As part of our ongoing collaboration with Manpower, Inc., DIP developed and produced a major virtual event originated from the virtual world of Second Life and simulcast across the web to an international audience. DIP constructed a one-of-a-kind conference space for the event which culminated in the live event, the Evolution of the Virtual Workforce“. (Click here to watch an HD version of the complete event hosted on the Treet.TV archives.)
Over 250 people participated in the live discussion (a complete transcript is on The Imagination Age blog) via software that allowed viewers on the web to chat with people inside Second Life without the web viewers having to install the Second Life client.
The event featured digital work expert Don Tapscott, best-selling author of “Grown-Up Digital” and “Wikinomics.” Tapscott was joined by Manpower Inc. Chairman and CEO Jeff Joerres; Linden Lab Executive Director of Enterprise Marketing, Amanda Van Nuys; Manpower Senior Vice President for Global Workforce Strategy, Tammy Johns; Manager of e-learning Strategy and Education Solutions for IBM’s Center for Advanced Learning; Chuck Hamilton; and President of Louisiana Digital Workforce non-profit 3D Squared, Spencer Zuzolo. The event was moderated by CEO and Creative Director of Dancing Ink Productions, Rita J. King.
“Since we established our presence in Second Life two years ago, social networks have completely evolved the labor market,” said Manpower Inc. Chairman and CEO Jeff Joerres. “Now, every social network has some underlying current related to job searching or career development. We are seeing the emergence of a flexible new model for virtual work, led by entrepreneurial, tech-savvy individuals who dictate when, where and how they work. We are focused on what motivates and interests this new breed of workers, giving us the ability to create practical solutions that help our clients attract, engage and retain winning talent.”
A shorter, YouTube-friendly version of the event, written and directed by Rita J. King is below.
DIP’s The Imagination Age is thrilled to be collaborating with Battery Dance Company on a new cultural relations project.
Battery Dance Company performs at Space on White. Video by Rita J. King
The above short documentary was recorded and produced by Rita J. King as part of Battery Dance’s May 14 participation in Space on White, a new collaborative art space in Tribeca in New York City. The video is a montage of a series of interpretive dances featuring Battery Dancers Oliver Tobin, Robin Cantrell, Carmen Nicole and Sean Scantlebury who joined forces with visual artists John Kessler, Prawat Laucharoen and Jody Rasch to present site-specific dance at Space on White. Also featured in the video is Battery Dance’s Artistic and Executive Director, Jonathan Hollander.
We first met Jonathan at a Cultural Diplomacy retreat at White Oak Plantation where we learned that Jonathan’s efforts go well beyond providing a home for modern, independent dance in Lower Manhattan, but around the globe in some of the most remote corners of the world exploring how dance can serve as a bridge for cultural relations.
Jonathan’s commitment to cultural collaboration is local as well. He was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal about his participation in the creation of the Lower Manhattan Arts League, an effort to create more synergies between arts organizations in New York City.
Battery Dance Company’s impact and reach, finding inroads for cultural dialog through teaching and sharing dance has, in the last year, gone from, among other places, Uganda to Ghana and Algeria. The below clip is from the YouTube stream of the US Embassy in Algiers.
Battery Dancers were recently interviewed on Algerian television.
I asked Jonathan a question I saw tweeted recently by one of the British Council’s TN2020 fellows: “Some dance forms imply a set of values, esp in the south side of chicago. So, how do you find neutral forms for dialogue?”
His response: “I guess my reaction to this ‘neutral forms for dialogue’ is that modern dance fits the bill perfectly because it is a constantly changing, evolving form that can stretch in all kinds of directions. For example, when we gave young dancers the opportunity to be creative within the form and architecture of modern dance, they dove into the process … in Cambodia, Ghana, Algeria, Uganda, Swaziland, Germany, Taiwan, New York City public schools.”
