Second Rant #6 - SLCC

hmm.. this "lost its cool" thing.. this concern for maintaining a bleeding edge clique.. is very concerning to me.. it seems to be worrying like a "feted outer core"..

I agree that the key to it all is understanding how most people use SL and metaverses. Surely we should be celebrating all these new users and the creative innovators should be fully engaged with them.. not in seperate events ?

BTW, it was very nice to meet you at SLCC, Prokofy.

"The live music is where the organizers really fell down on the job."
I felt bad when Louis Landon was playing to an empty room during lunch.
The guy's great. At the least, he should have been playing in the dining area so everyone could enjoy his music.

"What is this... some kind of cult?"
Well, in my case, um... yes?
Not sure why the MSM sends out the ancient reporters who have no technosavvy to cover tech stories. Whenever I saw it happen at KTRK, I cringed and knew the public was not getting quality news coverage.

"... making a thousand dollars or more."
What about measuring cost-savings for people or companies by reducing travel costs, or musicians who can book gigs virtually, or musicians who can repurpose RL gigs into SLcasted gigs.

"Coke/Paint The Town Red"
Viral appears to be working for now, but at some point they and the beer companies will start putting money in there. Pabst Blue Ribbon supports NPR podcasts and they claim to support music online, so we'll see if that eventually extends to SL. And, yes, the Virtual Hot Wings Coke machine kiosk I made for Matthew Ebel was done for a free copy of the album, so I guess that's viral, too.
(I also wonder when the prescription drug companies will try making their own "[Pill] Island")

Dizzy, I'm not one to follow the cool kids, as you may have gathered. It was clear the cool kids long since passed on, and left SLCC to the oldbie original cool kids who don't realize the train left the station. But I was still there myself, simply because I had a hunch this might be the largest and most diverse gathering of its kind, and would be unlikely to repeat after this. After all, there are already conferences for SL planned in Germany and there have been some in the UK -- it's a big place, and is already dividing along geographical if not thematic lines.

Still, I think it's important to report that it has lost its coolness factor -- and maybe that's a good thing for some, if SL settles down to being a tool in their kit to enhance real life or create alternatives to it easily, and not an end destination in itself. I still think to make it even valid as a tool, one has to be more concerned with it as an end destination, but that conversation about the structure of the world itself is admittedly an esoteric one that arguably could be happening at SOP (but doesn't seem to) and will have to seek some new venue for the future.

Crap, it would be interesting to measure cost savings. I still get the impression that people meet in SL and claim cost savings in part to convince themselves its all worth it.

Prok: That's an interesting conversation about cost savings. I'm not sure what context you were thinking of in the post above, but I discussed the Second Life Best Practices in Education conference that was held in-world this past spring with several people in the education track at SLCC, and many said they were amazed at how much the experience of SLBPE felt similar to the experience of being in the education track at SLCC.

Talking with many of the same people on Skype or typing to them in text at SLBPE did not even come close to meeting and hanging out with them in-person at SLCC, so I agree that no virtual gathering replaces meeting face-to-face and having laughs and real hugs and great dinner conversation with one another. So in many ways there IS no comparison.

But I have to wonder - SLBPE had 1300 unique visitors, SLCC had.. 850ish total, apx 250ish were educators? The total budget for SLCC was.. how much? Plus, how much did we all spend on travel, time traveling, lodging, meals, internet access? When you sum it all up, SLCC was _quite_ an expensive event compared to the truly tiny budget of SLBPE (which mostly went to compensate speakers and pay a few minor fees for web services). From an organizer's perspective, if you can get greater attendance and 70-80% of the benefit of a real life conference for .05% of the cost, which would you choose? (Wildly guessing on numbers there to illustrate the point.) And for participants, the SLBPE event cost nothing above and beyond the cost of internet access and hardware they already had.

I think there are other potential benefits to conferences held in virtual worlds as well - if the costs aren't so prohibitive, organizers can afford to give opportunities to present to budding academics or individuals with great ideas but perhaps not the same lengthy CV as is required to get on a panel at a physical conference. It may also be a great venue for sharpening and practicing one's presentation skills in the comfort of your own home - without all the stress of travel and stage fright when you look out into a sea of faces, which might better prepare up and coming academics for presenting at real life venues. Nevermind all of the lessons that we organizers learned about putting an event like that together in the digital world. Where do those benefits fit into the calculus, even if they can't be quantified in monetary terms?

Ultimately, the vision of greater access to opportunity, knowledge, services, experts, and experiences through virtual worlds for more people is why I'm here in the first place. I genuinely believe the technology increasingly is and will even moreso in the future reduce the cost of access. Teachers in Germany who couldn't get funding or afford to finance a trip to Chicago themselves _could and did_ come to an in-world conference about Education in SL, and I have to believe based on all the comments and feedback that they got something positive out of the experience. I don't want virtual conferences to replace real world gatherings, I want them to supplement them, expand choices, and give access to people who otherwise can't participate.

Am I really just rationalizing?

SLCC *was* quite expensive, in fact, and the sponsors only knocked off about $25 of the cost. It was some $190 for the registration fee (low cost compared to other business/marketing conferences but possibly higher than educational conferences and non-profit conferences). The hotel was discounted to $159 -- but I found the exact same discount on travelhero.com 3 days before the conference -- no big cut there. We got exactly 2 lunches, and no open bar, and no dinner. A bit of swag, and workshops which we weren't allowed to tape.I think it could be done for less even in RL.

Yes, I suppose if you look at conferencing in SL as "prototype conferencing" where you get to "practice" a presentation and try it out while sitting in your pajamas, maybe it looks better. I actually think you could have a "real and actual" conference, too, but it likely requires a group of likeminded or already-connected people.