next generation platform, what’s the possibility of things that won’t be there that are here? So what will ‑‑ I know some people have been concerned about what that means for content that’s been created and porting over any of that and those kind of things.

>> EBBE LINDEN: So what we’ve said is that we’re not going to make content backwards‑comparability constrain how good the next generation product can be.

Which means a lot of content is being created to do, whether it’s our avatars or clothes or houses or experiences, it’s not something we’ll just automatically function the same in this next generation product. There will be certain assets that you can bring over. We said that it should be easy to bring over your identity and your Linden dollars and be able to go back and forth between the two as you wish. But a lot of content will have to be created from the ground up because in this day and age, you just wouldn’t really start from where Second Life started. We just have too much content. It would be too complex to try to do something much, much better that still has to deal with all the existing content.

And then to provide all the tools to actually edit and manipulate that content when it really should be done in very different ways.

So that’s what we said so far. Yeah.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: And in relation to that ‑‑

>> EBBE LINDEN: Sorry. There was a question asked what will not be possible. Well, in the beginning when we open the doors to this to a limited user set, there will probably things a lot of things you can do in Second Life today that you can’t do in the new product right off the bat. I mean, Second Life has 11 years of features and functionalities and funky nooks and corners of capabilities that we won’t necessarily start off by replicating everything we have, because a lot of the things we have in Second Life we probably shouldn’t have because it’s part of what’s adding to the complexity and the confusion of the experience.

So, it will probably ‑‑ when you first see it or first get access to it, it will probably find a number of things. Like oh, where did my feature X, Y, and Z go that I liked so much? We’ll see over time how those things get added in in a logical fashion that doesn’t just create what I call ‑‑ you know, Second Life is a little bit of the stovepipe, things piled on top of things, and it reached a point where for most normal people it’s just overwhelming. And so we have to see how we can not start off with that amount of complexity but sort of grow into the right experience over time.

>> PETE LINDEN: Just to follow on that to be clear, I think what you’re getting at, and correct me if I’m wrong, Ebbe, there may be at least at the start some features and functionality that the next generation version doesn’t have or won’t have, but in terms of the sort of rules of it, the conceptions of the kinds of things that can be done and made on this platform, as you were saying at the outset, the idea is that it will be very much in the spirit of Second Life in sort of the same degrees of freedom and openness ‑‑

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yes.

>> PETE LINDEN: ‑‑ in order for people to create whatever they like. There isn’t an idea of create the next generation that is very closed off, very limited or anything like that.

>> EBBE LINDEN: No, that’s absolutely true. I mean our goal is to allow people to create more interesting experiences that haven’t been possible today, not less. I’m just saying in the early days of this next generation, if your first look at it you might feel something is missing that you’ve grown accustomed to or dependent on and it will take a while for those things to find its way in there, maybe in a different form. But and hopefully in a different form otherwise we’re just replicating little bit of the messy stuff we have in Second Life.

But yeah, so enable more powerful creations and more interesting creations and still trying to deal with the range of different types of creators. You have high end creators that are comfortable with Mya and high end scripting and stuff like that. And then you have people who are more tweakers and customizers. And then you have people that more or less like to buy clothes and get dressed. And we have to sort of figure out how to tailor to these different types of creators. And we might target them in a different sequence so that it’s not obvious to all those users day one, that they ‑‑ that they’re going to be a solution for them but ultimately we want to make sure we provide a solution for as many people as possible to create.

>> EBBE LINDEN: And that’s why there’s no talk about any closure of Second Life or we even ‑‑ Second Life will be going on for a long, long time and people will over time be able to choose whether to decide to send your time. And hopefully we reach a point where people much prefer to create and spend their time in the next generation of product. But today there’s no way we can determine how long that will take. You know, it could be a long, long time.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: And before we ‑‑ while we sort of jump off that kind of thing, I had another question come in from Matt Burns that sort of jumps off of this in some way. It relates to, you think about devices like Oculus Rift and PrioVR and things like that, obviously, and there’s folks like High Fidelity, Phil Rosedale, who’s the founder of Second Life has been working without a lot of those sort of tools. And I think people are curious to know if there’s ‑‑ and has also been thinking about the identity aspect throughout the metaverse, and I think people are curious about what, if any, interaction or communication there is that goes on between the High Fidelity and Linden Lab still.

I know Linden Lab is part investor for them and I guess any of those other thoughts to those kind of tools like Oculus in the development process.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, as you all probably know we have Oculus support in Second Life today. In our project viewer. And we have people coming by the office whether it’s press or various kinds of interested users. And if you’re in the neighborhood, drop on by we can give you an Oculus tour in our office here. We’ll try to create a cool lab and we’re eagerly awaiting the next version the DK2 which has gun shipping from what I hear and then we’ll do the work to update our project viewer to work with that new SDK, it will take a few works to do that and get that into your hands to creators ‑‑ today it’s really for the creators, there are no consumers that have Oculus. A customer version that will sell like significant scale I think is a year‑plus away. This is early days, just experimenting with it but it’s really cool.

A lot of the issues while we’re work on the next generation platform is that Second Life and Oculus are not necessarily the best marriage. You know, you need a very highly performance product with high quality to get the most out of an experience like we’re working with something like the Oculus.

And we said from the beginning that the next generation we’re going to build it so that it targets phones, you know, pads, PC’s and Oculus. And if other hardware has meaningful ways to consume bits and pieces of Second Life or this next generation world, we’ll tack those on as well.

As far as input devices, you know, certainly with an Oculus your keyboard becomes kind of like ‑‑ it becomes not logical input devices with an Oculus strapped to your face. And no one’s really figured out what the answer to that will be. We did early experiments with Leap Motion so that you can use hand gestures to do stuff but Leap Motion 1.0 just wasn’t good enough. We’ve had them visit here in the office a few weeks back to take a look at their Leap Motion 2.0 that’s coming out; it’s much, much better. Still not sure if it’s going to be mass market enough and good enough for us to integrate with that, but it’s possible.

We’re also meeting on Monday with another company that’s doing a lot of work. You know, Six Sense, we’re doing a lot with their stem system and talk to them about whether their devices are the right ones. I’ve met with various senior leadership at Oculus/Facebook and sort of asked them what their thoughts are, because they’re sort of introducing a bit of this problem by providing a device that sort of makes the keyboard and the mouse not particularly useful anymore and what are their thoughts. And it’s not obvious what the answer is going to be. It’s going to be a lot of experiments with user inputs and different methods. Whether it’s ecoskeletons or cameras reading your motions or speech‑to‑text, there’s lots of combinations of things that we’ll be experimenting with over time and we’ll obviously look at that and we want it make sure we also don’t waste our time doing something useful to three people. Is it’s going to have to be something that has a chance of being fairly broad, mass market appeal.

So, that’s where we’re at with those kinds of things.

Relationship with high phi and Phillip, we’re call can lesion that sort of check in now and then with what we’re up to. We have no plans in the works of actually doing any explicit sharing of technology or nick like that. But we meet up now and then with hey, what are you working on, what works, what doesn’t work and just sort of just being friendly and sharing thoughts and ideas. But other than that, there’s no active collaboration going on. And yeah, our investment in them is very, very small. So it’s pretty ‑‑ it’s not a big deal.

So, yeah, that’s that.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah. I think we had a couple of questions that kind of fall upon this obviously and you touch upon it too. There’s a whole need for user experience design in these new device. And somebody asked about the scale aspect for obviously virtual worlds things like scale and that are important. And, you know, and again in your next generation platform, like what the thoughts on those kind of things. So I guess it’s user experience scale.

>> EBBE LINDEN: You mean scale as in, you know, the size of things or scale of avatars.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: It becomes very important when you’re in an immersive scenario with Oculus.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, it becomes important that the size of door openings and the heights of ceilings and sizes of avatars become morel in those kinds of things. And that’s why we put the Oculus out there, because a lot of it is ‑‑ some of the things we’re doing but a lot of it is also what creators also doing. And so doing Oculus work right now is not for us to reach a lot of consumers. Hopefully that will happen in years time but to get it up now is to put it in the hands of you guys and all kinds of creators to be able to experiment with and go, “Oh, my God, I would have built this stuff differently if I had thought about people seeing this experience or going through this experience with the Oculus.” And so it’s more for us to learn and for you to learn, and then down the road hopefully a lot of consumers will experience this.

And I think they will. But what percentage of time spent on something like a virtual world like Second Life or next generation will be done through an Oculus versus on your iPad or PC, like it’s too early to know. We can speculate but I obviously think it’s great that the Oculus is doing the work they’re doing and bringing the cost down from the tens of thousands of dollars to a few hundred dollars for people to be able to [mic cutting in and out].

I think it will also help us have more interesting experiences and more immersive experiences and ultimately be able to create experiences like you need that total sense of presence. It will come with time, but, you know, how soon it will come so your average person can sort of walk into that experience by having the right hardware, the right software and the whole setup just so, that will take quite a while to be true for a lot of people.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Okay. It looks like we had a blip in the conversation but it seems most of it came through.

So let’s kind of drop this away from the tech kind of platform stuff. So we had some questions sort of some functionality related things that are kind of some pain points in regards to Second Life in the way now for those people doing projects that are educators/non‑profits in this space.

A few from the idea that there isn’t ‑‑ because everything is tied to avatar identity in this space, that kind of becomes problematic for those doing project‑based work. There’s no way to have a ‑‑ or at least it’s against the terms of services to have a corporate avatar and be able to kind of use that in a way ‑‑ to be owner of a project, per se, and especially when you have something that might be academic administrator level, you need sort of something like that; that if staff come and go, even on a non‑profit side, you might need something like that. Right now the Sim is owned in that way that, the one we’re sitting in, for that reason.

That also gets tied to, on the nonprofit side of things, those that are 501(c)(3)’s the ability to be able to kind of cash out and sort of sort things in that way. So there’s that kind of that scope of ‑‑ the question about that in regards to some way to designate ‑‑ sort of in the same way Linden Lab does now with is this avatar going to be a bot. Could this avatar be a corporate identity, like a company‑related thing rather than an individual, and that be able to be tied to a tax ID or a nonprofit as another part of that as well. So thoughts on that.

>> EBBE LINDEN: I don’t have any strong thoughts on that. I mean I think ‑‑ phew, yeah, I don’t have any super clever thoughts on that right away, but I think there might have been several questions there.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: True.

>> EBBE LINDEN: The ability for ‑‑ there’s one thing of being able to manage call it manage users. So if I’m a company, what employees or members or whatever it might be of a group of people should have access and should not have access, and how many places do I have to manage this access list when probably many companies and organizations already have some tool they’re using to manage their users. So are there things we should be able to do to tie these things together.

And this is fairly common in sort of business applications to be able to integrate with, you know, other user management systems so it becomes easier to manage who has access and who doesn’t.

And we’ll think about those things. As far as tying yourself to ‑‑ for taxation or stuff like that, I haven’t really thought about at all, so I don’t even know what we could or should do. So that would be interesting to get some of those written up and sent to us so we can ‑‑ and there might be people who have thought about those things, but I haven’t. So it would be good to get that feedback and figure out what we could do with it.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: It definitely came up in our discussion last week. But it certainly effects anybody who does fund‑raising. As Glitter said, it could be a little problematic in regards to you dealing with a mico‑transaction, so fund‑raising equates a little bit differently. But you do have campaigns like ‑‑ think about Relay For Life. We’re all familiar with that. And, you know, you’re looking at there where they’re raising hundreds and thousands of dollars.

You know, myself and others here have done sort of more localized fund‑raising. On those levels, there’s no way to tie ‑‑ it’s an individual tax I.D. number and not your company’s tax I.D. number. So if you cash that out, or a check is drawn, it’s seen in that way.

Similar ‑‑ you know, in the now, that’s affected by if a creator, I think with the tax changes, the tax law changes that happened, there’s triggers in place on the Linden Lab side of things for content creators if their earning so much money through the system, they have to fill out the I‑9 or whatever the form is and then the corresponding international one.

Similarly if you were doing transactional things on a business level things for bits or on a donation for a nonprofit, it shouldn’t be tied to the individual because that has far reaching implications if somebody raises $10,000 for a charity or something, which has happened, I myself has done, and then would have to have that be a personal donation go through your own personal sort of scenarios. So I think that’s what that relates to.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah. Send me or Pete or us in some way thoughts on that and then we can think about whether we can extract that in a way because it’s probably a lot of potentially slightly different use cases. And someone else commented here, you go into international and the complexity might explode on us.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, true.

>> EBBE LINDEN: So we have to think of a generic solution that doesn’t become overly cumbersome for us to do.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Oh, I guess in response to that, in regards to those that are thinking about fund‑raising, and this probably comes upon to the kind of currency, commerce system of the next generation platform. And Zinnia was asking about PayPal integration for the next gen world, but that probably brings up questions of the overall thoughts on what currency and commerce would be like in that next generation platform.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Our current thinking is to basically extract capabilities of all things commerce and money and virtual currencies and all that from Second Life so that it becomes a service that both Second Life and this next generation product could use. So I would think of them as being very similar. And so that’s not an area I would necessarily feel we have to do something. It’s already a very strong system and so we don’t necessarily feel we have to completely redo that. It’s more of right now it’s just intertwined with Second Life and sort of an unnecessarily complex way. So extracting it and making it a service ‑‑ so I would expect a lot of similarities, the same currency, all the work we’ve done to make it a very stable virtual currency that people trust is something we just want to continue with going forward.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Great.

>> EBBE LINDEN: I see a question from Loren. Do you have a preferred method for us sending specific inquiries of that kind or feedback or thoughts or ideas? And actually Pete and I looked at our SecondLife.com and how would someone give us feedback, and it’s a little embarrassing. It’s actually not that simple. Yes, we have this JIRA bug‑tracking tool but that’s not like something a normal human being would use to just give us thoughts and feedback. I think that’s something we have to do easier and maybe we’ll at least make sure we have a basic feedback@LindenLab.com e‑mail or something where people can send in thoughts and ideas so we can collect them at a higher rate. Today, I think people with feedback wouldn’t necessarily know how to give it to us in an easy way.

If it is bugs, we would obviously ‑‑ we would certainly want them to go into the JIRA system so they can be tracked and prioritized and all that. But we also don’t want people to not give us feedback or bugs because it’s too complicated, so it’s something we’ll need it to solve for.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: And certainly in the meantime there’s been obviously other discussions post your meetings, there’s also been a lot of community discussions that post impacts that. I don’t know how much you get to see those links, but any questions that filter through this, like obviously we’ll be following up on the Nonprofit Commons side of things, so you can funnel things through us.

And I know there’s been discussions from some of the ‑‑ a few of the folks in the audience too like how to create ‑‑ kind of self‑organize an almost working group that could interface with Linden Lab in that way that would be representative of, you know, non‑profits/educators, folks that fall within our range to be able to feed feedback and thoughts to you in that way.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, that’s what I’ve asked most groups I’ve met with, if they can collaborate and come up with a prospective view on what’s the most important things and try to prioritize them as a group before they come to us. Because there’s no shortage of ideas. We have millions of them. But the tough work is usually in prioritizing them, and some things are easier for you to prioritize than it is for us. But if each of you gave us feedback, we wouldn’t necessarily know how to prioritize those things from your perspective. That would be helpful when groups of people come together and sort of think it through to the next level, what will really have the biggest impact. Because if we were trying to do everything people asked us to do, we would hardly get anywhere.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yep. I know there’s differently lots of very engaged but different communities. Having, you know, as been part ‑‑ was part of organizing all the Second Life communities conventions that happened in real life that were user group ‑‑ you know, message conventions and they ebbed and flowed from 2005 to 2011. But hundreds of people in any of those. And the breadth of various communities, we’re here today and educators and nonprofits predominantly but there are folks in role playing communities and destination things and more social things or music communities. So there’s a huge plethora and I can see how that would get out of hand.

So, you know, coming up with a good way to, you know, triage and within the community way would probably be good.

And a couple of questions come to me in the back end. Sort of on the promotion related thing, obviously way back in the early in the conversation you brought up how, you know, the SecondLife.com is obviously promoted to the more general user base. But how can nonprofits and educators who want sort of visibility to get on the destination guide or a way to kind of promote the work that we’re doing and sort of show off on the website in a way to kind of on the SecondLife.com portal to be that way. Thoughts on that it.

>> PETE LINDEN: I can jump in here. So yes, on the destination guide, it actually should be easy. There is a form to fill out, also an e‑mail. If you just ping me, I can send that link out to you.

And generally we’ve been sort of pulling from there for periodic blog posts, pulling out some sort of highlights there as well. So especially if you have particular events or special things going on, we’d love to know. And through that e‑mail address is really the best way to sort of highlight that to us.

In terms of more sort of general promotion and things that we could do to help make it more visible, one, if you have ideas about it, I would love to know them. Please ping me and I’d love to hear them because we’re always looking. We’re looking right now at what else we can do in a similar way to the destination guide and sort of leveraging that to make it easy for everyone to promote what they’re doing in Second Life to the community.

To the outside world, similarly, I’d love ‑‑ the more I can hear from everybody about what’s going on in your world and the work you’re doing, through meetings like this as well as just sort of one‑offs, whether it’s e‑mail or in world IM, that’s super helpful for us. As Ebbe mentioned, we are often in touch with the media, whether they’re coming in for interviews and demos or just sort of one‑off opportunities, and the more sort of fresh stories from Second Life that we have about the interesting things going on and the great things that groups like yours are doing, certainly the better it is for us, the better it is for Second Life, and hopefully the better it is for your groups as well.

So, please, short answer is, in terms of the promoting things to the community and raising visibility within Second Life, destination guide is the best place to start. But then, you know, over and above that in terms of just being sure that we’re up on what you’re doing, letting us know through direct messages, through e‑mail, through noting it in the forums on community blogs, we try and keep an eye on all that. So the more you can tell us, the easier it is for us to help sort of pull those out and highlight it.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Great. And it looks like there’s a question back to you, Pete, from Zinnia, about should we share with you any conference presentations or research that we’re doing in SL? This goes for obviously education and nonprofit communities.