Inside the Ritz Carlton Hotel at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar
In February 2008, Dancing Ink Productions’ Joshua S. Fouts and Rita J. King were invited by the Brookings Institution to be speakers at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar. Dancing Ink Productions produced a mixed media event live from Doha and in the virtual world of Second Life. The event, which was entitled, “The Transfer of Cultural Energy,” featured Nashwa Al Ruwaini, host of the two top-rated television shows in the Middle East, “Nashwa” and “Poet of Millions”; Howard Gordon, executive producer of the Fox television show, “24″; and Ambassador Cynthia P. Schneider.
Howard Gordon and Rita J. King speaking to their virtual audience
The event also featured two hip-hop artists, Palestinian Muhammed Mughrabi of the Jerusalem-based hip-hop group, G-Town, and Iranian Yas, who is the first hip-hop artist whose work is sanctioned by the Iranian government. The two sang a spontaneous Arabic-Farsi hip-hop performance, which can be viewed in its entirety here.
Muhammed Mughrabi and Yas perform at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum
Dancing Ink Productions’ participation in the U.S.-Islamic World Forum so inspired us that we penned the following vision statement about the foundational aspects of our work, “Our Vision for Sustainable Culture in the Imagination Age.”
Dancing Ink Productions produced the below machinima video as part of their participation.
In Ambassador Cynthia P. Schneider’s forthcoming report about cultural diplomacy, “Mightier than the Sword: Arts and Culture in the U.S.-Muslim World Relationship,” includes the following recommendations:
Virtual Worlds: Although participation in virtual worlds is minimal at present in the Muslim world, the technology off ers the possibility over the long term of lectures, dialogues, discussions, concerts, screenings and other performances that could break down barriers of geography and incorporate “audiences” from diff erent parts of the world. Contests, such as the remix contest with Salman Ahmed’s music, increase distribution and engagement with diverse types of music. At the 2008 U.S.-Islamic World Forum, the Brookings Institution, in collaboration with Dancing Ink Productions, held a virtual world panel discussion featuring Howard Gordon (executive producer of 24) and Nashwa al Ruwaini (CEO, Pyramedia) and attended by people (via their avatars) from the U.S., South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Th e session concluded with a freestyle hip-hop concert featuring top Iranian rapper YAS in Farsi and, in Arabic, Palestinian Muhammed Mughrabi, the leader and co-founder of the G-Town the Palestinian Hip-Hop Makers group in Jerusalem that had all the participants’ avatars dancing.
The Imagination Age: 1000 Inches in Loveland is an augmented reality neighborhood created by Rita J. King as part of Jerry Paffendorf’s Loveland project. Rita J. King is the largest “inchvestor” in Loveland and its first colony, which is named “Plymouth.” For background on Rita’s interest, inspiration and involvement in the project, see her essay below.
Several months ago, I was commissioned by PROBOSCIS to create an installation on 27 cubes: “Transformation: How We Become Who We Are.” While working on the cubes (some of which are shown above) I first heard about the LOVELAND project in Detroit.
Perhaps because I was working daily with cubes and my imagination, the idea of a city of a million square inches that fits in a warehouse in Detroit and yet relies on technology and creativity to amplify the size of each inch made perfect sense.
Transformation begins.
The installation was immediately influenced by the LOVELAND project. “Transformation” (which will launch soon) expanded first into virtual and augmented realities and then evolved into a game that marks the first developed parcel in 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND.
Transformation revealed.
Stories have a tendency to get lost if they aren’t shared right away, so here’s how the 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND deal went down:
CHELSEA (on a rainy night during the height of NYC’s new monsoon season)—
My collaborator, Joshua Fouts, wears round black glasses. We’d been invited to the event by David Green and Liz Dreyer with a pink lotus and two shining orange fish inked on her calf. We’d met at White Oak Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida, where we drove past rhinos and zebras on the way to the lodge to meet in groups and discuss the consequences of the economic downturn on the arts and how this might be overcome through meaningful participation in the digital culture. We promised we’d meet again in New York. I invited GG, who now stands in front of me, having run late from Brooklyn but committed to keeping his word.
