Metaversed Live: Metanomics 101 Audio

I was a bit underwhelmed by yesterdays Metanomics lecture. I just didn't get it. I listened again today and I'm still not any wiser.

There were plenty of facts and some analysis but it was all a bit dry and unimaginative to me. I think maybe I'm not the correct audience. Sure, I like exploring virtual worlds and enjoy exchanging ideas, relating my experience and listening to others relate theirs. I just find listening to too many bare facts and extraneous analysis difficult and needlessly complex.

I do see some value in exploring the different approaches to making a living in virtual worlds and I look forward to the rest of the the series. I have read some of the upcomming speakers and enjoyed their work. As I attempt to understand the virtual worlds that I now inhabit, instead of academic analysis, I prefer to explore with story and metaphor.

In the spirit of constructive criticism I offer two slideshow I found, firstly Roo Reynolds recent presentation from the dubiously titled conference Serious Virtual Worlds in Coventry

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........and another humorous off topic but nonetheless educational one from Alexi Kapterev.

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So I suppose I can leave the Meta-meta-complexity of academic analysis for another day and instead continue to explore the Metaphors of the Metaverse,

Anthony DeMello - "You have yet to understand, my friends, that the shortest distance between a human being and truth is a story.'"

Thanks for taking time to tell how you feel Joi, it's hard to be the dissenting voice sometimes, and the criticism is much appreciated.

I agree with you that the academic nature of the Metanomics course might not be the best fit for everyone. In fact, like you, I'd be pretty surprised if it were. You and I think very alike in terms of what interests us, and what kinds of information and levels of detail are required to do that, though I did listen to the video of the presentation this morning and have to say that as i'd missed a good deal of it by dealing with IM's etc on the actual day of the event, I found it pretty enlightning I thought Rob did a good job of making academia interesting even to someone like me!

I'd be interested to learn exactly what you would change, what you think would make such presentations more suitable for you, or what kinds of other discussions you'd like to see during, or apart from the Metanomics series.

Thanks again.

Joi,

I love that second slide show! Powerpoint is a challenge in Second Life, especially rules like "one point per slide" and "lots of graphics," because every slide change is fraught with risk...the more transitions, the more likely something goes wrong. (Keep in mind that what the speakers say in Skype is heard by in Second Life about 10-20 seconds later.) But as we get more comfortable with these presentations, our visual aids may get more impressive.

Ultimately, though, speakers are far more important than slides. I fully expect to be the least interesting speaker of the series. So while the show may not be designed for everyone (primary audiences are executives running real and virtual businesses, MBA students, regulators and researchers), some of the speakers will have pretty broad appeal.

I find economics very abstract from the world I live in, I know for a lot of people it is a real and accurate way to describe the world, its just not very useful to me.

(Disclosure: I didn't really like school and dropped out of economics class, althought the teacher spoke a lot about pricing widgets, which is probably a useful skill to have these days ;-) ......)

I know Robert had a hard job - I think its difficult for one person alone to engage an audience for any length of time. When 2 or more people are involved the talk becomes a discussion and takes on a life of its own, usually more compelling.

I enjoy watching/listening to someone relate their personal experience, what they have learned and what is their vision for moving forward. I think complimentary graphics are also useful for engaging people. For me the beauty of a 3D world is that it also allows a kinesthetic experience http://www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm

The events that work best for me are ones in which I am involved. Where I can do something. For example scripting or building workshops where I can rez objects and get them to do things, surrounded by others who are doing the same. (using the 3D space).

Possible discussion topics

1: Dear Business......the land area is infinite, distance is irrelevant, I can teleport, I can fly, I can travel from London to NY in 1.25 seconds......what are You going to do about it?

2: "A person's face will always reveal his true feelings"......Great networking and collaboration tool but wheres the body language?

3: Is the non-customisable avatar like a corporate uniform - a (sure to backfire) means of control that restrict self expression and creativity?

Looking forward to the rest of the series.

The events that work best for me are ones in which I am involved. Where I can do something. For example scripting or building workshops where I can rez objects and get them to do things, surrounded by others who are doing the same. (using the 3D space).

It sounds like technology related events and discussions are what you enjoy Joi. Bearing that in mind I think you're absolutely spot on with this series, it's just not what you're interested in, so will of course not appeal to you.

Hopefully some of the individual sessions will appeal to you a bit better as well as different events that Metaversed run, like First Friday for example.

Thanks again!

Pushing 3D boundaries.......Yep Nick, I do think its worth trying to imagine new ways of using the 3D space to its fullest.

A few months back I went to a business workshop run by IBM, the guy who facilitated it built a spiral tower especially for the event. The workshop was over on the Library sims and started like any other workshop, the audience seated in front of a podium.

After 5 minute introduction, he lead the whole audience, about 50 of us to explore his spiral tower. Which was arranged in sections with displays and notecard givers. The subject of the talk was IBMs approact to business in Second Life. I suppose each section (about 20) corresponded to what would conventionally be a powerpoint slide. It mapped out the narrative of IBMs presence on SL, in 3d space. - A walkthrough!

While requiring a lot of work and not entirel without problems (ceiling height, Lag) it was a brave effort and a step in the right direction.

Or if we look at Grace McDunnoughs exciting new “Musimmersion” experience http://tarayeats.com/?p=36 reviewed here by Tara Yeats.

These examples of thinking past our conventional RL metaphors of concerts, workshops or talks and using the 3D tools in new ways are definitely worth exploring.

*discalimer- I might lose the plot during this post.*

I only heard the audio of the presentation but i did find it interesting. Of course, I'm a one person business instead of a big corporate entity, so it's a little hard to relate at the moment. How would these ideas apply to super-small microbusiness?

1) Immersionist because of the nature of the medium(SL) and the need to pay tier.
2) Augmentationalist because designers are working on upskilling as well as a degree of income suppliment.
3) Experimentalist? Sl can hardly be called a controlled environment, but might serve as a small business incubator for digital content providers, which is why I started in SL.

Would it then be called Micrometanomics?

Other topics i'd like to hear discussed include:
1) With unlimited supply, how is the role of demand affected? Should we be trying to create fads?
2) Factoring people into the equation, meaning, keeping big corporate builds staffed and interesting, giving people something to do, strategies to gain word of mouth advertising, or go viral. And can that be canned? Would a formulaic approach to site popularity, once exposed as such, have the opposite affect?
3) Avatars: potential customers or assets to be "leveraged" ?
4) Measuring sucess (traffic, dwell, number of hits, SL&RL sales, )

I'm admittedly all about small business, but it seems that the corporate types might have something to learn from grassroots efforts.

Thanks, looking forward to more, sorry if i lost the plot.
drO

OK, I'm the IBM guy -- :-)

I'm Doug Mandelbrot in-world and Doug McDavid in real life. I had the opportunity to give a "talk" on Info Island, where, as a librarian in a previous life, I hang out a lot.

The spiral building was an experiment, and if anyone wants to see it, it is still available at this SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info Island/52/64/33/ . The building is much improved (ceiling height), and the lag is episodic. The lag at the event was a mixed blessing, since there were up to 66 avatars in attendance during the talk.

The talk itself was an experiment, in using a virtual world to do something that's not possible in the real world. It's not often that a speaker can create a building, put it down in an empty lot next to the auditorium, and lead the audience through an interactive social event, staged on a structure created for the occasion. With the whole thing being put together in the equivalent of about a working day or two.

Anyway, thanks for the write-up, and glad you had some fun!