>> PETE LINDEN: Yeah, absolutely. We’re thirsty for content and particularly thoughtful stuff like that is really helpful for us to have and be aware of, so that would be great.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: And there was a question up above from Pathfinder. Have you thought about creating structured feedback opportunities, like surveys, so you could collect both qualitative and quantitative data on users?

>> EBBE LINDEN: I mean yes and no. Again, for the next generation, like I said, we’re so early that so it’s basic sort of meat and potatoes stuff we have to deal with. But how you to scale up doing more of that is something we’re going to have to figure out how to do successfully. And it’s whether it’s bringing users in for usability testing, surveys to better understand what users are doing, looking at the data people are actually doing, market analysis ‑‑ I mean there’s a ton of things that we can and will do and are doing, so ‑‑ to help make sure we make the right decisions and provide something that makes sense to people.

But I wouldn’t say we have sort of a machine going for that kind of activity, but it’s something we’ll work on.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Okay. Great. And look up at some other questions. Beyond ‑‑ obviously you’ve met with, you know, educators, librarians, our Nonprofit Commons community today. What other types of Second Life user communities are you looking to reach out to yet? Obviously some of us here have multiple community kind of connections, so that would be useful for us to also help with you guys if we had an idea on that.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, if you have ideas for communities that would like to meet with me or you think would be useful for me to meet with, like I say, I try to meet with as many as possible, so I’m psyched to do that.

It’s various ways. I mean we hop around ourselves. You know, participating in communities, to seeing communities from the inside. We meet with as many sort of established groups and communities as we ‑‑ as possible. It’s possible to do even more but so far I’ve met with quite a few, whether it’s ‑‑ Pete would actually know better which ones we’ve met with and maybe which ones we should still meet with, than me because I don’t even know the ones I don’t know but Pete does.

Pete, any thoughts on ‑‑

>> PETE LINDEN: Not at the moment. I’d have to look back. We met with quite a few and I’m certainly open to Moore.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, there’s open source communities, educational communities, there’s you guys, there’s been other teams communities as well. And like I said, we have spent quite a bit of time in world, interacting with people either as obvious Lindens or not so obvious Lindens to understand what’s going on. And then there’s also look at data on what’s taking place and what are people doing, how you are they behaving.

So yeah, I haven’t met with any religious ones yet. That was asked.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, there are definitely some cross overs to that. And there’s obviously more social related ones. You know, you have a lot of the niche sort of things that fall under social, like folks that are role playing Star Trek or steam punk communities which are heavy content creator focused.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, we’re looking those role playing communities, we’re actually looking at. And those are actually sometimes hard to sit in front of like this and have a conversation with. You more or less have to go undercover and be part of it to fully understand it. So we’re doing some of that as well.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: And I guess Serene posted a question. The term service changes still do not satisfied artisan creators. Any comments? And I don’t know if you want to add to that, Serene, what type of problems there are. That might help.

>> EBBE LINDEN: I didn’t understand the question.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: I guess this relates back to there was a terms of service change a couple months ago in the intellectual property related things that kind of caused a stir with content creation and the IP. And there was recently a change in the terms of service I think to try to help with that, to help ease some that, but I guess there’s still problems in that regard.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, it’s one of those things that I’m not sure if we’ll ever get to 100%. You know, take any legal contract and get, you know, a million people to agree with everything in it, like it’s not possible.

What we have said though very clearly is the content is yours. We have no interest in taking your content and benefit or profit from that independently in some way. I mean, it seems like some people have feared that we’re going to sort of be able to take content and monetize it for ourselves. It’s not even ‑‑ I don’t even know if it’s possible.

So ‑‑ and clearly something that we haven’t done would be very, very bad for our business when the whole business is dependent on the content creators being comfortable creating content and profit from their creations.

So ‑‑ and, you know, of course, someone is saying what if LL sells SL and the next owner does X, Y or Z. Well, clearly any owner can change the terms. We can change the terms tomorrow to make it really bad for you and so could a future owner that we don’t know who it is. Obviously, though, in our mind that would be a very stupid thing to do. I mean that would be a way to rapidly sort of make this business go in the wrong direction. So I would trust that anyone that may buy this company would see it the same way.

I mean, if you look at it from our perspective, it’s not that complicated. We’re completely dependent on people coming to this platform and create content and experiences and be able to profit from those experiences. That’s our business model.

If we start to compete with those users or if we start to steal their stuff or whatever, that model won’t work. And then I’m not sure what model would work.

So, it’s ‑‑ it just wouldn’t be in our interest. So I’m not really sure what the big hoopla is. Then actually if we look at it, it’s actually not that many people that are wigged out about it. There’s clearly some that are ‑‑ think it’s extremely important. It is extremely important but there’s some of us that are extremely concerned and I have a hard time understanding why that is, actually.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Yeah, I think ultimately content creation for the creator is a very intense thing. It’s like birthing a child through your whatever, right? So I think you will always have that, you know, breadth of it. An IP is very important but, you know, to the Linden Lab side of thing, obviously, you need to ask for certain amount of rights to be able to provide the platform and the services to be able to spin up all this content.

So, you know, I guess the last question in all of this, since we need to be ‑‑ at least on the transcription side we need to be kind of wrapping up in that regard. Those that do have full IP advice to their content, do we ever see a time where we could be able to download and output a full ‑‑ like an open sim, an OAR, the whole region file, where you’d be able to ‑‑ especially for an educator or nonprofit, to be able to export that whole region? It’s capable in the open source, open sim side of things. And I think folks here are curious about wanted to do similar for their projects.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, I have ‑‑ if you want to take your content out of Second Life and take it somewhere else, you know, I’m fine with that. I have no issues with that. I don’t know if we’re doing everything we can to make that super simple for you. But over time, you probably find that all the features and functionalities of Second Life might not have, you know, a lot of other systems that are, you know, sufficiently compatible to just run it as it is. But if it’s your creation, then you should be able to take it wherever you want. I just can’t promise that it will function somewhere else as it does here. But I’ll be fine with that.

And I saw if some Second Life user wants to license their content to another company. Let’s say you create a cool game or a cool character and then you wanted to license that to Pixar, then you wouldn’t be able to? Like I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be able it to do that. We certainly have no interest in preventing you from doing that.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Maybe they’re thinking about the exclusivity. If the other entity would be asking for exclusive rights, then it would be problematic here, right?

>> EBBE LINDEN: If they want exclusive rights, then you as a content creator might have to take your creation out of Second Life. If they say no, you can’t have your character that you started ‑‑ created in Second Life and have it in Pixar, Pixar might say take it out of Second Life, but that’s up to the creator. I don’t think we’re involved in that.

And it’s not like we said, “No, your creation has to stay here. You can’t take it out of here.” What? We never prevented you from, you know, deleting your content if you want to.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: So I think we can probably wrap up. I’m sure there’s going to be still discussion here afterwards but at least for the transcription side of things, the formal kind of part of this, we can wrap up.

And thank you, Ebbe and Pete, for being here. I think that these community meetings are a great kind of re‑invigoration of those of us that have continued on through the years here in Second Life and are dedicated to kind of using immersive spaces like Second Life for often sort of serious or purposeful related projects. You know, we’re happy to have this ability to be able to kind of talk to you and have that voice directly and with Linden Lab.

So if we can continue that, that would be great. Obviously on our side we’ll follow up. I think, like I said, there’s initiatives of trying to create kind of a informal group to be able to kind of maybe ‑‑ working group on the community at large kind of side for things like this. But any last thoughts and kind of in relation to that or anything you talk about here?

Do you have any thoughts before we wrap up?

>> EBBE LINDEN: Sorry. Did you ask me something?

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Oh, just we’re ending this part of it. So if you have anything to wrap up.

>> EBBE LINDEN: Yeah, if we’re going off the record, now we can really go. I’m just kidding.

>> PETE LINDEN: Now the secret plans.

>> EBBE LINDEN: I might have to pop out ‑‑ I might have to pop out at any point in time here, but I’ll stick around until my next meeting shows up at my door.

>> PETE LINDEN: I’d just like to say thanks so much for having us and for reaching out, setting this up and including us. It’s nice to get to chat with you all and I look forward to being in tough.

>> GLITTERACTICA COOKIE: Thank you, guys, so much for coming. I’ve spoken to many Lindens over the years and actually even accompanied Phillip to Congress, so it’s really nice to talk to the new leadership and hear how open you guys are to our work and to sharing and your spirit of openness in general, so just wanted to thank you.

>> RHIANNON CHATNOIR: Susan was one of a few handful with Phillip that ‑‑I think that was in 2008 that did a congressional hearing on Second Life. But I’m sure she’ll come to visit you guys since TechSoup is in San Francisco. You guys are neighbors and she’s been there many times.

So thanks to both of you. And I guess we can kind of take this off the transcript of that and see you all next week for the Nonprofit Commons meeting. And then I’m sure there will be interactions and conversations post this as well.

And just a reminder, NonprofitCommons.org, the live transcript is still up there but then we’ll post the full, cleaned up transcript on there as well. And I think Mel Burns is recording, so whenever he wants to share a link on that, that would be great.

So that’s it for us here today. We can take this informally.

http://nonprofitcommons.org

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

Written by: Rhiannon Chatnoir

February 15, 2013

NPC 2/15/13 Featured Presentation: Community Partnership Development Through Hackathons

Below is an edited transcript of the 2/15/13 NonProfit Commons in Second Life meeting, featuring Lyre Calliope on Community Partnership Development through Hackathons. To view the full transcript, go HERE.

Today we have as our featured presenter Lyre Calliope who will be discussing how hackathons can be used to develop community partnerships and for social good.

Bio: Lyre Calliope’s mission is to assist in the emergence of a globally collaborative society. His first work experiences came as a volunteer for futures oriented non-profit organizations where he was exposed to cutting edge thought leadership, technology, and had his first experiences as a community organizer. Lyre began applying these experiences in 2006 through work as a social media consultant in an Atlanta-based agency called ConceptHub where he learned how business ecosystems operate and just how challenging they can be when faced with change. In 2010 he cofounded C4 Atlanta, a non-profit organization dedicated to stewarding Atlanta’s creative economy by helping arts entrepreneurs build successful careers. Now in Boston, he’s turned his efforts toward growing an ecosystem of open innovation practitioners that learn and build in the Commons.

Let’s welcome up Lyre, please take a seat and start whenever you are ready.

[Lyre Calliope]

Thanks for inviting me back Rhiannon! It’s great to jump back inworld. 🙂

For some time I’ve been worried about how accelerating technological change also accelerates gaps within society: income, literacy, social equity, etc. ‘Disruptive innovation’ is often seen as the most valuable form of innovation, but there has to be a place for constructive innovation. There has to be a way in which innovation can occur that doesn’t disrupt whole communities, industries, or even economies.

How do we approach innovation as an act of renovation?

I believe a major piece of this puzzle involves tying technological advancement to learning. This is exactly what happens at hackathons.

So, what is a hackathon?

A hackathon is an event in which people involved in software development come together to collaborate on projects. They usually last one to two days, but weeklong hackathons are not unknown. The goals of hackathons can vary, but usually the aim is to develop working software. Hackathons usually have a theme such as a specific programming language, a product category, a community, an industry, or a problem space. You can think of a hackathon as a programming marathon.

As the number of API (Application Programming Interface) based companies have grown, the number of hackathons has gone up as a means of marketing their developer focused products. Some developers think there are too many hackathons. There’s also the problem that good software takes time and few finished products ever come out of them. As a result, hackathons are seen by many people as superficial. This is understandable when finished products are seen as the outcome.

The real value from hackathons comes not from software developed, but from learning: the new connections made neurally, socially, and webbily.

Done right, hackathons enable communities of practice to form. Communities of open innovation practitioners.

Arthur C. Clarke famously said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Well, hackthons are like the new Hogwarts. They’re where you go to learn new magic.

So let’s talk about purpose driven hackathons.

After Hurricane Sandy, I began volunteering for CrisisCommons, a non-profit organization that stewards the CrisisCamp hackathons it grew from. CrisisCamps convene globally whenever there is a natural disaster to apply open source and open data capacities to disaster recovery efforts. More than just software developers, people of all stripes are invited to participate in data management tasks, communications, etc.

One of the lessons I’ve learned over the past few months is that unlike traditional hackathons in which developers start working on projects from the very beginning, CrisisCamps require something of an R&D process. The problems faced by crisis responders are unique, and often happen in real time. A successful CrisisCamp invites subject matter experts to share their knowledge and help guide the discovery process that informs the design and development of solutions.

At the end of a hackathon, it’s customary for groups to demo the projects that they have been working on.. even if their projects are only prototypes or mockups. During these demos, there’s often an a-ha moment that comes when subject matter experts see what is technologically possible. This can open doors to new opportunities for change within the organizations these subject matter experts operate in.

The division of labor for a team at the typical hackathon falls between designers working on the user interface systems and developers working on the back-end logic systems. For the purpose-driven hackathon, I’d like to add a third category of team participant: Storytellers facilitating problem discovery and solution documentation.

I imagine many of you hear actively identify as storytellers. 🙂

By introducing the storytelling role into the mix, hackathons can become a learning opportunity open to a much wider group of people. There’s a lot more that I’d love to say about the importance of storytelling in purpose-driven hackathons, but I should talk a bit about the role of data.

Innovation during the past decade can be largely attributed to the Open Source movement. Innovation during the next decade will be all about Open Data.

At the center of hackathon culture is the use of APIs: Application Programming Interfaces. APIs enable the flow of data between Apps and organizational infrastructures in a secure, structured, and accessible way. You may or may not realize it, but all of us are constantly using APIs every day. They are kind of like the web, but for all our apps. 21st century organizational partnerships are built through the exchange of data via APIs.

I could easily have spent this entire time just talking about the role of APIs play in facilitating powerful partnerships between organizations, but then the community learning piece would have been lost!

One of the best ways to really understand APIs if you’re not a techie is to go to a hackathon and help put them into action! Making is learning, and we learn best when we make together. The last thing the world needs is more Instagrams and Pinterests. Unfortunately, software developers are too often isolated from communities with real problems to solve.

Hackathons are the forums where bridges can be built to engage software developers in civic and purpose-driven problem solving. Hackathons are the place where communities can come together to not only learn where information technology is going, but actually direct its advancement toward solving the real-world problems they face.

That’s all I have prepared, but I can go into more detail and fish out some relevant links if ya’ll are interested. So, questions? 🙂

CarmenLittleFawn: how can a story teller get involved?

[Lyre Calliope]

First thing that brings real value: documentation. Most software developers hate creating documentation, but it’s really important for encoding knowledge as well as engaging others in building forward. Second, facilitating conversation and understanding with subject matter experts and helping developers think through application logic. Btw, when I say subject matter experts, I mean people with pain points within communities.

Jen (jenelle.levenque): Made my living as translator between engineering and users

Ozma Malibu: so the storyteller can interpret the problems to the designers and developers, and the storyteller can have the vision of a solution that holds everything together (yes Jen – I made my living similarly as translator but in education)

Ozma Malibu: Pain points! I had not heard that expression. very useful way to see the problem.

Glitteractica Cookie: My new work with Carvanstudios will be largely focused on hackthons and apps that come out of them. Lyre and the rest of you… @caravanstudios is our twitter handle. You may be interested in this hacker helper wiki: http://hackerhelper.wikispaces.com which identifies the probelms and gives corresponding data to hackers who build apps to help solve civis problems. We are hoping ppl add to the hacker helper wiki and edit it if they see fit.

Jen (jenelle.levenque): QUESTION: How do we find out about hackathons and what their focus is?

Gentle Heron wonders if there is somewhere a master list of upcoming hackathons and topics?

Glitteractica Cookie: there are thousands of hackathons going on, so I doubt there is one master list

[Lyre Calliope]

As for where to find out about hackathons, there are community calendars you can find. A friend of mine is trying to compile a semi-master list and I’ll share that link. Honestly, I’d try Meetup.com! Enter the social stream where developers reside and ask them where the hackathon calanders are. 🙂

Rhiannon Chatnoir: I have a question, how could you seem something like a Hackathon being carried out within a virtual space such as Second Life or otherwise, and within communities like NPC.

[Lyre Calliope]

So, the great thing about open source tools is that they allow for productive time and space displacement. Which makes them even more powerful when you get people together at the same time.

As long as you get people together within the same headspace and have effective communication channels in place, you’re good to go.

Horror story:

After Hurricane Sandy, I was at the MIT Media Lab at the local CrisisCamp while at least a dozen other hackathons were ongoing around the world. All sharing waaaaayyyyy too many communications channels. It didn’t just disrupt our ability to work with other events, it disrupted our room.

The physical space was disrupted by too much virtual distraction.

Rhiannon Chatnoir: so collaborative presence is key – even if virtual

Frans Charming: You know some the relief fundraising we did and do in SL can be viewed as a hackaton. Thinking back on the once I was involved in, though less about providing data/program.

Jen (jenelle.levenque): The key word with communications was EFFECTIVE.

[Lyre Calliope]

So yes. Collaborative presence. 🙂

And by past experience, hacking in second life is second only to actual physical presence.

Incidentally, hackathons are a great way for organizations to support their communities.

The presence enables conversations that wouldn’t occur otherwise. Fast looping and iteration. And helps form that core engaged community that supports itself. Kind of like what used to happen in the old days of yore right here.

One other comment!

I’m a big fan of inter-organizational collaboration. Communities exist between organizations. Hackathons are a great way to bring multiple organizations together and learning how their communities not only intersect, but can help facilitate organizational partnerships out in the open.

Like I said, it’s like Hogwarts! Especially for non-api savvy types.

Rhiannon Chatnoir: Any other questions for Lyre on Hackathons or how this could fit witing your org/mission? And, I have a question for all of you… what are your thoughts on somehow organizing a virtual hackathon?

CarmenLittleFawn: I would be interested in seeing how it would fit my organization

Jen (jenelle.levenque): Been mulling that over

Dancers Yao: sounds good….would like to learn more about this

Buffy Beale: I think it would be fun and interesting for those non-api savvy types too

CarmenLittleFawn: I would love it all though I am not a programmer but a storyteller

[Lyre Calliope]

Storytelling is the original programming.