There he is, all six-feet-six-and change of him, wearing a shirt that says, “I’ve got twelve inches in Detroit,” in neat capital letters that could only have been ironed in place by the man himself. He goes by Jerry because he’s not crazy about George Gerald Paffendorf III, but he doesn’t seem like a Jerry to me, so I call him GG.
“What’s going on in Detroit?” I ask. GG lifts his eyebrows because the answer to that question is going to take some time, but he’s excited for the chance to tell, and I can’t wait to hear.
The room has been set up as a bar for the night, so people come and go. Josh, GG and I sequester ourselves in a corner overlooking the amber rectangles of light spangling the wet slate street-scape. Josh had met GG in Singapore in 2007. I met them both on the same day in San Jose a few months later.
GG won Josh’s undying affection when, less than 24 hours after they met in Singapore, this GG-magic image with (GG, left and Josh right) appeared among Josh’s copious electronic correspondence.
GG is 27 years old and he’s already an admired futurist, which may explain why he has an air of time travel about him, as if you could set the dial to any time or place in which humans have interacted and he would find a way to improve life through his imagination and capacity for catalyzing collaboration. For over two years I’ve been waiting for his Big Idea, but I had no idea it would end up being so tiny.
“Detroit,” he says. “Okay. Loveland, is what the project is called–a million square inches that I’m going to sell for $1 each. Anyone from around the world can buy one, or more than one, and be a part of the community. The inches are just a jumping point for people, and they can be as big as the minds of the community. Loveland is a platform to connect people. People will come together to build this new land. Every inch will exist in the physical world and in the digital realm at the same time. What’s going to happen? There’s no way to know in advance, and that’s the fun of it. But you know something will happen. Reality will…be…augmented!”
He stopped to eat a cheese cracker and a few grapes and then went on to explain why he’d chosen to tie a virtual project with the physical world by placing it in Detroit, a story I know all too well from my work in the Gulf Coast: economic decline, mass exodus of the jobless population, widespread systemic change and the absence of a clear path for transformation.
“Detroit was the most futuristic city that existed for a time,” he says, “an engineer’s dream of tinkering coming together with a possible vision of reality, like the automobile moving at sixty miles in an hour move a person to another place. The universe is like a seed. So it’s just how big can you make your inches? What can you do with an inch if the only thing stopping you from making it as big as you can imagine is your ability to imagine it? Think about all the things people can do with it.”
To GG, confusion isn’t an obstacle. If some people don’t get it, that won’t stop him from reaching those who do. Around us, people listen and gather, and someone asks for more information on the Loveland project. What can people do with an inch, really? Is this a real inch, or an imaginary inch that some guy from New Jersey will sell you for $1 because he has a million of them?
“The inch markers are just something that give a human feeling,” GG said. “They act as a connector for the sense of ownership. An inch sounds stupid until suddenly you have something that can be connected to other people, and then you see how big and important that is. I know it’s funny. I know it makes people smile. It’s game-like, but it’s a city that will fit into a warehouse.”
The population of Loveland, if all million inches are sold, might end up being higher than the current population of Detroit: 800,000.
“Dancing Ink Productions will take 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND,” I say. “For economic and cultural development. Loveland is a new city and I’m going to create a neighborhood and document its development. The neighborhood will be known as the Imagination Age.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” said GG. “Right on.”
I grab a stack of paper and start to sketch out the grid.
“You already know where you want your inches to be?” he asks. “Look at that! It’s real!”
The first map of Loveland.
It *is* real. Starting next week, space within 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND: The Imagination Age,” will be available.
This was a collaborative project to explore virtual news venues as a viable space for the evolution of journalism. As part of this project, Dancing Ink Productions created a newsroom in the virtual world of Second Life for the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at the American University in Cairo. The project was directed by veteran American journalist Lawrence Pintak now Dean of the Murrow College at Washington State University who covered the Middle East for 30 years. It was funded by a grant from USAID. The first tenants of the virtual newsroom were a group of eight Egyptian bloggers. Dancing Ink Productions reported on their efforts covering the 2008 US Presidential Campaign at Dispatches from the Imagination Age.
