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April 12, 2007
My Second Life experience...
Wednesday's 'chat with Ron about Virtual Worlds' session in Second Life with the SCOPE community didn't exactly go as I had anticipated. I didn't realize that some of the participants wouldn't be on the skypecast for audio, so I had to try to type and talk at the same time (near impossible for me!). Focussing on just typing chat started to get a discussion going since that's what most had available and that was great, but then trying to get back into the skype cast nearly crashed my laptop and didn't work too well. Chaos, but the participants and facilitators were nice, patient and asked some great questions.
I liked how cool it was to see everyone's profile to know where they were from - all over! It was a beautiful environment that seemed perfect for an engaging dialogue - it just was tough for me to get used to getting my thoughts out quickly on the keyboard. Even when the audio worked, the avatars were just sitting there though. I wasn't too sure how to indicate that I was talking or how to gesture easily. I think in these early days we can expect participants to have trouble with this, too - while there were many veterans there were also some that created memberships that day. I'd love to know what their expectations were and are now.
I'm really glad to have tried the live session as I learned a lot about how to facilitate when you don't have embedded VOIP, and reminded me about the need for a dry run and ample, clear communication with participants about how it will all work. I don't think mixing audio/no audio in the same session will work too well. What do you think?
I've offered to host a follow up session in There.com where we can have voice and more expressive avatars. We'll be using it at our Seriously Mobile Summit on the 20th to connect panelists in the US with our onsite panelists in the UK. While it will still be a bit tricky to blend with a room full of conference partipants, it should be fun.
Posted by Ron Edwards at April 12, 2007 10:17 PM
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