Jen (jenelle.levenque): Someone needs to provide the story that shows the need to be addressed

CarmenLittleFawn: I would love too If I knew how I have a idea I would love to implement

Rhiannon Chatnoir: yes, the issue/mission/storyline comes first

CarmenLittleFawn: I can provide a story that show needs

Rhiannon Chatnoir: maybe we can work on that to come

Glitteractica Cookie: Are any of you going to build an app or enter an already built app to the win8 apps for social benefit contest?

Dancers Yao: want to enter…but it is at storytellng level

CarynTopia Silvercloud: I have an idea but don’t know how to get it actualized

Glitteractica Cookie: caryn, if you want to post yr idea to the wiki, we could maybe add the data to help a hacker build it

[Lyre Calliope]

And just as important as storytelling around need, is storytelling the activity at the hackathon. Publishing ideas, hypothesis, ideas and hypothesis thrown out for new ones.. code prototypes that didn’t pan out.. all valuable stories.

Rhiannon Chatnoir: so let’s thank Lyre for presenting today! Great to see you back in Second Life. and maybe we can drag you back if we can get a hackathon going 🙂

[Lyre Calliope]

Any time! I’m totally in!

Gentle Heron: Thank you Lyre. I learned a new word for “collaborative work”

CarynTopia Silvercloud: very interesting presentation

Buffy Beale: cheering! thanks Lyre

Glitteractica Cookie: Thanks Lyre! You are great

Beth Ghostraven: yay! Thanks, Lyre!

CarynTopia Silvercloud: would love to check out a hackathon

Jen (jenelle.levenque): Thank you Lyre, I was totally mystified about hackathons til today

[Lyre Calliope]

I’m still mystified. 😉

Written by: Rhiannon Chatnoir

August 25, 2012

Transcript of August 24 Nonprofit Commons Meeting – Ethnography and Virtual Worlds with Tom Boellstorff and Celia Pearce

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting
August 24, 2012, 8:30 AM SLT / PST
Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater

AGENDA
8:30 AM Introductions
8:40 AM TechSoup Announcements
8:45 AM “Ethnography and Virtual Worlds” with Tom Boellstorff and Celia Pearce
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9882.html
9:35 AM Mentors Central
9:45 AM Open Mic / Announcements
http://nonprofitcommons.org

Introductions

[08:30] Zinnia Zauber: Welcome everyone!

[08:31] Ridvan-Researcher (ridvan.atolia): is it in voice ?

[08:31] Gentle Heron: All text, Ridvan.

[08:31] Ridvan-Researcher (ridvan.atolia): i cannot hear

[08:31] Zinnia Zauber: I am Zinnia Zauber, your interim Community
Manager here at the Nonprofit Commons.

[08:31] Ridvan-Researcher (ridvan.atolia): all right

[08:31] Buffy Beale: ok what is it with the front row vacancy? lol I’m
feeling lonely here…

[08:31] Zinnia Zauber: The Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is a
community of social benefit organizations managed by a community of
volunteers and sponsored by the nonprofit organization TechSoup
Global.

[08:31] Buffy Beale: aww Pooky ty 🙂

[08:31] Pooky Amsterdam: S;-D

[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: We like to to start our meeting with links on
how you can find us and then introductions.
[08:32] 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

About TechSoup the sponsors of the Nonprofit Commons:

http://www.techsoup.org/stock/howtousetechsoup.asp

http://flavors.me/techsoup

[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: AGENDA

8:30 AM Introductions

8:40 AM TechSoup Announcements

8:45 AM “Ethnography and Virtual Worlds” with Tom Boellstorff / Tom Bukowski

9:35 AM Mentors Central

9:45 AM Open Mic / Announcements

[08:32] Buffy Beale: yay Grizzia and RR brave souls we are

[08:32] Ronnie Rhode: We love you BB 🙂

[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: Yay!, People in the front!

[08:33] Buffy Beale: awwww!

[08:33] Grizzla (grizzla.pixelmaid): Indeed!

[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: So, let’s have some introductions. Please state
your real name, where you are at, your org, your website and twitter
handle.

[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] Chayenn: Monique Richert, Protect Yourself 1, Inc., Baltimore,
MD , protectyourself1.org , facebook.com/PY1US . @PY1US

[08:33] Ronnie Rhode: Denise Harrison, The Garden for the Missing,
http://www.gardenforthemissing.org/ and SLURL Remora (203,148,21),
Project Jason, assistance for families of the missing,
http://www.projectjason.org.

[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: Our meeting transcripts are posted online.

[08:33] Buffy Beale: haha HB well done!

[08:33] Dancers Yao: Kara Bennett, Elder Voices, Los Angeles, CA
Health Care and Human Rights www.eldervoices.net

[08:34] Chad Mikado: Chad Gobert; National Service Inclusion Project @
UMass Boston; www.serviceandinclusion.org

[08:34] HB Eternal: Silver is good too Buffy

[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] Glitteractica Cookie: Susan Tenby, Online Community Director,
TechSoup, SF CA USA @suzboop @techsoup @npsl

[08:34] Zotarah Shepherd: BEACH College, Santa Rosa, CA

[08:34] Pancha Enzyme: Marshall Dozier, University of Edinburgh, @mafrado

[08:34] Gentle Heron: Virtual Ability, Inc. www.virtualability.org

[08:34] Ronnie Rhode: Denise Harrison, The Garden for the Missing,
http://www.gardenforthemissing.org/ and SLURL Remora (203,148,21),
Project Jason, assistance for families of the missing,
http://www.projectjason.org.

[08:34] Par (parhelion.palou): Herbert Hoover, generic volunteer,
north of Baltimore, MD, no website, no twitter

[08:34] Ridvan-Researcher (ridvan.atolia): Ridvan Ata, Sheffield, UK
,The University of Sheffield, PhD Candidate,

[08:34] Pooky Amsterdam: Pooky Amsterdam CEO Pookymedia – Machinima
studio par excelleance – www.pookymedia.com – one video a million
words

[08:34] Grizzla (grizzla.pixelmaid): Chris Robinson, Georgia Gwinnett
College, metro Atlanta

[08:34] bulaklak: Michael DeLong, Senior Manager Online Community and
Social Media, TechSoup Global, www.techsoup.org, @MichaelDeLongSF
@TechSoup, San Francisco, USA

[08:35] Ozma Malibu: Sandy Andrews, Floaters Org, tech outreach to
those who would not otherwise have access, Arizona, Mexico and On the
Road; @ozma, still trying to get the website back up (long story)

[08:35] alebez: Ale Bezdikian, Online Community Coordinator, TechSoup,
SF, CA, @TechSoup,@alebez

[08:35] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): Ricky Davis San Antonio
@dyverse.steele http://loudcity.com/stations/dj-steele facebook
Ricky.G.Davis Health advocate and DJ

[08:35] Zinnia Zauber: Remember if you are ever late to the meeting,
still please introduce yourself to the group.

[08:35] Klara Otsuka: Clara O’Shea., University of Edinburgh, @claraoshea 🙂

[08:35] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): blog and website coming soon

[08:35] Katherine Cunningham (kcunning): Jodi Swicegood, RTI
International, RTP NC

[08:36] Peperi Franizzi: MacKenzie Stout, Owner/Operator Grid Wide
News www.GridWideNews.com

[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: Looks like we have a great group today!

[08:36] VesaV. (veilvali): Vesa Välimäki, student from Finland, no
twitter, no website!

[08:36] Brena Benoir: Brenda Bryan, Preferred Family Healthcare,
Kirksville, Missouri www.pfh.org, @brenabenoir

[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: How did you find out about the meeting today?

[08:36] Gentle Heron: Hooray for students!

[08:36] Pancha Enzyme: sled email

[08:36] Zotarah Shepherd: ooo 29 folks here!

[08:37] Aquiel Aero: sledu events announced this meeting

[08:37] Ridvan-Researcher (ridvan.atolia): SLED

[08:37] Bear (bear.silvershade): Bear Silvershade, artist and
storyteller.. Artropolis (135,177,60) inwrold and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bearsilvershade/ online

[08:37] Klara Otsuka: Pancha told me 🙂

[08:37] Pooky Amsterdam: SLEd = the best

[08:37] Zinnia Zauber: Wonderful! I am happy to hear that!

[08:37] Pancha Enzyme: 🙂 @Klara

[08:37] VesaV. (veilvali): From Second Life event listing.

[08:37] Zinnia Zauber: Super!

[08:37] Buffy Beale: welcome veilvali!

[08:37] Bear (bear.silvershade): referral from Gentle through a mutual friend

[08:37] Zinnia Zauber: Any more introductions?

[08:37] Buffy Beale: yay Bear welcome too

[08:38] Grizzla (grizzla.pixelmaid): I found out from the inworld announcement

[08:38] Tom Bukowski: Tom, still rezzing, can say hello in a few when
I’m chatting with folks

[08:38] Tori Landau: Hi, just waiting for everyone and everything to rezz °͜°

[08:38] Zinnia Zauber: Super!

[08:38] Buffy Beale: good to hear Grizzla and welcome

[08:38] Riven Homewood: Riven Homewood – I run a roleplay library in
Steelhead – I found out via an email announcement

[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: Remember our transcript will be posted online.

[08:39] Grizzla (grizzla.pixelmaid): Yeah, I’m about to declare SLED
list bankruptcy, I’m so far behind in reading it

[08:39] Pancha Enzyme: Hey Riven 🙂

[08:39] Bear (bear.silvershade) waves to Riven

[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: And, I know we all pick up new followers on
Twitter after the meeting, right?

[08:39] Riven Homewood: Hi Pancha 🙂 – Hi Bear – Hi Tom

[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second
Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn
about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways
in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second
Life to achieve their missions.

[08:39] bulaklak: Yes.

[08:39] Pooky Amsterdam: okay you persuaded me – @pookymedia

[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: hehe

TechSoup Announcements

[08:40] Zinnia Zauber: Now we have TechSoup Announcements!

[08:40] bulaklak: Thanks, Zinnia!

[08:40] Coughran Mayo: Dick Dillon, Innovaision, LLC St. Louis MO
@Coughran, @Innovaision

[08:40] bulaklak: Good day, folks!

[08:40] Glitteractica Cookie: good day

[08:40] Buffy Beale: yay bulaklak!

[08:41] bulaklak: Did anyone happen to attend this week’s OCTRIBE on
Wednesday, either in San Francisco or virtually by Adobe Connect?

[08:41] Buffy Beale: sorry to have missed it 🙁

[08:42] Adalace Jewell: sorry, i’m late. Adalace, RoSa Library
Brussels, http://www.rosadoc.be @adalace

[08:42] bulaklak: I, unfortunately, had to miss it, as well. But lucky
me (and you) that our team blogger Susan Chavez took fantastic notes.
I heard it was just a terrific conversation about engaging online
communities. I am looking forward to the notes once they are live. I
will share them with you all next week.
[08:42] bulaklak: Glitter, anything to add real quick about that evening?
[08:42] bulaklak: Any quick highlight?

[08:42] Nany (nany.kayo): Nancy McDonald Miller, Virtual Native Lands

[08:43] Glitteractica Cookie: no, I think the recap will cover most of it

[08:43] bulaklak: Great.

[08:43] Pooky Amsterdam: YAy Nany!

[08:43] Lowri Mills: I apologize for being late. Lowri Mills,
http://www.languagelab.com/

[08:43] bulaklak: So next Wednesday we have another cool webinar
coming up on the topic of e-readers.

[08:43] Nany (nany.kayo): Hey, Pooky! I can’t see anyone yet : )

[08:44] Fleep Tuque: Chris Collins, University of Cincinnati
http://ucsim.uc.edu and AvaCon http://avacon.org (we just recently
officially got non-profit status, yay!)

[08:44] bulaklak: Librarian Brenda Hugh will talk all about how
libraries are adapting to this quickly growing technology.

[08:44] bulaklak: Great, congrats, Chris, and welcome!

[08:44] Fleep Tuque: Thanks!

[08:44] Riven Homewood waves to Fleep

[08:44] Bear (bear.silvershade) waves to Fleep

[08:44] bulaklak: At any rate, that webinar on e-readers is Wednesday,
August 29 at 11am Pacific time
[08:44] bulaklak: And you can register here
[08:45] bulaklak: http://bit.ly/PZZzmh

[08:45] Pooky Amsterdam: Woah Fleep! Ahoy!

[08:45] Fleep Tuque: =)

[08:46] Buffy Beale: yay Fleep!

[08:46] Zinnia Zauber: Please introduce yourself as you join us at the
meeting. Real name, location, org, website, and twitter handle.

[08:46] bulaklak: Lastly, I just want to mention that we have
re-organized our discussion forum categories on TechSoup.org. As many
of you probably know, our forums are a fantastic place to get your
tech questions answered, and also to share your own expertise while
connecting with others.

[08:46] Oronoque Westland: Roberta Kilkenny, Hunter College, City
University of New York. Sorry to be late.

[08:46] bulaklak: We’ve trimmed down to 15 categories and added some
brand new things, such as a place to post all of your events, classes,
trainings, and workshops that are tech and social good related.
[08:47] bulaklak: Here is the link to the discussion forums
http://bit.ly/techsoupforums
[08:47] bulaklak: That’s what I’ve got for today. Thanks for coming
and enjoy the meeting, and your weekends!

[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: the forums are a great place to get your
tech questions answered from a trustworthy panel of experts

[08:48] Delia Lake: oops, Linda Kelley, Pittsfield MA, Transitioning
to Green Foundation and here in sl the Center for Water Studies

[08:50] Zinnia Zauber: Great!

[08:50] Buffy Beale: sure is nice to see everyone today and an
invitation to join us every Friday at 8:30 AM 🙂

[08:50] Zinnia Zauber: Yes!

[08:50] Ethelred Weatherwax: Sorry I’m late. Dave Dexter. Neenah
Historical Society, Wisconsin USA

[08:50] Glitteractica Cookie: is it time for our speaker now?

[08:51] Zinnia Zauber: Next week we will have Ruthe Farmer Director of
Strategic Initiatives a the National Center for Women & IT,

[08:51] Zinnia Zauber: Yes!

“Ethnography and Virtual Worlds” with Tom Boellstorff and Celia Pearce

[08:51] Tom Bukowski twiddles his thumbs

[08:51] Zinnia Zauber: It is time!

[08:51] Tom Bukowski: But there are two of us hwere, which is great!
[08:51] Tom Bukowski: In fact, the woman on the cover of the book is
next to me here!
[08:51] Tom Bukowski: lol

[08:51] Zinnia Zauber: Please join us up front!

[08:51] Artemesia Sandgrain waves

[08:51] Pooky Amsterdam: Applauds!

[08:51] Buffy Beale: cheers!

[08:51] Riven Homewood: claps

[08:51] Klara Otsuka claps

[08:51] Zinnia Zauber: Yay!

[08:51] Tom Bukowski: Hey Pooky, Riven, so many friends

[08:52] Grizzla (grizzla.pixelmaid): yayyy

[08:52] Fleep Tuque applauds!

[08:52] Artemesia Sandgrain: Hi everyone…thank you for having us!

[08:52] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you for joining us!
[08:52] Zinnia Zauber: “Ethnography and Virtual Worlds” is the only
book of its kind – a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for
students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using
ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both
game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of
virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant
observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines,
and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project,
from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the
results.

[08:52] Riven Homewood: Yes, thanks

[08:52] Zinnia Zauber: Tom and Celia thank you!

[08:52] Tom Bukowski knows Zinnia typed *every* letter of that by hand

[08:52] Zinnia Zauber: hehe

[08:52] Gentle Heron: /ne applauds for Tom and his respectful
pioneering work in virtual worlds.

[08:52] Tom Bukowski: aww Thank you Gentle, you are the best…

[08:52] Zinnia Zauber: We are thrilled to have you guys here!

[08:53] Artemesia Sandgrain: We’re really excited to be here and
amazed by the turnout!

[08:53] Tom Bukowski: Aww ty. We have never done this before – you are
our first audience talking about this handbook!

[08:53] Artemesia Sandgrain: Thank you to everyone for coming!

[08:53] Tom Bukowski: So we’ll try not to trip up lol

[08:53] Eliza (eliza.madrigal): 🙂

[08:53] Zinnia Zauber: Go for it!

[08:53] Tom Bukowski: So… Celia and I can maybe just talk a bit
about us and the handbook and then we just have a mellow Q&A?
[08:54] Tom Bukowski: Because you all are researchers too so this will be fun

[08:54] Riven Homewood: Will you be staying in text? Or using voice?

[08:54] Tom Bukowski: I believe they want us to stay in text – doesn’t
matter to me tho

[08:54] Riven Homewood: I prefer text, personally 🙂

[08:54] Gentle Heron: All text here, Riven

[08:54] Artemesia Sandgrain: Text

[08:54] Tom Bukowski: yep, np

[08:54] Riven Homewood: Cool

[08:54] bulaklak: Yes, we are all text. =)

[08:55] Tom Bukowski: btw if you click on the big box with the book
cover, you can get a free inworld copy of the first chapter

[08:55] Glitteractica Cookie: for a number of reasons, we remain a
text-based meeting

[08:55] Pancha Enzyme: oooh!

[08:55] Tom Bukowski: the book will be out for real in the next week
or so, maybe already is out lol

[08:55] Artemesia Sandgrain: Tom why don’t I start by talking a little
bit about what motivated us to do the book…

[08:55] Grizzla (grizzla.pixelmaid): If you want to hear their lovely
voices, come to the VWER meeting next week <- shameless plug :0)

[08:55] Bear (bear.silvershade): 500 clicks at once…

[08:55] Gentle Heron chuckles at Grizzla!