Inaugural Broadcast: On January 12, 2009 at 11 am EST, the Inaugural Broadcast of the American University in Cairo’s Virtual Newsroom (designed and produced by Dancing Ink Productions for The American University in Cairo with funding from USAID) took place in the virtual world of Second Life and was broadcast to a live global Internet audience produced in collaboration with Ill Clan Animation Studios. The live audience communicated in real-time chat with event participants and moderators in Second Life. The event was produced and hosted by Rita J. King, the CEO and Creative Director of Dancing Ink Productions, and Joshua S. Fouts, the Chief Global Strategist of Dancing Ink Productions and broadcast to the Internet by SLCN (videos below). The broadcast-quality machinima documentary produced by Dancing Ink Productions co-directed with Ill Clan Animation Studios features a moderated discussion about the transfer of power between US president administrations between Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James K. Glassman (also a well-known journalist) and eight Egyptian political bloggers who covered the US election. The documentary depicts the event itself, as well as the reaction of Glassman, the bloggers and project director Lawrence Pintak, a veteran war correspondent and author who runs the American University in Cairo’s Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research. Read the press release from the American University of Cairo summarizing the event here.
Second Life avatar of then-US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman in the virtual newsroom of the American University in Cairo in Second Life.
Below are videos from the January 12 event:
Short Clip from the AUC Glassman Event
Rita J. King is Innovator in Residence at IBM’s Analytics Virtual Center. This section will document her project and DIP’s work in this arena. You can visit Rita’s virtual office on web.alive embedded below.
Recent blogposts about Rita J. King’s Innovator-in-Residence include:
<ul>
<li>”<a href=”http://www.theimaginationage.net/2009/12/smarter-work-in-imagination-age.html”><strong>Smarter Work in the Imagination Age</strong></a>”</li>
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Rita J. King is Innovator in Residence at IBM’s Analytics Virtual Center. This section will document her project and DIP’s work in this arena. You can visit Rita’s virtual office on web.alive embedded below.
Recent blogposts about Rita J. King’s Innovator-in-Residence include:<ul> <li>”<a href=”http://www.theimaginationage.net/2009/12/smarter-work-in-imagination-age.html”><strong>Smarter Work in the Imagination Age</strong></a>”</li> <li>”<a href=”http://www.theimaginationage.net/2010/01/is-smarter-planet-real.html”><strong>Is Smarter Planet Real</strong></a>?”</li> <li>”<a href=”http://www.theimaginationage.net/2009/10/smarter-cities.html”><strong>Smarter Cities</strong></a>”</li></ul><!– webalive required (can be inline) –>
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Power of Collaboration: Manpower’s First Anniversary in Second Life
On July 14, 2008 Dancing Ink Productions produced a major event for Fortune 500 company Manpower, Inc., called the “Power of Collaboration: Manpower’s First Anniversary in Second Life.” The event included a report by the same name (downloadable as a PDF file here or by clicking on the above picture) exploring the influence and impact of virtual worlds, which Manpower considers to be an emerging labor market, on the world of work. (Read the Manpower, Inc. press release here.)
The event included three pieces of machinima by DIP in collaboration with machinimist Draxtor Despres. You can watch the videoshere (1, 2 and 3) in the order in which they were shown during today’s event.
This celebration would not have taken place without the visionary leadership of Manpower Inc. Senior Vice President Global Workforce Strategy Tammy Johns, whose thoughtfulness and expertise formed the basis of the tone of the event, which was reflective of the company’s significant global presence. Our conversations during the writing of this report were rigorous and full of energetic momentum. Dancing Ink Productions would also like to thank Dan Darrow (Horatio Decosta in Second Life), who leads Manpower’s Second Life presence, and Jessica Qin, IBM’s Chief Virtual Architect, who first introduced Rita J. King (as her avatar Eureka Dejavu) while working on a report for IBM, “From the Fire Pit to the Forbidden City: An Outsider’s Inside Look at the Evolution of the VUC.” Jessica, at the time, was working to build Manpower Island.