[08:55] Tom Bukowski: Please do… (starts humming the Brady Bunch
theme… it’s a story…)

[08:55] Artemesia Sandgrain: hehe

[08:55] Coughran Mayo:
http://www.amazon.com/Ethnography-Virtual-Worlds-Handbook-Method/dp/0691…

[08:56] Artemesia Sandgrain: Well one of the impetus’ for the book was
a special interest group that was called at DiGRA in 2007…DiGRA is
the Digital Games Research Association….
[08:56] Artemesia Sandgrain: TL was involved in calling a group on
ethnography for games and virtual worlds
[08:56] Artemesia Sandgrain: the room was completely packed….and
most of the people came because they wanted to know how to do it!
[08:57] Artemesia Sandgrain: Then Tom and Bonnie had organized an
event at UC Irvine, where they both work….
[08:57] Artemesia Sandgrain: and we kept noticing that people were
describing as “ethnography”
[08:57] Artemesia Sandgrain: methods…or in some case a lack of method…
[08:57] Riven Homewood: 🙂
[08:57] Artemesia Sandgrain: it was kind of being used as a catch-up
for just coming in world and watching people

[08:58] Tom Bukowski: *catch-all

[08:58] Artemesia Sandgrain laughs yes

[08:58] Riven Homewood: catch up works too 🙂

[08:58] Coughran Mayo: ketchup?

[08:58] Pooky Amsterdam: Must ward almost makes it

[08:58] Artemesia Sandgrain: It people were using it as an excuse to
do strange things such as deceive subjects or create inworld
experiments

[08:58] Riven Homewood: Some of those folks were pretty scary,
especially to a new avatar

[08:59] Artemesia Sandgrain: …so the four of us got together and
decided to do something about it!

[08:59] Artemesia Sandgrain: 🙂

[08:59] Tom Bukowski: Shall I say a bit about the writing of the handbpok?

[08:59] Artemesia Sandgrain nods

[08:59] Tom Bukowski: So as Celia noted, we realized this was a needed thing
[08:59] Tom Bukowski: that just calling something “ethnography”
doesn’t make it so
[08:59] Tom Bukowski: and people were in some cases doing unethical stuff, etc.
[09:00] Tom Bukowski: but also that some of the quantiative folks who
were less friendly to ethngoraphic stuff
[09:00] Tom Bukowski: were pointing a tthe random people claiming to
do ethnogrpahy
[09:00] Tom Bukowski: and saying “THAT is all qualitative methods get you”
[09:00] Tom Bukowski: So every writing project
[09:00] Tom Bukowski: involves all kinds of choices, limitationg
[09:00] Tom Bukowski: because you can’t do everything
[09:00] Tom Bukowski: and we made two BIG ones
[09:00] Tom Bukowski: that I think worked great.
[09:01] Tom Bukowski: First, the idea of a handbook on ethnographic
methods for viws
[09:01] Tom Bukowski: We actually went back to the original definition
of handbook
[09:01] Tom Bukowski: something you carry with you, into the field

[09:01] Gentle Heron: perfect!

[09:01] Tom Bukowski: so gotta be able to lift it with a hand, even an
avie hand lol
[09:01] Tom Bukowski: so we worked hard to keep it short
[09:01] Tom Bukowski: not like some of those “handbooks” that are 800 pages long
[09:01] Tom Bukowski: and try to be evrything to everyone
[09:02] Tom Bukowski: so to keep it short, we focused on ethnographic methods
[09:02] Tom Bukowski: even though some of us to quantiative reseach
too (Celia’s very good at that and is doing a cool vw survey right now
btw)
[09:02] Tom Bukowski: also fhte focus on vws
[09:02] Tom Bukowski: so sl, WoW, etc
[09:02] Tom Bukowski: but not Facebook, not email, not mobile phones, etc.
[09:02] Tom Bukowski: All very interesting, but we had ot make choices.

[09:02] Artemesia Sandgrain: …also not single players games….

[09:02] Tom Bukowski: So that focus was the first big decision
[09:02] Tom Bukowski: yes, Thank you Celia
[09:03] Tom Bukowski: Second one, which was REALLY cool, is the form
[09:03] Tom Bukowski: we started off thinking maybe an edited volume
[09:03] Tom Bukowski: but we realized wouldn’t work because we 4
really wanted to draw from our fieldwork experiences
[09:03] Tom Bukowski: (If you haven’ tread Celias book Communities of
Play you should it is awesome)
[09:03] Tom Bukowski: And you can check out my book Coming of Age in SL too
[09:03] Tom Bukowski: so anyway, we wanted to draw on all that
[09:04] Tom Bukowski: so decided it would be the 4 of us as authors
[09:04] Tom Bukowski: and started wthinking we’d each do chapters, etc.
[09:04] Tom Bukowski: but started writing together more and more
[09:04] Tom Bukowski: and made the HUGE decision
[09:04] Tom Bukowski: that the book, the whole thing, is collectively authored
[09:04] Tom Bukowski: we wrote the whole thing on google docs, and it
is in one voice
[09:04] Tom Bukowski: there is no Celia chapter or Tom chapter, etc

[09:04] Eliza (eliza.madrigal): neat

[09:04] Tom Bukowski: it was an incredible experience and I think the
flow works really well as a result
[09:05] Tom Bukowski: So now maybe Celia can talk about some of the
themese in the chapters real quick and then Q&A?

[09:05] Artemesia Sandgrain: Sure…
[09:05] Artemesia Sandgrain scratches head…let’s see if I can remember
[09:05] Artemesia Sandgrain: Haha

[09:05] Tom Bukowski: lol

[09:05] Artemesia Sandgrain: Well we start off talking about the
history of both ethnography and virtual worlds
[09:06] Artemesia Sandgrain: We all felt this was important because
ethnography has a very rich history…
[09:06] Artemesia Sandgrain: it’s been around for more than a century
as a scientific method
[09:06] Artemesia Sandgrain: or set of methods rather
[09:06] Artemesia Sandgrain: …and also we find that the newness of
virtual worlds tends to create this historical amnesia
[09:07] Artemesia Sandgrain: so we wanted people to be aware that
these things have been around for two decades
[09:07] Artemesia Sandgrain: and also point to some of the early
writing and research that was done
[09:07] Artemesia Sandgrain: We also attempt early on to tackle “Myths
about Ethnography”

[09:07] Tom Bukowski notes if you’ve never read Celia’s earlier book
“The Interactive Book,” it’s just wonderful

[09:07] Artemesia Sandgrain: 🙂
[09:07] Artemesia Sandgrain: (thank you Tom)
[09:08] Artemesia Sandgrain: As Tom mentioned, we noticed a lot of
quantitative researchers were making somewhat disparaging remarks
about ethnography
[09:08] Artemesia Sandgrain: and there are a lot of myths and
misconceptions about it that we wanted to refute

[09:08] Tom Bukowski ethnography = talking about yourself (for instance)

[09:08] Artemesia Sandgrain: So for those of you who have been doing
ethnographic research, you have something to defend yourselves with
now!

[09:08] Gentle Heron: That would make a book in itself!

[09:08] Artemesia Sandgrain: 🙂
[09:08] Artemesia Sandgrain: One of the most egregious is that
Ethongraphy is unscientific

[09:09] Maerian Dagger: (now we can be told to get a life in yet
another context, lol)

[09:09] Pooky Amsterdam: hahaha

[09:09] Tom Bukowski: lol

[09:09] Gentle Heron: Good one Maerian.

[09:09] Artemesia Sandgrain: Anyway I won’t go into details about that
but it’s a useful section.
[09:09] Artemesia Sandgrain: Tom why don’t you talk about the specific
methods chapters…

[09:09] Tom Bukowski: Can’t remember the order for sure lol
[09:09] Tom Bukowski: but briefly so we can get ot the Q&A…

[09:09] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes…

[09:09] Tom Bukowski: We wanted to offer advice on the whole process
[09:10] Tom Bukowski: So we start with research design
[09:10] Tom Bukowski: You can’t do everything – what will you focus on?
[09:10] Tom Bukowski: How will you decide?
[09:10] Tom Bukowski: Then we talk about participant observation
[09:10] Tom Bukowski: Which note is not the same thing as just
leveling to 60 in WoW lol
[09:10] Tom Bukowski: and then interviews, focus groups,
[09:10] Tom Bukowski: archival work, when you might or might not want
to meet some interlocututors offline, etc

[09:11] Artemesia Sandgrain: One thing we focus on heavily is data collection
[09:11] Tom Bukowski: Then sections – two chapters – on ethics and
human subjects
[09:11] Artemesia Sandgrain: what kind of datat you actually want to collect
[09:11] Tom Bukowski: then some chapters on how to write up the
results of your research,

[09:11] Tom Bukowski: and particularly the issue of generalization

[09:11] Artemesia Sandgrain: Oh yes! Very important the human subjets stuff!

[09:11] Tom Bukowski: “So you just talked to these 50 or 100 people,
how do you know that it applies more broadly?”
[09:11] Tom Bukowski: That kind of thing, how to address that and
think about scope of claims
[09:12] Tom Bukowski: So you do’t overgenerlizat,

[09:12] Artemesia Sandgrain: …and also drawing in other researchers’ work.

[09:12] Tom Bukowski: *overgeneralize
[09:12] Tom Bukowski: But also don’t sell yourself short
[09:12] Tom Bukowski: and yes as Celia said, the importance of
colleagues and collaboration

[09:12] Gentle Heron: That’s a balance.

[09:12] Tom Bukowski: So we really had fun doing it and hope that
others will find it useful
[09:12] Tom Bukowski: It was certainly a great experience for the 4 of
us and something very different than what we usually get to do

[09:12] Artemesia Sandgrain: It’s really meant to be a very practical
guide…very nuts and bolts on how to do it.
[09:13] Artemesia Sandgrain: Shall we take questions?

[09:13] Tom Bukowski: Yep, looks like we have 15-20 mins for questions

[09:13] Artemesia Sandgrain: Perfect.

[09:13] Gentle Heron: Q- What can you learn from virtual worlds that
you can’t learn in the physical world?

[09:13] Tom Bukowski wonders if Gentle ever does *not* ask challenging
and profound questions lol

[09:14] Artemesia Sandgrain: 🙂

[09:14] Gentle Heron: Should I?

[09:14] Maerian Dagger: hehe

[09:14] Tom Bukowski: what’s your favorite color lol?
[09:14] Tom Bukowski: Okay, I’ll make a quick attempt

[09:14] Artemesia Sandgrain: Well one of the points of the book is
that the method itself is not that different between the real and the
virtual world….
[09:14] Artemesia Sandgrain: 🙂

[09:14] Tom Bukowski: oh good Celia first

[09:14] Gentle Heron: (even that second question was meant to be
challenging, Tom!)

[09:14] Zinnia Zauber: That color means a lot ot me!

[09:14] Pooky Amsterdam: blue

[09:14] Coughran Mayo: If you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?

[09:14] Artemesia Sandgrain: Tom…

[09:14] Pooky Amsterdam: artichoke

[09:14] Buffy Beale: lol Pooky of course!

[09:15] Tom Bukowski: Did “Tom…” mean I’m supposed to say something lol?

[09:15] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes
[09:15] Artemesia Sandgrain: lol

[09:15] Pooky Amsterdam: *its the Question thing*

[09:15] Tom Bukowski: k lol
[09:15] Tom Bukowski: So Gentle’s question was:

[09:15] Gentle Heron: True, Celia, the methods aren’t that
different… but why bother with us in virtual worlds?

[09:15] Tom Bukowski: Q- What can you learn from virtual worlds that
you can’t learn in the physical world?
[09:15] Tom Bukowski: So one big thing is that – you can learn about
vws themselves!
[09:15] Tom Bukowski: What happens in vws matters
[09:15] Tom Bukowski: They are not going to take over our lives, but
they are here to stay
[09:15] Tom Bukowski: we’ll engage with them with mobile devices,
[09:16] Tom Bukowski: computers, in education, medical, gaming
[09:16] Tom Bukowski: and ethnographers – we have to follow the culture
[09:16] Tom Bukowski: so if people are doing stuff online, we gotta
learn how to study that
[09:16] Tom Bukowski: and then also because we can learn about human
nature, human culture, so many things through vws

[09:16] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes and if I can add something…

[09:16] Tom Bukowski: just one quick thing
[09:16] Tom Bukowski: just was gonna add quickly

[09:17] Artemesia Sandgrain nods

[09:17] Tom Bukowski: so for instance, how people talk about but also
do gender in a vw, when you can change gender easily in many ways,

[09:17] Pooky Amsterdam: or species

[09:17] Tom Bukowski: that can tell us something about how people
think about gender in the physical world, because those ideas are
getting brought into the vw context and played with, transofrmed

[09:17] Artemesia Sandgrain: hehe

[09:17] Tom Bukowski: done for now

[09:17] Maerian Dagger: (meaningless of racism)

[09:17] Artemesia Sandgrain: I wanted to answer from a different angle…

[09:18] Maerian Dagger: (meaninglessness*)

[09:18] Artemesia Sandgrain: Much of what we do is driven by specific
research questions and these differ

[09:18] Tom Bukowski: isosoles?

[09:18] Artemesia Sandgrain: Acute!

[09:18] Gentle Heron chuckles

[09:18] Pooky Amsterdam: Right on right on

[09:18] Tom Bukowski: so long as not obtuse lol

[09:18] Artemesia Sandgrain: Tom comes from a traditional anthropology
background….
[09:18] Artemesia Sandgrain: he has a framework for understanding how
cultures work and is interested in how they work in simulated
environments such as this
[09:18] Artemesia Sandgrain: Whereas my background is as a game designer

[09:18] Gentle Heron: Maerian, I’m not sure there isn’t overt and
covert racism in virtual worlds, much like in the physical world.

[09:18] Artemesia Sandgrain: so my research questions tend to revolve
around the software design
[09:19] Artemesia Sandgrain: I’m interested in how people’s behavior
in groups intersects with the software design

[09:19] Riven Homewood: Sometimes racism takes different forms here
too – like discrimination against tinies or furries

[09:19] Artemesia Sandgrain: I’ve done a lot of comparative work
between Second Life and There.com for instance

[09:19] Maerian Dagger: true, different expressions and ultimately
meaningless. l

[09:19] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes Riven let’s get to that in a minute!

[09:19] Maerian Dagger: fluidity is what I was refering to in context of gender.

[09:19] Artemesia Sandgrain: So what’s important is driven often by
our own research interests and areas of inquiry.

[09:20] Oronoque Westland: @Maerian…would you elaborate please…I
hear many claim that race has no meaning in VWs…I wonder how we can
explore that claim from an ethnographic perspective in a VW to test
its validity?

[09:20] Tom Bukowski nods

[09:20] Artemesia Sandgrain: I would like to tackle that question of
“racsim” as well
[09:20] Artemesia Sandgrain: One of the areas that I’ve researched is
“fictive ethnicity”
[09:20] Artemesia Sandgrain: I define this as an ethnic identity that
people adopt

[09:20] Nany (nany.kayo): lol, mee too, Artemesia

[09:20] Artemesia Sandgrain: in a fictional or fantasy context

[09:20] Maerian Dagger: there we go Artemisa. very interesting

[09:20] Fleep Tuque: (Love that term)

[09:20] Artemesia Sandgrain: So this started with Uru refugees

[09:20] Gentle Heron: Nany knows ALL about that!

[09:20] Maerian Dagger: love the term, too

[09:21] Artemesia Sandgrain: who were discriminated against when they
came to There.com
[09:21] Artemesia Sandgrain: just as real world refugees are often
descriminated against
[09:21] Artemesia Sandgrain: And there we can see an issue for
instance with shared resource…
[09:21] Artemesia Sandgrain: they were were a large group and caused a
lot of lag
[09:21] Artemesia Sandgrain: and this created some hostility from
their neighbors
[09:21] Artemesia Sandgrain: Tom and I have both noticed that furries
hare discriminated against in here.

[09:22] Tom Bukowski: yep…

[09:22] Artemesia Sandgrain: Tom maybe you can talk a little bit about
this as well…

[09:22] Tom Bukowski: Sure – just one quick thing
[09:22] Tom Bukowski: Many people who study race in the physical
[09:22] Tom Bukowski: world

[09:22] Lowri Mills: I have found that a global community of all
ethnic groups is more harmonious in a virtual world. Countries that
war, have individuals that work together, without politics of their
countries.

[09:22] Tom Bukowski whispers: Have talked about the idea of “racism
without race
[09:22] Tom Bukowski: That at a genetic level, we are on clines, there
are not distinct races, but racism is nonetheless real as are racial
identities

[09:23] Gentle Heron nods to Lowri…. and encourages her to share her
background and why she can speak to that.

[09:23] Tom Bukowski: and looking at what happens with race in a place
like sl, and as people noted how it can link up to even things like
speciies, gender…
[09:23] Tom Bukowski: that tells us something about the range of human
possibilities for discrmination that could be illuminating for both
vws and the physical world….

[09:23] Lowri Mills: I manage a school that has over 69 countries
represented and have for over 5 years.

[09:23] Tom Bukowski: stopping for now, Celia add more if you want and
also I think we ahve time for a couple moe questions…

[09:23] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes and some of the research on community
talks about the fact that communities are by definition
exclusionary…to have an in-group you always have to have out-groups.

[09:24] Tom Bukowski: But how that “in and out” works can varyt

[09:24] Maerian Dagger: have you done some work about age and virtual
erm…phenotype?

[09:24] Tom Bukowski: some groups are more porous then others – why?

[09:24] Pooky Amsterdam: when people say everyone is beautiful here –
I htink well it just means a level playing field & then its not about
beauty anymore but WHO you are inside

[09:24] Gentle Heron: Although we humans clearly see and distinguish
among and discriminate against physical characteristics of other
humans, and although most humans can not distinguish one orangutan
from another orangutan, there is far less genetic variability in the
human genome than among the genomes of the great ape species.

[09:24] Artemesia Sandgrain: I’d like to address the question about age
[09:25] Artemesia Sandgrain: since that’s an area I’ve done quite a
bit of work in
[09:25] Artemesia Sandgrain: I’ve done several studies of players
primarily in the Baby Boomer demographic
[09:25] Artemesia Sandgrain: and found that this is a major population
in virtual worlds
[09:25] Artemesia Sandgrain: In fact I”m doing a demographic study right now!

[09:25] Gentle Heron hopes you are looking at disability status, Celia.

[09:26] Riven Homewood: LL won’t like that 🙂 – They work very hard
not to portray SL as an old folks world

[09:26] barbarathelibrarian Magic: (62 year old boomer here – very active in VW)

[09:26] Artemesia Sandgrain: 🙂

[09:26] Maerian Dagger: and issues of obesity. som many fat avis in here. 🙂

[09:26] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes of course Gentle!

[09:26] Riven Homewood: 66 here 🙂

[09:26] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes so I’ve found that there are quite a
lot of Baby Boomers playing games and in virtual worlds

[09:26] Gentle Heron: Hooray! Finally!

[09:26] Artemesia Sandgrain: many of them have disabilities of various
types which have a major role in why they are here.

[09:26] Oronoque Westland: yes, I am a boom boom boomer

[09:26] Maerian Dagger: <–55

[09:26] Artemesia Sandgrain: But also…my recent research shows that
older players are contributing to creative production here at a much
higher level than younger playres.

[09:27] Maerian Dagger: (I look just like this, really)

[09:27] Artemesia Sandgrain: Older players are more likely to be creative.

[09:27] Gentle Heron: We have so much more to draw from, Celia!

[09:27] Fleep Tuque: Question: Do you find that acceptance of virtual
ethnographies is growing, or as virtual worlds have sort of faded as a
fad, do you find it more challenging (in academia and elsewhere) to
have this kind of work published?

[09:27] Tom Bukowski: I can answer that

[09:27] Fleep Tuque: (Sorry have to go afk for a min, wantd to get it
out there in case missed the chance)

[09:27] Tom Bukowski: and then Celia can chime in

[09:27] Artemesia Sandgrain nods

[09:27] Tom Bukowski: np it will be in the chat
[09:28] Tom Bukowski: So first of all – it’s that hype cycle thing –
we are going through the trough of disappointment lol

[09:28] Artemesia Sandgrain: Haha….

[09:28] Tom Bukowski: As I think John Norton said – people always
overestimetae the short term impact of new technologies and
underestimate the long term impact

[09:28] Nany (nany.kayo): Actually, I learned at the recent Serious
Games conference that we have emerged from that phase, according to
Gartner

[09:28] Tom Bukowski: so I don’t think vws will be a fad, in various
forms they are around and growning

[09:28] Nany (nany.kayo): Serious Play conference, I mean

[09:28] Tom Bukowski: And it’s precisely when we get past the fad
stage we can start asking interesting questions

[09:28] Coughran Mayo: according to the newest version, we are just
beginning to emerge into the Slope of Enlightenment!!

[09:28] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes and they’ve been a fad before…

[09:29] Coughran Mayo: at last

[09:29] Tom Bukowski: my first two books are about Indonesia

[09:29] Nany (nany.kayo): yep

[09:29] Oronoque Westland: I wonder if VWs are fading, or are they
just taking on new forms?

[09:29] barbarathelibrarian Magic: Kzero indicates we are on the
upswing from that

[09:29] Tom Bukowski: no one ever tells me – people have studied
Indonesia for 50 yhears now so why still do it? lol
[09:29] Tom Bukowski: So in terms of the acceptance and publishing, it
is still a big issue

[09:29] Eliza (eliza.madrigal): 🙂

[09:29] Tom Bukowski: for 5 years, until July 1 of this year
[09:29] Tom Bukowski: I was Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist

[09:29] Maerian Dagger: (some people acused Anthropology of being a fad…)

[09:29] Tom Bukowski: the flagship journal of the American
Anthropological Association
[09:30] Tom Bukowski: so I saw this up close
[09:30] Tom Bukowski: lol
[09:30] Tom Bukowski: Mariean

[09:30] Gentle Heron: Every session we hold where researchers report
on their findings to the Virtual Ability community, we pose more
questions than they offer answers. We’re not done yet!

[09:30] Oronoque Westland: interesting phrase – “Slope of
Enlightenment”- suggests an uphill climb

[09:30] Tom Bukowski: but anyway, there are lots of people in
anthropology still a bit afriad of technology, or just see people in
vws as losers lol

[09:30] Pooky Amsterdam: Parabola ofenlightment is scarier

[09:30] Tom Bukowski: and then with the rise of “big data,” which is
great for some stuff

[09:30] Gentle Heron: @Oro- it’s all about psychic entropy

[09:30] Tom Bukowski: some people claiming that the future is all numbers
[09:30] Tom Bukowski: but that said, I think there is more acceptance
[09:30] Tom Bukowski: that we need a broad RANGE of methods

[09:30] Pooky Amsterdam: 0 & 1? or are there others?

[09:31] Tom Bukowski: of questions and topics

[09:31] Nany (nany.kayo): Expected to be a long and not very steep
climb to leveling off.

[09:31] Artemesia Sandgrain: I want to chime in here when you’re done Tom.

[09:31] Tom Bukowski: there is so much to study and things change so
fast, but ALSO not everything is changing and we have to underrstand
that too.
[09:31] Tom Bukowski: stopping for now

[09:31] Artemesia Sandgrain: Two things.
[09:31] Artemesia Sandgrain: First about the research acceptability
[09:31] Artemesia Sandgrain: From my perspective it’s gotten A LOT better.

[09:31] Buffy Beale: that’s so great to hear!

[09:31] Artemesia Sandgrain: When I started doing this work there was
really only one or two journals to publish in
[09:32] Artemesia Sandgrain: Now there are multiple journals including
some specializing in virtual worlds

[09:32] Tom Bukowski nods, particularly when colleagues see how it
gets students interested…

[09:32] Artemesia Sandgrain: and also OTHER types of publications are
more open to what we do….

[09:32] Fleep Tuque: (I need a list of those journals!) 😉

[09:32] Dancers Yao: social science research methods have always been
part philosophy…virtual worlds offers more possible ways to explore
them

[09:32] Artemesia Sandgrain: So for instance we’re doing a panel on
the book at the Association of Itnernet Researchers conference
[09:32] Artemesia Sandgrain: SECOND…and this is about the virtual
world so-called “fad”
[09:32] Artemesia Sandgrain: Let me say one very simple thing: Don’t
believe the hype.
[09:33] Artemesia Sandgrain: For instance…
[09:33] Artemesia Sandgrain: Second Life was never as popular as
Linden’s PR machine mad it out to be
[09:33] Artemesia Sandgrain: and it’s certainly not unpopular now.

[09:33] Riven Homewood: Do you find that students actually are
interested? I hear so much about how young people hate SL

[09:33] Artemesia Sandgrain: Second Life is not the only virtual world
[09:33] Artemesia Sandgrain: 🙂
[09:33] Artemesia Sandgrain: They are also interested in games, and
worlds like Habbo

[09:33] Tom Bukowski: Yep, they don’t always find sl interesting but
it’s the general topic.

[09:33] Artemesia Sandgrain: I do a lot of research in There.com
[09:34] Artemesia Sandgrain: But I have students who are very
interested in SL as well.

[09:34] Riven Homewood: Is There still here?

[09:34] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes it reopened a few months ago.

[09:34] Riven Homewood: Cool

[09:34] Tom Bukowski: Anthropologists spend years studying say a small
community in the mountains of Laos, and not everyone cases about Laos,
but the lessons learned from the research can have broader
implciations

[09:34] barbarathelibrarian Magic: <—is member of group in WOW –
Cognitive Dissonance

[09:34] Artemesia Sandgrain: Another myth….everyone thought it was
closed for months before it actually closed
[09:34] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes and Tom makes a very good point

[09:34] Glitteractica Cookie: they say there were hundreds of VW at
one point (that conference about VWs quoted that stat, but I’d be
nterested to know how many are active now. Mnay in kids/toy realm are
thriving

[09:34] Artemesia Sandgrain: Just because a place is popular doesn’t
mean we should study it and vice versa.

[09:34] Riven Homewood: Me too, Barbara 🙂

[09:34] Nany (nany.kayo): SL is a fairly good platform for gaming. It
has some useful features.

[09:35] Maerian Dagger: <–first time in SL in over two years, spends
all her time in nonprofit in Inworldz

[09:35] Artemesia Sandgrain: Also SL is diverse….I’m doing some
research on RP now which is a new aera for me.

[09:35] Glitteractica Cookie: inworldz?

[09:35] Artemesia Sandgrain: Also can I add one thing about this place
as well???

[09:35] Nany (nany.kayo): SL is very good for roleplay games

[09:35] Tom Bukowski: arrrr

[09:35] Artemesia Sandgrain: One of my recent studies turned out this
finding that there is a lot of nonprofit work going on in Second Life.
[09:36] Artemesia Sandgrain: In fact some of our subjects for one
study were regulars here.
[09:36] Artemesia Sandgrain: Okay…I think we may be out of
time…Tom did you have anything else?

[09:36] Glitteractica Cookie: yes, we are all nonprofits here,
artemisia. Not sure of that much in terms of Nonprofit work outside of
the NPC in SL these days, but there used to be a lot

[09:36] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes there is

[09:36] Tom Bukowski: I think time is about up. But thank you so much
for coming, Celia and I are so flattered by all this interest, and
would be happy to come back anywtime!

[09:37] Zinnia Zauber: This has been so wonderful!

[09:37] Artemesia Sandgrain: We had a pub for instance where all their
income went to a nonprofit.
[09:37] Artemesia Sandgrain: Yes! Really great to see so many people here!

[09:37] Riven Homewood: West of Ireland did that

[09:37] barbarathelibrarian Magic: I want to thank you for writing
this book, I quoted you in your passage about culture and changing
societies – in my dissertation

[09:37] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you guys! And, I hope that people know
that you will be speaking again soon!

[09:37] Tom Bukowski: Please do get the free copy of the first chapter
of our book by clicking on the box, or you can download it as a free
PDF from the princeton website

[09:37] Eliza (eliza.madrigal): great talk and questions, thanks Tom,
Artemesia, everyone

[09:37] Tom Bukowski: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9882.html

[09:37] Gentle Heron: Thank you Tom and Celia for presenting today.

[09:37] Zinnia Zauber: I have some info on your next inworld gig.

[09:38] Glitteractica Cookie: Yes, thanks very much

[09:38] Zinnia Zauber: SPECIAL MEETING: An Interview with Tom
Boellstorff (Tom Bukowski) and Celia Pearce (Artemesia Sandgrain). Tom
and Celia are authors of ETHNOGRAPHY AND VIRTUAL WORLDS: A HANDBOOK OF
METHOD.

[09:38] Riven Homewood: Thanks so much – really interesting and informative

[09:38] Buffy Beale: Always great to see you Tom and thanks again to
you and Artemesia for coming!

[09:38] Zinnia Zauber: AJ Kelton (AJ Brooks) will conduct this voice
interview in the VWER Formal Amphitheater.

[09:38] Artemesia Sandgrain: Thank you!

[09:38] Tom Bukowski: Thank you Buffy

[09:38] Peperi Franizzi: Thank you!

[09:38] Fleep Tuque APPLAUDS!!!

[09:38] Gentle Heron: darn, VOICE??????

[09:38] Zinnia Zauber: Where: BGSU Community 54/85/25
When: Thursday, 8/30/12, 11:30 AM SLT

[09:38] Tom Bukowski: oh yes, that will be fun too!

[09:38] VesaV. (veilvali): Very interesting indeed, thanks!

[09:38] Ridvan-Researcher (ridvan.atolia): thanks Tom and Artemesia
look forward to read it

[09:38] Zinnia Zauber: www.vwer.org

[09:38] Delia Lake: Thank you, Tom and Artemesia. this was great!

[09:38] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you guys!

[09:38] Bear (bear.silvershade): Thank you, this was an excellent presentation

[09:38] Zotarah Shepherd: Thank you both

[09:38] Glitteractica Cookie: agreed

[09:38] Artemesia Sandgrain: Thank you and thanks for coming eveyrone!

[09:39] Tom Bukowski: yw, thanks for much for this!

[09:39] Zinnia Zauber: Awesomesauce!

[09:39] Maerian Dagger: yes thanks so much. I am SO sorry I was late!

[09:39] Fleep Tuque: Thanks again Tom always great to see you in world. 🙂

[09:39] Tom Bukowski: Please im me, friend me, whatever anytime, hope
to have time to catch up with all of you more

[09:39] Zinnia Zauber: Please be sure to get your chapter of the book!

[09:39] Gentle Heron: Remember, latecomers, NPC posts transcripts of
their text meetings: nonprofitcommons.org

[09:39] Zinnia Zauber: It has been super having you guys join us!

[09:39] Artemesia Sandgrain: (Excuse me I have to scoot for a rw appointment)

[09:39] Tom Bukowski: it’s easier to read inworld if you rez it on
something, but you can also wear it as a HUD

[09:39] Artemesia Sandgrain: Thanks for having us Zinnia!

[09:40] Tom Bukowski: I gotta go too, but hope to talk to all of you soon!!!!

[09:40] Zinnia Zauber: A pleasure!

[09:40] Zinnia Zauber: Please take care!

[09:40] Tom Bukowski waves warmly and poofs

Open Mic / Announcements

[09:40] Zinnia Zauber: Okay!

[09:40] Zinnia Zauber: Before we continue on our agenda…
[09:41] Zinnia Zauber: I wanted to remind our guests to the Nonprofit Commons..
[09:41] Zinnia Zauber: We meet regularly on Fridays at 8:30 – 10:00 AM
SLT at the Plush Amphitheater. We believe that Second Life is a
wonderful place to educate, inspire, and work together to assist our
fellow nonprofit supporters. You do not have to be a tenant of the
Nonprofit Commons to get involved with our community. We welcome all
who wish to join us as partners, collaborators, and supporters.
[09:41] Zinnia Zauber: Just sharing about our community!

[09:41] Buffy Beale: Pass on the word… free office space for Nonprofits too 🙂

[09:41] Zinnia Zauber: Yes!

[09:41] Klara Otsuka: (Many thanks all, I have to leave now – but
thanks for letting me come along!) 🙂

[09:41] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you Buffy!
[09:41] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you!

[09:42] Buffy Beale: bye Klara 🙂

[09:42] Zinnia Zauber: Okay, so I am mixing it up a little today.
[09:42] Zinnia Zauber: Does anyone have any Open Mic Announcements. I
know Tank is first.

[09:42] Riven Homewood: I need to go too – thanks so much for doing
this – it was great to see you all again and be reminded of what an
active group you are

[09:43] Buffy Beale: nice to see you Riven thanks for coming

[09:43] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you, Riven!

[09:43] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): nods

[09:43] Fleep Tuque: (Bye Riven!)

[09:43] Zinnia Zauber: Tank, please share!

[09:43] Pooky Amsterdam: Thisis the <3 & soul of so much
[09:43] Pooky Amsterdam: bye Riven!

[09:43] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you Pooky!

[09:43] Glitteractica Cookie: We have four islands, not just this
amphitheater too, so check out our archipelago after the meeting

[09:44] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): I just started my radio
station and looking to share what the non profits both inworld and
real life so if you have any psa’s or any other type of recorded audio
that you would like to share such as poems etc
[09:44] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): please let me know
[09:44] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): also if you would to have
stream for your place let me know

[09:45] Zinnia Zauber: If you have every attended CommonGround, you
know how amazing Tank is as a DJ and sharing important info.
[09:46] Zinnia Zauber: Please show your support for his efforts!
[09:46] Zinnia Zauber: Anymore with that, Tank?

[09:46] Buffy Beale: cheering for Tank!

[09:46] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau):
http://loudcity.com/stations/urban-skribbles-radio
[09:46] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): that is the online page

[09:46] Zinnia Zauber: Super!
[09:46] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you!

[09:47] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): right now i have a psa
from chayen for protect yoursself1
[09:47] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): thats all

[09:47] Zinnia Zauber: Great!!! Gentle has some announcements.

[09:47] Gentle Heron: The transcript of Tom’s presentation at Virtual
Ability’s IDRAC2012 conference, titled “A Discussion about Virtual
Communities of Persons with Disabilities” is posted here:
http://www.virtualability.org/idrac2012

[09:47] Zinnia Zauber: Gentle, please.

[09:47] Gentle Heron: And a report of research done in Second Life!
MON Aug 27, 10am PDT/SLT
[09:47] Gentle Heron: “Benefits of Virtual Worlds for People with
Lifelong Disability”
PRESENTER: Kenyon Serenity, Researcher, Molde University College, Norway

[09:47] Buffy Beale: good one Gentle!

[09:47] Gentle Heron: Please join us at Sojourner Auditorium on Monday
to hear her report on her research study.
Virtual Ability (53,172,23)

[09:48] Zinnia Zauber: Great!

[09:48] Gentle Heron: (that’s all this week)

[09:49] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you Gentle!
[09:49] Zinnia Zauber: Other announcements?

[09:49] Buffy Beale: one little one
[09:49] Buffy Beale: 🙂

[09:49] Zinnia Zauber: Go for it Buffy!

[09:49] Buffy Beale: Today I’m 6 yrs old and it seems so long ago I
dropped that note on Glitters mailbox
[09:49] Buffy Beale: which led to her inviting me here 🙂

[09:50] Gentle Heron: Happy Birthday, Buffy

[09:50] Maerian Dagger: happy rez day Buffy

[09:50] Buffy Beale: for Bridges and I just wanted to thank you again
Glitter that day changed my life

[09:50] Zinnia Zauber: Happy Rez Day Buffy!

[09:50] Buffy Beale: in a good way
[09:50] Buffy Beale: and for Bridges too 🙂

[09:50] Nany (nany.kayo): Happy Rez Day!

[09:50] Zotarah Shepherd: Happy Rezday Buffy!!!

[09:50] Buffy Beale: long live TechSoup

[09:50] Glitteractica Cookie: Wow- I’m certainly glad I received that
note and invited you!

[09:50] Fleep Tuque: Happy rezday indeed!

[09:50] Zinnia Zauber: That is so amazing!

[09:50] Buffy Beale: lol hard enough to track RL birthdays so thanks

[09:50] Fleep Tuque: 🙂

[09:50] VesaV. (veilvali): Happy Birthday!

[09:50] Buffy Beale: you rock it Glitter

[09:50] Zinnia Zauber: Buffy! Buffy! Buffy!

[09:50] Glitteractica Cookie: Buffy is one of our biggest evangelists
and supporters across all of our activities

[09:50] Fleep Tuque: Oldbies unite!
[09:50] Fleep Tuque: 😉

[09:50] Buffy Beale: lol Z

[09:51] Glitteractica Cookie: her name comes up as a model online
citizen, a super user, when I’m describing one in meetings

[09:51] Buffy Beale: that’s it 🙂
[09:51] Buffy Beale: ohh Glitter ty

[09:51] Glitteractica Cookie: really… ask Bulaklak, I invoke yr name
all the time

[09:51] Glitteractica Cookie: 🙂

[09:51] Buffy Beale: this place is run by people who care and it’s the
best group I’ve ever been in
[09:52] Buffy Beale: in either life 🙂

[09:52] yumm group hug: Click while in use to get position setup dialog.

[09:52] Buffy Beale: ok that’s it thanks

[09:52] Zinnia Zauber: Well!

[09:52] Glitteractica Cookie: awww

[09:52] Zinnia Zauber: We need a group Hug for that!

[09:52] Maerian Dagger: I have found it very well organized and great
longevity. So I echo Buffy’s praise

[09:52] Buffy Beale: hahah yes!

[09:52] Glitteractica Cookie: thanks all

[09:52] Maerian Dagger: EVen though I am never around here. lol

[09:52] Zinnia Zauber: Join me up front for the hug!

[09:52] Maerian Dagger: I read the transcripts usually

[09:52] Glitteractica Cookie: a community is only as good as its
members and volunteers

[09:53] Buffy Beale: oooo ok and that’s great you’re here today Maerian

[09:53] Glitteractica Cookie: so thanks to all of you newbies and oldbies

[09:53] Tank Thibedeau (liltank.thibedeau): WOOOOOTASTIC

[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: if you click on the white disk below me you can hug us!

[09:53] Buffy Beale: yayy a group hug

[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: Come on!

[09:53] Buffy Beale: come click on the disk everyone 🙂

[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: Group Hug!!!

[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: Yay!

[09:53] Zotarah Shepherd: Yay

[09:53] Buffy Beale: haha an NPC first

[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: This has been amazing meeting!

[09:54] Buffy Beale: Z you might have to edit the disk and move it
aside to others can get it

[09:54] Zinnia Zauber: NPC Mentors Meeting: Fridays, 10:10 – 11 AM SLT
Want to learn new virtual world skills or find out how you can
volunteer at NPC, visit with the Mentors and they can help!

[09:54] Tori Landau: hugs and ty for great meeting °͜°

[09:54] Maerian Dagger: hugs to all and thanks.

[09:54] Tilly-Floss (hjeidi): ty all

[09:54] Pancha Enzyme: thanks all 🙂 see you again!

[09:54] Fleep Tuque: Great to see everyone and thanks again for the
reminder Gentle!

[09:54] VesaV. (veilvali): Oh, that meeting is soon!

[09:54] Gentle Heron: Someone lift your feet so folks can see the white disk!

[09:54] Maerian Dagger: I am going to poof off to the wild frontiers
of the grid….

[09:54] Zinnia Zauber: I think I messed it up

[09:54] Fleep Tuque waves!

[09:54] Pooky Amsterdam: Hugging you all

[09:54] Tori Landau: got to go, rl calls °͜° See you all on Mon!

[09:54] Zinnia Zauber: let me try again

[09:54] Buffy Beale: yayyy for the group hug

[09:54] Glitteractica Cookie: bye all

[09:54] Maerian Dagger: Thanks to you all for this.

[09:54] Pooky Amsterdam: will talk soon and ty so much for this amazing meeting

[09:55] Buffy Beale: bye Tori thanks for coming

[09:55] Fleep Tuque: (Hugs back Pooky!)

[09:55] Peperi Franizzi: Thanks everyone, I’m gonna head out too! 🙂

[09:55] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you everyone!

[09:55] Zotarah Shepherd: I think the SL group hug record is 40 so I
know this will hold all of us

[09:55] Peperi Franizzi: Looking forward to seeing you soon! 🙂

[09:55] Buffy Beale: see you Pep keep on writing 🙂

[09:55] Pooky Amsterdam: see you soon!

[09:55] Peperi Franizzi: thank you!

[09:55] Zinnia Zauber: Sorry!

[09:55] Gentle Heron: You just have to look between the feet to find
the white disk to click on then SIT

[09:55] Zinnia Zauber: I meses it up

[09:55] Fleep Tuque: lol, I’m in the middle!

[09:55] Fleep Tuque feels loves.

[09:55] Zinnia Zauber: hehe

[09:55] Buffy Beale: hehe yay Fleep feel the loveee

[09:55] Zinnia Zauber: Hugs hugs!

[09:55] Fleep Tuque: 😉

[09:56] Zinnia Zauber: See you guys next week!

[09:56] Zotarah Shepherd: Hugging is good for health too.

[09:56] Zinnia Zauber: lol

[09:56] Brena Benoir: lol

[09:56] Fleep Tuque: laugh tc all, have a great weekend! *poofs*

– End of Line –

Written by: Zinnia Zauber

August 25, 2012

Transcript of August 17 Nonprofit Commons Meeting – Virtual Vision 2020 – a community plan for Second Life with Pam Broviak

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting
August 17, 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 “Virtual Vision 2020 – a community plan for Second Life” with Pam Broviak / Pam Renoir
http://www.virtualvision2020.com
9:30 AM Open Mic / Announcements
http://nonprofitcommons.org

Introductions

[08:30] Buffy Beale: Good day everyone

[08:30] bulaklak: hi, buffy

[08:30] Buffy Beale: hi bulaklak 🙂

[08:30] Merlin Moonshadow: Hi, Buffy!

[08:30] Tori Landau: Hi Buffy and everyone else and got a mug of water
ty Zinnia °͜°

[08:31] Brennan Blaylock: Hello Buffy!

[08:31] Buffy Beale: Hi hi hi all 🙂

[08:31] Siculus: hi

[08:31] Zinnia Zauber: ah good Tori!

[08:31] Zinnia Zauber: Okay! Let’s get started!
[08:31] Zinnia Zauber: Hi there!
[08:31] Zinnia Zauber: I am Zinnia and welcome to the Nonprofit Commons!
[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: AGENDA

8:30 AM Introductions

8:40 AM TechSoup Announcements

8:45 AM Mentors Central

9:55 “Virtual Vision 2020 – a community plan for Second Life” with Pam
Broviak / Pam Renoir

9:30 AM Open Mic / Announcements
[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: Here is our Agenda for today!
[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: So we start with introductions!

[08:32] Ronnie Rhode: Denise Harrison, The Garden for the Missing,
http://www.gardenforthemissing.org/ and SLURL Remora (203,148,21),
Project Jason, assistance for families of the missing,
http://www.projectjason.org.

[08:32] Ethelred Weatherwax: Dave Dexter, Neenah Historical Society,
Wisconsin USA

[08:32] Zinnia Zauber: Please share your real name, org, location, and
online links, please.

[08:32] Buffy Beale: Buffy Bye, Bridges for Women, Victoria BC Canada,
http://www.bridgesforwomen.ca @bridges4women

[08:32] Chayenn: Monique Richert, Protect Yourself 1,Inc., Baltimore,
MD, protectyourself1.org, facebook.com/PY1US, @PY1US

[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: This information will be made public.

[08:33] Gentle Heron: Virtual Ability, Inc. www.virtualability.org

[08:33] 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

[08:33] Brennan Blaylock: Good Morning! Claudia Richards, AAUW
Washington, DC www.aauw.org @AAUW on Twitter

[08:33] Glitteractica Cookie: Susan tenby, Online Community and Social
Media Director, TechSoup and The Nonprofit Commons, San Francisc, CA
USA @suzboop @techsoup @npsl www.techsoup.org

[08:33] bulaklak: Michael DeLong, Senior Manager Online Community and
Social Media, TechSoup Global, San Francisco, CA, USA, @TechSoup
@MichaelDeLongSF, www.techsoup.org

[08:33] Merlin Moonshadow: Michael Smith, Emory University

[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: If you are coming in a little late to our
meetings, please still introduce yourself to us.

[08:33] Zotarah Shepherd: BEACH College, Santa Rosa, CA

[08:33] Ozma Malibu: Sandy Andrews, Floaters Org, Arizona, Mexico and
On the Road, @ozma

[08:33] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Pam Broviak, Virtual Vision 2020,
Geneva (IL-USA), http://www.virtualvision2020.com

[08:33] Svea Morane: Mayo Clinic, www.mayoclinic.org

[08:33] Zinnia Zauber: Encourage folks to do that, please.

[08:34] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): Magic Pathfinder
(any1.gynoid), Faculty at New Citizens Inc (NCI), Teaching hands-on
Artificial Intelligence and Pathfinding in Second Life

[08:34] Tori Landau: Patricia Dean, volunteer event coordinator for
the Open University’s Deep Think sims. www.open.ac.uk

[08:34] alebez: Ale Bezdikian, Online Community Coordinator, TechSoup
Global, SF, Ca, @TechSoup, @alebez

[08:34] Zinnia Zauber: We have a great bunch of folks here today!
[08:35] Zinnia Zauber: Our meetings are always open to the public and
it is a wonderful way to learn and connect with other people who do
good for the common good.
[08:35] Zinnia Zauber: Did everyone get to introduce themselves?

[08:35] Oronoque Westland: Roberta Kilkenny, Hunter College, City
University of New York

[08:36] Dancers Yao: Kara Bennett, Elder Voices, Los Angeles, Ca.
Health Care and Human Rights

[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: Please state your real name, org, location, and
online links including twitter handles if you got them.
[08:36] Zinnia Zauber: Our transcripts will be made public.
[08:37] Zinnia Zauber: I don’t know about you guys, but I get lots of
great new people to follow on twitter after the meetings!

[08:37] bulaklak: Absolutely!

[08:37] Coughran Mayo: same here

[08:37] Zinnia Zauber: I love it!

[08:37] Coughran Mayo says @Coughran, @Innovaision

[08:37] Zinnia Zauber: lol
[08:38] Zinnia Zauber: Remember, if you are ever late to a meeting,
please introduce yourself in chat.

[08:38] Thynka Little: LuAnn Phillips,USDA Cooperative Extension
Service, Albany NY, extension.org, thynkalittle.com@thynkalittle,

[08:38] Buffy Beale: lol C

[08:38] Zinnia Zauber: I know I am saying this like 80 million times today.

[08:39] Dave12 Kline: Dave Broviak

[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: I just want to encourage folks to be welcome and known.

[08:39] Siculus: rik lee @rik_na1

[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: Our meetings are also a great time to check out
other people’s profiles and revamp your own.

[08:39] Svea Morane quick cleans up his profile 😉

[08:39] bulaklak: Good reminder, Zinnia. Mine could probably use a sprucing.

[08:39] Zinnia Zauber: How many open their profiles right then?
[08:40] Zinnia Zauber: ah! Yes!

[08:40] Tori Landau: blushes lol

[08:40] CarynTopia Silvercloud: Caryn Heilman, Topia Arts Center in
the Berkshires of NW MA, www.TopiaArts.org, @topiaartscenter

[08:40] Merlin Moonshadow checks Zinnia’s profile

[08:40] Zinnia Zauber: I am always giving homework! lol

[08:40] Brena Benoir: Brenda Bryan, Preferred Family Healthcare,
Kirksville, MO www. pfh.org, @brenabenoir @PreferredFamily

[08:40] Zinnia Zauber: hehe Do it Merlin!

TechSoup Announcements

[08:40] Zinnia Zauber: okay!
[08:40] Zinnia Zauber: TechSoup Announcements

[08:40] bulaklak: Hallo, folks!

[08:41] Buffy Beale: hi bulaklak 🙂

[08:41] bulaklak: So, as we spoke about a few weeks ago, TechSoup
partnered with Zero Divide and the Mozilla Ignite folks on an Idea Jam
that posed the question: what if the internet had no limits?
[08:41] bulaklak: The event was excellent with a ton of energy and great ideas.
[08:42] bulaklak: For example, the Green team proposed capturing the
excess energy from the dancefloor at clubs to power the grid.
[08:42] bulaklak: Here is a recap of the entire evening with all of
the ideas that came out of it
[08:42] bulaklak: http://bit.ly/Pln5Ii
[08:42] bulaklak: You can still submit ideas up through September 20
[08:43] bulaklak: and there is a $5k cash prize to help realize your
idea if it is ultimately picked
[08:43] bulaklak: Next Wednesday, August 22, we have the summer
edition of our mostly monthly OCTRIBE meetup for community managers
and those interested in community building
[08:44] bulaklak: We are going to do an open forum / roundtable
discussion at TechSoup HQ in SF

[08:44] Glitteractica Cookie: And those interested in social media in general

[08:44] bulaklak: But we will be live streaming to Adobe Connect and
will send that link around to anyone who registers

[08:44] bulaklak: Here is where to register
[08:44] bulaklak: http://bit.ly/OYY0Rp

[08:45] Glitteractica Cookie: and taking questions from the virtual participants

[08:46] bulaklak: Lastly, as Glitter noted last week, our team is
hiring. If you are or know an amazing on and offline events producer
in the Bay Area (yes, it’s a local job out of our SF office) then here
is the info
[08:46] bulaklak: http://bit.ly/OMn5lb
[08:46] bulaklak: Thanks, all! Have a great meeting and awesome weekend!

[08:47] Glitteractica Cookie: thanks bulaklak

[08:47] Zinnia Zauber: Do we have more TechSoup news?

[08:47] Glitteractica Cookie: Alebez?

[08:47] alebez: nope

[08:47] Glitteractica Cookie: anything we’ve forgotten?
[08:47] Glitteractica Cookie: Oh wait, I have one more

[08:48] Zinnia Zauber: great

[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: We are starting a breakfast speaker
series for Nonprofit tech folks in early October

[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: so, if you are in the SF Bay Area,
please join us. First one is on Oct 2
[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: not sure about whether we will live
stream into SL, but the live, in person series starts oct 2
[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: breakfast on us
[08:48] Glitteractica Cookie: ok, that is all

[08:48] Zinnia Zauber: Nice!
[08:49] Zinnia Zauber: Well, I know that we will all love it if more
cool events like that are streamed inworld for us.

[08:49] Glitteractica Cookie: topic is free tech resources and classes
for nonprofits and friends of nonprofits
[08:49] Glitteractica Cookie: it would be great to see some of you there

[08:49] bulaklak: oh great topic

[08:49] Zinnia Zauber: We are thankful that you look into providing that.

[08:49] Glitteractica Cookie: We are happy to provide it

[08:50] Zinnia Zauber: We will have to bring our own donuts. 🙂
[08:50] Zinnia Zauber: Super, thank you for all the TechSoup News!

Mentors Central

[08:50] Zinnia Zauber: Mentors Central
[08:51] Zinnia Zauber: Last week we discussed our upcoming NPC Birthday!
[08:51] Zinnia Zauber: We have Mentors that are taking names and ideas
for our special event on Sept 21.
[08:52] Zinnia Zauber: Buffy, Ozma, and Brena are taking names!
[08:52] Zinnia Zauber: We also have our meeting after this meeting to
brainstorm.
[08:53] Zinnia Zauber: How many of you been with the Nonprofit Commons
from the start?

[08:53] Glitteractica Cookie: me
[08:53] Glitteractica Cookie: ;-P

[08:53] Buffy Beale: hand up 🙂

[08:53] Oronoque Westland: since the first public meeting

[08:53] Zinnia Zauber: wow!

[08:53] Ozma Malibu: yep

[08:53] Glitteractica Cookie: coughran has been

[08:53] Zinnia Zauber: Look at that!

[08:54] Ozma Malibu: since stone circle days 🙂

[08:54] Zinnia Zauber: I remember reading about you all and had to
wait until I got cable to finally make it here!

[08:54] Glitteractica Cookie: there are lots from when we were on info isle
[08:54] Glitteractica Cookie: many are still here

[08:54] Zinnia Zauber: That is really something to celebrate!

[08:54] Glitteractica Cookie: archives are all on the npsl wiki

[08:54] Ozma Malibu: Rik, Rhiannon from time to time

[08:55] Zinnia Zauber: Please be sure to connect with the Mentors
about sharing your story during our celebration.

[08:55] Buffy Beale: I remember dancing for joy when I got the second
last office here 🙂

[08:55] Zinnia Zauber: lol That is great, Buffy! We all are in this together!

[08:55] Ozma Malibu: Buffy you were right next to the Floaters office

[08:55] Zinnia Zauber: How cool!

[08:55] Buffy Beale: yup we were neighbours 🙂

[08:56] Oronoque Westland: I am the permanent fly on the wall

[08:56] Zinnia Zauber: Please join us Sept 21, mark your cal!
[08:56] Zinnia Zauber: We will have speakers, music, and of course dancing!

[08:56] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Is there audio?

[08:56] Zinnia Zauber: We are in chat, Gridjumper.

“Virtual Vision 2020 – a community plan for Second Life” with Pam Broviak / Pam Renoir

[08:56] Zinnia Zauber: Okay!
[08:56] Zinnia Zauber: It is time for our speaker today!

[08:57] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): ok just checking wan’t sure if it was me

[08:57] Zinnia Zauber: Pam Broviak / Pam Renoir is going to discuss
Virtual Vision 2020, an initiative to develop a plan for the Second
Life community.
[08:57] Zinnia Zauber: Pam is a licensed professional engineer with 30
years of experience in public works, most of which was spent working
in local government.
[08:57] Zinnia Zauber: Since joining Second Life in late 2006, she has
been exploring how to leverage virtual world technology in delivering
engineering and government services.
[08:57] Zinnia Zauber: Recently she has been facilitating plans for
virtual communities by applying planning concepts traditionally used
for physical spaces.
[08:57] Zinnia Zauber: http://www.virtualvision2020.com
[08:58] Zinnia Zauber: I met Pam in DC in May and excited to have her
share with us this plan!
[08:58] Zinnia Zauber: Please welcome Pam!

[08:58] Gentle Heron applauds for Pam and for community planning.

[08:58] Merlin Moonshadow applauds

[08:58] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): 🙂 Hello everyone and thank you for
having me here today

[08:58] Buffy Beale: yay Pam!

[08:59] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): 🙂
[08:59] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Let me first share a general
explanation of what Virtual Vision is all about:
[08:59] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Virtual Vision 2020 is an attempt to
capture the community’s thoughts, ideas, opinions, and goals for
Second Life.
[08:59] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Modeled off the community planning
process that takes place in communities all across the world, this
virtual plan can help the Second Life community define itself, set
goals for its future, and offer a roadmap for success.
[09:00] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Before starting down this road, it’s
important to explore this question: What is a community plan?
[09:00] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): To paraphrase an ICMA’s publication,
A community plan helps people anticipate and prepare for their
collective future.
[09:00] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): More specifically it explains why
the plan is needed, identifies community goals and objectives,
compares options and sets priorities, and suggests actions and
solutions and explores how well they might meet expectations of the
community.
[09:01] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): It also identifies who might be best
positioned to carry out those actions or implement those solutions.
And finally it presents a method to measure the success of the plan.
[09:01] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): I was wondering if any of you have
participated in a community plan in your city or county?

[09:02] Gentle Heron has participated in community planning for her SL
community.

[09:02] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir) whispers: Gentle – what was the
timeline for your plan

[09:02] Ethelred Weatherwax: Yes

[09:02] bulaklak: What is the ICMA?

[09:03] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): ICMA = International City/County
Management Association

[09:03] bulaklak: thanks

[09:03] Dancers Yao: in my RL city…Los Angeles

[09:03] Zinnia Zauber: Pam, is it okay for people to ask questions
along the way or do you want them at the end?

[09:03] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): that organization provides guidance
to management of communities

[09:03] Tori Landau: Same as Gentle, was when the OU had a social
island. I was involved with the planning for the community then.

[09:03] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): yes, please ask as I speak or feel
free to chat while i talk

[09:03] Zinnia Zauber: super, thank you!

[09:03] Oronoque Westland: Pam Broviak (pam.renoir) whispers: Gentle –
what was the timeline for your plan

[09:04] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Zinnia – you can change the slide

[09:04] Zinnia Zauber: 🙂

[09:04] Ozma Malibu: wow Pam this is good timing, I am setting out to
organize my RL community so our SL gallery can manifest in a RL
historic district, first have to complete all the local paperwork as
we have national status now.
[09:05] Ozma Malibu: I am all ears. eyes.

[09:05] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Ozma – that is awesome! I believe
there is benefit to a RL/SL experience in planning
[09:05] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): we have much to learn from each environment
[09:06] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): So one question that might be asked
in here is: But why do we need a plan?
[09:06] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Again from ICMA, communities are
layers of human interaction and activity.
[09:06] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): And these interactions can lead to a
community’s confusion about its identity and purpose when they as a
whole occur with no guidance, purpose, or goal in mind.
[09:06] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): This also leads to a future vision
that is unclear and not defined.
[09:06] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): One consequence is that people
become hesitant about investing time and money in that community.
[09:07] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Obviously not every action occurring
in a community is done for the purpose of carrying out the plan’s
objectives.
[09:07] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): But if no actions take place with a
plan in mind, the community risks adequately providing for its
success.

[09:07] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Looking at the time zones one
possible solution would be to work with colleagues in differnt time
zones to make most use of space – leverage $$
[09:07] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): while some sleep other use the sapce
[09:07] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): exactly – it is a huge advantage of
the virtual space we can leverage

[09:08] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): While much of this happens on a
subtle level, I’ll give one of the more obvious examples of why this
is important.
[09:08] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Take Las Vegas – what do we think of
when we hear Las Vegas? That community spent years developing that
image.
[09:08] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): What do all of you think of when you
hear Las Vegas?

[09:08] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): gambling

[09:08] Oronoque Westland: losing my money

[09:08] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): 🙂

[09:09] Thynka Little: excessive energy use

[09:09] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): an oasis in the middle of a desert

[09:09] Dancers Yao: Elvis

[09:09] Ozma Malibu: party

[09:09] bulaklak: unreality

[09:09] Ethelred Weatherwax: foreclosed houses

[09:09] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Maing lemonade out of lemons

[09:09] Zotarah Shepherd: Gambling, entertainment

[09:09] Ozma Malibu: homeless in tunnels

[09:09] bulaklak: and buffets

[09:09] Thynka Little: dry heat

[09:09] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): fun

[09:09] Ozma Malibu: haha yes buffets

[09:09] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): sin city

[09:09] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): lol

[09:10] Zinnia Zauber: Where I buy all my sequins!

[09:10] Siculus: crime

[09:10] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): yes, one of the more well-branded
communities years in the making
[09:10] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): If you manage a large research
facility focusing on the study of corn and soybeans, would the lot
next to the Bellagio be a good investment as a future location for
your business?

[09:10] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): It has an identity for sure

[09:10] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Probably not.
[09:10] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): And if you had any doubts, you could
be sure of this by studying that area’s community plan.
[09:11] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): So while plans can drive investment,
they need to help ensure the most successful investment will take
place.

[09:11] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): They have one of the largest
school districts in the country – Clark County

[09:11] Thynka Little: http://www.extension.org/soybeans

[09:11] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): So if you want to open a gambling
place – it’s a great place, but maybe not so much for other types of
uses
[09:12] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): They have a huge employment base
because of the strip so many children
[09:12] bulaklak: Fascinating. Never thought of Vegas in terms of
identity management before, but I’ll never look at it without that
lens again.
[09:12] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): A community’s identity is critical
for its economic development

[09:12] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Hmmm so is SLs identity a problem for us?

[09:12] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Yes, Gridjumper, This will be a
critical component of a plan for Second Life.

[09:13] Buffy Beale: good question Tanya

[09:13] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Zinnia – you can change the slide
[09:13] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): In developing a plan for the Second
Life community, it seems logical to follow the process used in the
physical world.

[09:13] Zinnia Zauber: 🙂

[09:13] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): SLs identity is tied to LInden and
what they see as their future – do we know what that is?

[09:13] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): thanks 🙂
[09:13] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Grid – that is the challenge and why
I had hoped they would participate in this effort. But I do not see
that happening

[09:13] Lotta Flux: good point, gridjumper

[09:13] Gentle Heron: We may be seeing hints with the link to Steam.

[09:14] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): They are certainly watching
[09:14] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): if not participating

[09:14] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): It’s been successfully used for a
long time, and there are many examples to follow. However, we need to
adapt it to our virtual environment.
[09:14] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): These are the categories I’ve set up
so far to try to capture the most important sectors without getting
too detailed.

[09:15] Buffy Beale: One category I would think is Recreation (fun stuff)
[09:15] Buffy Beale: ohh silly me I see it now 🙂 scratch that

[09:15] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): yes recreation is a critical
component for our quality of life

[09:16] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Bandwith is a necessity

[09:16] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): i would definitely be interested in
feedback on these
[09:16] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): yes, i would place bandwidth in the
infrastructure and services category
[09:16] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Next slide please 🙂
[09:17] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): And this slide lays out the general
steps we will follow in developing the plan.

[09:17] Zinnia Zauber: 🙂

[09:17] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Right now, we are in the beginning phases.

[09:17] Ozma Malibu: there are 2 kinds of education going on:
SL-related (highly necessary) and educators from outside investigating
how SL can contribute to RL/distance ed
[09:17] Ozma Malibu: the latter are having trouble with financing now

[09:17] Thynka Little: the SL business plan and the community plan
would not be one and the same.

[09:18] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Exactly Ozma – education of us both
for RL and SL and us using education for RL purposes
[09:18] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Thynka – I believe you are correct –
although the plan for the community can address the business side of
it, a more detailed plan would help the business aspect much like a
downtown plan is used as a subplan for RL spaces

[09:19] Oronoque Westland: ? – Pam pls clarify who “we” is

[09:19] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): for the plan? the we would be anyone
on the planning team – it is a volunteer effort open to anyone who
wants to help

[09:20] Merlin Moonshadow: How do you propose to implement the plan?
Test communities that might then become part of an overall community?
Obviously, there won’t be a full implementation without Lindn Lab’s
support.

[09:20] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): so far I have only a few volunteers
– Thynka, Sandy Adam, and Eric Hackathorn

[09:20] Oronoque Westland: thank you

[09:21] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Merlin – you are correct – the best
implementation would have the support of LL because only they can
accomplish some of the goals. The plan should identify the best group
for implementation of each objective/goal
[09:21] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Then it would be up to those groups
to accept the responsibility for working towards that goal
[09:22] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Just like a RL plan that might
identify land owners or organizations, in the end only they can choose
to implement the suggestions
[09:22] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): So far we’ve had two workshops that
Georgianna Blackburn and I hosted at SL9B. And we are planning to host
many more.

[09:23] Merlin Moonshadow: And there’s still value in a voluntary
grass-roots effort to build a community plan.

[09:23] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): I would like to help this
effort. I think about these issues constantly.

[09:23] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Yes, Merlin that is what I finally
realized after watching SL9B

[09:23] Ozma Malibu: do you have RL educators involved, who are trying
to hang on here?

[09:24] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): It would be great to have as many of
you as possible help develop this plan- I really believe it would help
all of us so much as a community

[09:24] Oronoque Westland: I am hanging on by a thread

[09:24] Sarvana Haalan: It has been an uphill effort… with so little
funding 🙁

[09:24] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Ozma – I have talked to some people
in the education community – they are a vital component of this plan.
But I haven’t yet had a chance to present the idea to them

[09:24] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): There is a group of educators
associated with ISTE (SIGVE) they have a small space and there are
higher ed communities here and there

[09:25] Zotarah Shepherd: ISTE used to have 4 sims and weekly speakers
and a inworld TV show

[09:25] Oronoque Westland: @Pam, perhaps you could present this idea
to a VWER round table

[09:25] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Education is critical for our
success as a community – just as true here as in RL

[09:25] Merlin Moonshadow: VWBPE

[09:26] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): ISTE now has a small space and
monthly speakers

[09:26] Zotarah Shepherd nods

[09:26] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Oronoque – I would love to do that
and hope that some educators would volunteer to be on our planning
team
[09:26] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): ISTE would be a great partner i nthis
[09:27] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): So something I’ve been amazed about
and Something I hadn’t initially considered, but quickly realized was
the amazing amount of constructive feedback the Second Life community
provides online.

[09:28] Sarvana Haalan: indeed

[09:28] Ozma Malibu: We are losing our education island end of
December unless we find 2 more ppl/groups willing to share. just btw.

[09:28] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): It will be so helpful to capture
that information and use it in the development of the plan. This is
something that does not yet happen in our physical communities, but
hopefully someday will.

[09:28] Merlin Moonshadow: Since SL is a community of communities, how
can we define one single community to base a plan on?

[09:29] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Merlin – that is a great question i often see

[09:29] Ozma Malibu: a community of interwined communities, really

[09:29] Thynka Little: certainly parts of it are very vocal, and this
initiative would be looking to draw out participation from as broad a
user base as possible

[09:29] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): I guess I have approached it as we
do in our physical communities

[09:29] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): perhaps a database of all the
islands and timeframes of rent running out

[09:29] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): That is true Thynka

[09:29] Sarvana Haalan: Would th eplan help connect the communities
for collaborative activities?

[09:30] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): If ppl have a similar purpose but
are using the same during differnt times it could work

[09:30] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Yes Sarvana – it could very much
help provide a plan for assisting with those types of efforts which
might be critical to our success

[09:30] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Ok, so Once we have collected
feedback, we can create a draft plan. Then we’ll throw it out to the
community for review and comments. We can revise the plan based on the
information we receive and then finally publish. The plan can then be
used to help all of us work toward common goals to ensure our future
success as a community.

[09:30] Sarvana Haalan: Making “community” more than a word

[09:30] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Next slide please 🙂
[09:31] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): There are many ways to participate
in this effort. I’ve listed them on this slide.

[09:31] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): I like the range of possibilities

[09:31] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): And again, please let me know if you
want to help in any way. It is definitely an open, community effort
[09:31] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): or if you have any other ideas
definitely bring them up anytime
[09:32] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): We can go on to the next slide
[09:32] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): This is the last slide: You can
follow the progress of the plan on the Virtual Vision 2020 Website at
http://www.virtualvision2020.com or by joining our Second Life group.
[09:32] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): The last two things I want to
mention are that the plan will be published as a public domain
document – it will be most useful if there is no specific owner of the
plan.
[09:32] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): and again I want to add that this is
a volunteer effort by the community and not affiliated with Linden Lab
in any way. Although I believe it would be beneficial to have their
involvement, and I tried to propose the idea to them, they expressed
no interest at all in leading the effort.

[09:33] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): no interest in LEADING – any
interest in following?

[09:33] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): We have a few minutes left for
feedback and questions but feel free to ask anything

[09:33] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): supportin?
[09:34] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): LL imean

[09:34] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): I could only hope they would
participate somehow – maybe eventually LL will
[09:34] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): it would be so much better if we can
all work together

[09:34] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Have you considered any work in Opensim?
[09:34] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Lots of educational comunities have moved
[09:34] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): mostly due to pricing

[09:34] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): I do believe eventually in OS we
will have to do the same thing. We are working on a community plan
right now in MOSES

[09:35] Sarvana Haalan: any plans for Kitely?

[09:35] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Well it could start with support –
for and among eachohter

[09:35] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): I think Kitely is a great service
and very useful. Once they interconnect the sims it will also become
more of a regular community and could eventually benefit from a plan

[09:35] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): i believe that was on your list

[09:37] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Gridjumper – because the edu
community is so large and active, they probably would benefit from a
plan like Thynka suggested for the business community. That plan would
probably look at all worlds in its implementation.

[09:37] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): how do you join the group in sl?

[09:37] Oronoque Westland: ? – is there a need to clarify the
perspective the plan is coming from…seems to me we are more
advocates than we are community planners

[09:37] Sarvana Haalan: awesome… this gives quite a bit to share
with “doubting” colleagues when discussing our virtual “community”

[09:37] Thynka Little: i think of the community as separate and
distinct from any particular platform

[09:38] Veri Oddfellow: Oh, should have said before … Brad Lewis,
Great Strides, Damascus, MD http://www.greatstrides.org. Sorry so
late.

[09:38] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Oronoque – the plan will state that
objective. We are advocates but now are moving into planning mode.
It’s either that or allow others to choose our destiny

[09:38] Sarvana Haalan: I just joined via your Profile group listing

[09:38] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): One way to share with the doubters
– since it is not easy to bring them here – is Machinima or live
streaing

[09:38] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Thanks Sarvana- yes you can find the
group in my profile and join. Thanks!

[09:38] Gentle Heron: Just because we live next door to each other in
RL doesn’t mean we belong to the same community (or communities). Only
in the sense that we both pay taxes to the same entity, which gets to
make a “community plan” that affects how they run a sewer line to both
of us. We don’t either one of us get to choose the sewer line. The
tax-collecting entity does that.

[09:38] Sarvana Haalan: Me too,.. Sally S.Cherry, Baltimore, MD

[09:38] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): Virtual Vision 2020 click
this.. to join the Virtual Vision 2020 group

[09:39] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Thanks Magic!
[09:39] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): And yes, Machinima would be very
helpful in our effort

[09:39] Thynka Little: get Draxtor involved
[09:39] Thynka Little: i will contact him

[09:39] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): thanks any1

[09:40] Merlin Moonshadow: Do you think there’s a benefit in creating
a multipurpose plan that smaller communities could use yet that would
scale to a larger community?

[09:40] Sarvana Haalan: are the previous workshops archived?

[09:40] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): That is true Gentle – it’s why i
think an overall plan will work here even though we have so many
subcommunities – RL does not involve each specific community but
provides the broad picture
[09:40] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Merlin -yes most definitely – that
would be a great goal for the plan
[09:40] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Sarvana – I put up a summary on the
Virtual Vision Website of the first workshops

[09:41] Oronoque Westland: ? – are the slides available?

[09:41] Sarvana Haalan: Great!!!

[09:41] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): I can post them at
http://www.slideshare.com/publicworksgroup

[09:41] Oronoque Westland: oh, great…I would like to know more about
the workshops

[09:41] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you Pam!

[09:41] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): ok, i think we have to wrap up

[09:41] Zinnia Zauber: This has been super!

[09:41] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): thanks so very much for allowing me
to share this idea

[09:41] Gentle Heron: Thanks Pam, this is an excellent process for
community planning.

[09:41] Sarvana Haalan: Pam rocks!!!!! woot, woot!!! 🙂

[09:42] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): I am here only because I have a
day off – my school district blocks SL. Times of presentations and
events can be an issue – thus streaming and taping can be useful

[09:42] Oronoque Westland: I am thinking I can introduce my students
to this process

[09:42] Zinnia Zauber: I think everyone really wants to ask you more
and I bet they can IM you?

[09:42] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Bravo!!! Great job Pam.

[09:42] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): Very Brave and Ambitious Pam!
Ty for Leading This Initiative!

[09:42] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you for sharing this with us Pam! Awesome!

[09:42] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): ☆☆☆ HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooow! ☆☆☆

[09:42] Sarvana Haalan: I am still travel back from Atlanta… taking
the scenic route via Charlotte, NC. LOL, LOL

[09:42] Tori Landau: Thanks Pam, a lot to think about °͜°

[09:43] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): yes, definitely! i can talk about
planning and virtual worlds all day lol

[09:43] Zinnia Zauber: I know we want to! lol

[09:43] Sarvana Haalan: And she knows what she is talking about…

[09:43] Buffy Beale: Cheering! this was so interesting

[09:43] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you so much!

[09:43] Merlin Moonshadow: Thanks, Pam!

[09:43] Sarvana Haalan: Thanks Pam

[09:43] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Thanks to all of you!

Open Mic / Announcements

[09:43] Zinnia Zauber: Okay, before we hit our Open Mic! I have links
for you all!
[09:44] 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

About TechSoup the sponsors of the Nonprofit Commons:

http://www.techsoup.org/stock/howtousetechsoup.asp

http://flavors.me/techsoup
[09:44] 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)
[09:44] Zinnia Zauber: Okay!
[09:44] Zinnia Zauber: Who has an Open Mic Announcement?

[09:45] Thynka Little: me 🙂
[09:45] Thynka Little: The 5th annual Virtual State Fair Week,
sponsored by Cooperative Extension, will be September 10-16. Any
non-profit with content related to the Extension focus areas is
welcome to put up an exhibit on the fairgrounds. Please message me for
details. The fair is located at
[09:45] Thynka Little: Morrill (131,6,24)

[09:45] Gentle Heron: Virtual State Fair is more fun than a barrel of corn dogs!

[09:45] Zinnia Zauber: lol

[09:46] Thynka Little: to figure out if your content relates go to extension.org

[09:46] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): http://www.extension.org

[09:46] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Next Tuesday night SIGVE is having
an event for Connected Educators – Please stop by SIGVE or watch on
youtube http://sigve.weebly.com/connect.html

[09:47] Lotta Flux: Grid, Do you have the SLURL or LM?

[09:47] Zinnia Zauber: Excellent! We WA folks know how to teach and party in SL!

[09:47] Sarvana Haalan: lol, indeed so Z

[09:47] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): The destinations are:
Second Life ISTE SIGVE Headquarters at EduIsland 9 (41,93,22)
Virtual Pioneers at EduIsland 9 (106,77,22)
VSTE at VSTE Island (59,193,28)
SLEEC at SLEEC Island (31,192,22)
Games MOOC at Front Range in Second Life at Front Range (148,88,33)
Cognitive Disonance Guild at World of Warcraft Sisters of Elune Server

[09:47] Lotta Flux: thx!

[09:48] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Each of the ed sites will give a 9
minute tour the whole thing is bieng streamed via Google hangout
[09:48] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): It starts at SIGVE HQ

[09:48] Zinnia Zauber: That is great Gridjumper!

[09:48] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): The method has been working very
well and one I would recommend to this group

[09:48] Sarvana Haalan: cool

[09:49] Zinnia Zauber: Super!
[09:49] Zinnia Zauber: Any other announcements?

[09:49] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): If the goal is to bring in new ppl
[09:49] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): for support etc

[09:49] Zinnia Zauber: good plan, events are super for that!

[09:49] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): 9PM EST next tuesday
[09:49] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): August 21
[09:50] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): Yes perhaps SIGVE could partner
with this group
[09:50] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): we seem to have similar goals

[09:50] Zinnia Zauber: Let’s talk about that!

[09:50] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): Don’t forget to join the virtual
vision group if you want to keep up with the progress or volunteer!
🙂

[09:51] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): Virtual Vision 2020 click
this.. to join the Virtual Vision 2020 group

[09:51] Zinnia Zauber: Great!
[09:51] Zinnia Zauber: Any other announcements?

[09:52] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): <– motions to adjourn

[09:52] Zinnia Zauber: Okay, one more thing before we go.
[09:52] Zinnia Zauber: Not so fast Magic! lol

[09:53] Sarvana Haalan: we never adjourn here… we just pause… lol, lol

[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: I wanted to encourage everyone to set in their
Prefs to not let your avatar to sleep.
[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: Do you guys know how to do that?
[09:53] Zinnia Zauber: I take much better photos when everyone is awake!

[09:54] Dancers Yao: how?

[09:54] Thynka Little: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[09:54] Zinnia Zauber: And, it makes our speakers feel great if you are awake!

[09:54] Lotta Flux: lol

[09:54] Zinnia Zauber: okay

[09:54] Sarvana Haalan: true

[09:54] Buffy Beale: lol Thynka

[09:54] Gentle Heron: Yes Zinnia, but more accurate photos when some
of us are asleep.

[09:54] Merlin Moonshadow: So pass out the caffeine, Zinnia. 😉

[09:54] Zinnia Zauber: Under Me >

[09:54] Sarvana Haalan: tea for me, please…. hehe

[09:54] Zinnia Zauber: Preferences

[09:55] Karaoke String: peanut butter and jelly marshmellows for me please

[09:55] Zinnia Zauber: General >

[09:55] Karaoke String: i just found the recipe

[09:55] Gentle Heron: Me -> Preferences -> General -> Away Timeout
(set it for over an hour)

[09:55] Zinnia Zauber: At the bottom, you see Away Timeout
[09:55] Zinnia Zauber: Yes, or never

[09:55] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): / Control P preferences..
General tab… in Viewer 3 there is an Away Timeout pulldown… more
complexicated in other browsers… … V1 variants.. Ctrl Alt D to get
Advanced Menu… then Advanced > Character > Character Tests > CHECK
Go Away/AFK When Idle

[09:56] Zinnia Zauber: Thank you guys for helping!

[09:56] Sarvana Haalan: I have mine set on “Never”.

[09:56] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): Uncheck***

[09:56] Zinnia Zauber: Please set that, we never sleep in SL!

[09:56] Oronoque Westland: I never go to sleep, not even in RL

[09:56] Zinnia Zauber: Great meeting and thank you all for being part
of our community!

[09:56] Gentle Heron: oh Oro!

[09:56] Zinnia Zauber: hehe

[09:56] Buffy Beale: ohh Oro have a nap then

[09:56] Glitteractica Cookie: Thanks

[09:57] Sarvana Haalan: This is My Life… I never sleep… I let
“Sally” do the sleeping… LOL, LOL

[09:57] Buffy Beale: lol Sar

[09:57] Gridjumper (tanya.smedley): TY very interesting presentaiton

[09:57] alebez: thank you!

[09:57] Merlin Moonshadow: Thanks, everyone. I have to run back to RL. 🙂

[09:57] Sarvana Haalan: Excellent presentation!!

[09:57] Zinnia Zauber: We have the Mentors Meeting at 10:05
[09:57] Zinnia Zauber: ANd, thank you you again Pam!

[09:57] Magic Pathfinder (any1.gynoid): yes, great meeting ty
everyone! Huggles ZINNIA! u da boss!

[09:57] Zinnia Zauber: lol, thank you Magic!

[09:57] Sarvana Haalan: going for my tea now… brb

[09:58] Buffy Beale: bye all who aren’t staying after have a great week

[09:58] Glitteractica Cookie: bye alll=

[09:58] Pam Broviak (pam.renoir): yes, thanks to everyone!

[09:58] Zinnia Zauber: Please take care!

[09:58] Gentle Heron waves to everyone who is leaving

– End of Line –

Written by: Zinnia Zauber

August 21, 2012

“Ethnography and Virtual Worlds” with Tom Boellstorff / Tom Bukowski for August 24 Nonprofit Commons Meeting

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting
August 24, 2012, 8:30 AM SLT / PST
Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/88/126/26

On Friday August 24, University of California in Irvine Professor Tom Boellstorff / Tom Bukowski will discuss his book, “Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: a Handbook of Method“, that he coauthored with Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce and, T. L. Taylor. (Princeton University Press, 2012)

“Ethnography and Virtual Worlds” is the only book of its kind – a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results.

Tom Boellstorff is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine; from 2007–2012 he was Editor-in-Chief of “American Anthropologist”, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association. His research projects have focused on questions of virtual worlds, sexuality, globalization, nationalism, language, and HIV/AIDS. He is the author of many articles and the books “The Gay Archipelago” (Princeton University Press, 2005); “A Coincidence of Desires” (Duke University Press, 2007); and “Coming of Age in Second Life” (Princeton University Press, 2008).

http://faculty.sites.uci.edu/boellstorff/

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9882.html

AGENDA

8:30 AM Introductions

8:40 AM TechSoup Announcements

8:45 AM “Ethnography and Virtual Worlds” with Tom Boellstorff / Tom Bukowski

9:35 AM Mentors Central

9:45 AM Open Mic / Announcements

http://nonprofitcommons.org

Written by: Zinnia Zauber

July 17, 2012

Universal Design for Learning Spaces in VW with Blu Heron / Wanda Hardy of ISTE for July 20 Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting
July 20, 2012, 8:30 AM SLT / PST
Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/88/126/26

This Friday, July 20, Blu Heron / Wanda Hardy will join us at the Nonprofit Commons to talk about Universal Design in Learning (UDL) and share the key points of a professional learning “package” that bundles Virtual World (VW) accessibility issues, resources, and workshop-style activities for engaging educators in collaborative solutions inworld. It is impossible to create a virtual classroom that is usable by everyone, in all situations. It is possible to use an UDL process that results in products, environments, and experiences that are usable for the largest group of people in a VW and effects differentiated teaching and differentiated learning.

About Blu:

Blu Heron / Wanda Hardy earned her Masters of Education, Educational Technology, Sacramento State University, CA. Her involvement in education spans many years and includes: 16 years teaching high school sciences; 17 years as a community educator, web site developer, and software tester for an electrical utility; and volunteer mentor in Second Life (SL) for the International Society for Technology (ISTE). Currently is teaching building classes for the Builders Brewery in SL.

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting

July 20, 2012, 8:30 AM SLT / PST

Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/88/126/26

AGENDA

8:30 AM Introductions

8:40 AM TechSoup Announcements

8:45 AM Mentors Central

9:55 Universal Design for Learning Spaces in Virtual Worlds with Blu Heron / Wanda Hardy of the International Society for Technology (ISTE)

9:30 AM Open Mic / Announcements

http://nonprofitcommons.org

http://techsoup.org

Written by: Zinnia Zauber

July 3, 2012

Libraries, Museums and Immersive Learning with Valibrarian / Dr. Valerie Hill of Texas Woman’s University for July 6 Meeting

This Friday, July 6, Valibrarian / Dr. Valerie Hill will join us at the Nonprofit Commons to talk about the digital revolution that is changing libraries and museums. Dr. Valerie Hill is an adjunct instructor at TWU School of Library and Information Science and a school librarian. Her interests include media literacy, human-computer interaction, and the impact of the digital revolution on education and libraries. As a National Writing Trainer, she specializes in connecting literature to writing, digital storytelling and multi-media production. http://vhill.edublogs.org/ https://www.youtube.com/user/valibrarian

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting

July 6, 2012, 8:30 AM SLT / PST

Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/88/126/26

AGENDA
8:30 AM Introductions
8:40 AM TechSoup Announcements
8:45 AM Mentors Central
9:55 Libraries, Museums and Immersive Learning with Valibrarian / Dr. Valerie Hill of Texas Woman’s University School of Library and Information Science
9:30 AM Open Mic / Announcements

http://nonprofitcommons.org

Written by: Zinnia Zauber

March 26, 2012

Positive Work Being Done in Second Life & Other Virtual Worlds

One of the efforts the Mentors group has been focused on these last few weeks has been on this project of collecting news and other interesting items that would reflect the kinds of positive work being done in Second Life and other virtual worlds settings. The idea has been to then share this perspective with the world at large in order to help balance out the general image presented by popular media, which tends more often to focus on Second Life and virtual worlds as places for purely recreational gaming or which tends to take a perspective that perhaps highlights more potentially sensationalistic pursuits, like virtual sex.

So as part of this effort by the Mentors group over the last several weeks, I’ve been gathering items I thought were especially interesting from this standpoint to share. As I collected and began to study the items that caught my attention, I realized they were falling into three general categories for me…

First Category: Items Focused on How People Think of and Behave Towards the Virtual & One Another.

These items provide opportunities for exploring and perhaps changing how we perceive & understand virtual spaces, as well as opportunities to consider how we relate to one another both concerning virtual spaces and within them. These are topics I find especially interesting to consider given my intrinsic interests in the social sciences, philosophy, and the human experience.

TEDxVictoria ~ Alexandra Samuel: Ten Reasons to Stop Apologizing for your Online Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui2ZwO-efo0

National Geographic Assignment Blog ~ The Great Online Migration by Alexandra Samuel: http://nationalgeographicassignmentblog.com/2012/01/19/the-great-online-migration/

The Society Pages, Cyborgology ~ There is No “Cyberspace” by PJ Rey: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/02/01/there-is-no-cyberspace/

The Society Pages, Cyborgology ~ The Real and the Loss of Cyberspace: by PJ Rey: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/02/08/the-real-and-the-loss-of-cyberspace/

The RSA Networked Blogs, Social Brain ~ Twitter is to humans as….grooming is to primates? by Jonathan Rowson: http://networkedblogs.com/utx0H

Second Category: Items about Second Life Being Used to Help & Empower Others and for Self-Development.

ScienceDaily, Science News ~ Avatars Help People Develop Real World Skills by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) [content of the news article was based on findings from the Inter-Life Project: http://www.tel.ac.uk/inter-life (I found the YouTube about the project very interesting.)]: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111207104817.htm

U.S. Army ~ DoD gives PTSD help ‘second life’ in virtual reality by Alexandra Hemmerly-Brown: http://www.army.mil/article/50751/dod-gives-ptsd-help-second-life-in-virtual-reality/

Mayo Clinic, Center for Innovation ~ Transform 2011, Breakout Sessions: Delivering Care in Second Life by Davee Commerce, Gentle Heron, Panacea Luminos & Silver Evensong: http://centerforinnovation.mayo.edu/transform/2011/breakout-sessions.html

BBC News, Health ~ Virtual gym ‘helps weight loss’: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13643471

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication ~ An Exploration of Why People Participate in Second Life Social Support Groups Sara Green-Hamann, Kristen Campbell Eichhorn, John C. Sherblom: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01543.x/full

For Equal Rights ~ Text in Virtual Worlds (“Chat”) benefits all. BUT HOW? by Sister Abeyante: http://4equalrights.blogspot.com/2012/03/text-in-virtual-worlds-chat-benefits.html

Third Category: Items about Second Life Being Used for Education & Learning:

eLearn Magazine ~ Second Life for Medical Education by Nicholas A. Spooner, Patrick C. Cregan, Mohamed Khadra: http://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=2035934

Advances in Human-Computer Interaction ~ Research Article: 3D Interactions between Virtual Worlds and Real Life in an E-Learning Community by Ulrike Lucke and Raphael Zender: http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ahci/2011/684202/

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ~ The James Webb Space Telescope: Come visit the Webb Telescope on Second Life!: http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/secondlife.html

U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) ~ Second Life as an Archaeological Tool (Podcast 5)(a transcript & audio podcast with Ruth Tringham about her work on Okapi Island): transcript: http://ncptt.nps.gov/second-life-as-an-archaeological-tool/ & audio podcast: http://www.ncptt.nps.gov/Podcasts/archive/Preservation-Technology-Episode-5-Tringham.mp3

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 5th Annual Conference: http://www.vwbpe.org/

A Virtual Worlds, Games and Education Tour MOOC (VWMOOC): http://vwmooc.wordpress.com/

Finding and studying these examples has really opened my eyes to the kind of creative thought and innovative, constructive work being done in virtual settings. As I’ve encountered and studied these items, I’ve also shared them with friends & colleagues as well as with others in the broader social network environments I inhabit.

I hope that you’ll find some of these items as interesting as I did and also consider sharing them with others. And speaking of sharing, if you’ve encountered similar news or other similarly interesting items I would invite you to please share them with us here!

P.S. I’m realizing in hindsight that I’ve entirely missed items related to the arts, which is a glaring omission! From my own experience, I know that Second Life has a great deal to offer in this area of endeavor as well, so there must be news or other items out there highlighting some of the incredibly creative work being done; I would personally be grateful if people could also share items related to the arts and making a difference.

Written by: Jerry Buchko

February 29, 2008

Sharon Burns’ Virtual Worlds video tour

I just took Sharon Burns’ virtual worlds tour and I recommend it, especially if you always wanted to know about the leading virtual worlds, but SL eats up all your time, and you couldn’t possibly dare to enter another metaverse.

She surveyed kids’ and adults’ virtual worlds (also referred to as: immersive worlds, metaverses, the 3-D web and MMORPG)

Here is a snapshot of the landscape of worlds she covers, and a few words on each one:

There.com– Similar Audience to SL, not as much role playing, a few nonprofits are there, they have 1 million active users, and users can purchase There bucks (they have a currency).

Entropia– Not much to say except that it is a MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing game) with fierce graphics and their users spend a long time on the game. She cited MMORPGs to the new way that people are having online community

World Of Warcraft– They are the grand daddy of all MMORPGs. They have 10 million active users, nuff said.

Gaia Online — They have an audience of 8-18 year olds. Most of their users are in the 14-16 year old range. The have art contests and poetry forums. It’s a creative space. I think what makes Gaia online particularly compelling (and Sharron may not have known this, b/c she did not reference this) is that their accompanying discussion forum that is the online community companion to the virtual world is the number one forum on the Internet. with nearly 12 million members.

Club Penguin– For kids, acquired by Disney for an enormous amount of money, it costs $5.95/month to play and there are 15 million registered users

Hi pi Hi– Launched this year, in Mandarin, a chinese version of Second Life that has commerce, community and collaboration.

Y-ville– Launched in 1999, it’s an education-based virtual world that is mainly focused on science learning. It has the backing of orgs like NASA and the CDC. Mostly girls belong to Y-ville.

Webkins– it was the first site to integrate a real-world purchase with a game or virtual world. You buy (adopt) a toy and then use the secret code on the product to access the world, where you can dress and house your pet. It’s a kids’ site, obviously.

Mokitown– for 8-12 year olds, a community about traffic and safety.

Although this tour was only 8 minutes, it provided a good fly-over of the landscape. There was very little mention of nonprofits, as most of the above virtual worlds do not have a nonprofit presence. The real tour that we are all on the edge of our seats for is the part 2, the Second Life tour. I will be sure to let you all know about it, when it comes out.

Written by: Glitteractica_Cookie