Schmilsson Nilsson (avatar of Joshua S. Fouts) and Eureka Dejavu (avatar of Rita J. King) at the Manpower First Anniversary in Second Life celebration
The July 14, 2008 event, which celebrated Manpower’s first year in Second Life with a roundtable of thoughtful individuals including Manpower Inc. Chairman and CEO Jeff Joerres (who shone when he spontaneously took on the challenge of discussing existential issues) and Philip Rosedale in a world that he created. Other speakers included Lynda M. Applegate, Professor, Harvard Business School, Dr. Jonathan Joseph Orr, co-founder of the Orr Institute, Dominique Turcq, President, Boostzone Institute, and Second Life’s Gentle Heron who runs an organization for people with disabilities called Virtual Ability, Inc (her Second Life efforts were profiled in “The Story of the Heron Sanctuary,” a January 2008 article in DIP’s Dispatches from the Imagination Age) .
Manpower CEO and Chairman Jeffrey A. Joerres (shown right) and Manpower Virtual World Liaison, Dan Darrow, at Manpower Island.
The event was covered live on Second Life public affairs program Metanomics and streamed live on Second Life’s SLCN TV. An archive of the video can be found here.
One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome in the work of virtual work, it was revealed at the roundtable, is the fact that some people are sleeping while others go about their lives half a world away, and therefore cannot collaborate by dint of the fact that they are simply not conscious at the same time.
Philip Rosedale expressed an intriguing idea about a global work flow in which people will pass off work to one another. It’s an exciting idea, because it will lead to greater productivity and improved cultural understanding throughcollaborative energy, which would accelerate the rate at which difficult problems are solved. My prediction is thatanother model will be overlaid on the global work flow–people’s rhythms will change and the cycles of sleep and waking will adjust for those who find themselves collaborating on complex projects. I first heard of this phenomenon whiledocumenting IBM’s Virtual Universe Community, when scientists in multiple continents discussed their method for working together on protein folding experiments. I just experienced it myself while working with a global DIP team consisting of, among others, a Scot (Toran Cult), an Austalian (Starr Sonic), a German living in California (Draxtor Despres) and Americans from both coasts and in between. It never really felt like we were dealing with time zones, even when I counted the hours on my fingers to see when we might all be in-world again, but tonight, I’m feeling the jetlag of virtual work, even though we always met in the Metaverse.
From January – September 2007, Dancing Ink Productions explored, analyzed and chronicled IBM’s entrance into over forty 3-D Immersive virtual worlds such as Second Life, Activeworlds and numerous others interviewing dozens of IBMers around the world about the company’s efforts to explore virtual worlds through its Virtual Universe Community (VUC). The VUC, lead by IBM’s Sandra Kearney with influence and inspiration from IBM’s Metaverse Evangelist Ian Hughes and lead virtual architect, known by her Second Life name, Jessica Qin tell the tale of a Fortune 500 company in transition exploring how work and business are conducted on a global scale when the rules of communication and impact of the Internet are forcing us to explore what and how large organizations can conduct work in a global marketplace.
From the Firepit to the Forbidden City, By Rita J. King
According to Raph Koster, the former lead designer for renowned online games such as Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies and now founder and president of Areae producing an upcoming platform for online games called Metaplace:
It’s a mix of forward-thinking (they have people who do nothing but machinima?) and catch-up (I particularly liked the moment where a few IBM staffers decided on a definition of “virtual universe” in 2006 — fortunately, it matches the one all the rest of us use!).
It’s not very long, and it’s an interesting read.
Rita J. King’s avatar Eureka Dejavu interviews IBM’ers ePredator Potato (Ian Hughes) and Algernon Spackler (Andrew “Roo” Reynolds) in the virtual world of Second Life
Following is an excerpt from the report. You can download the entire report here.
The first time I ever heard of virtual worlds was from an IBMer named Dr. Clifford Pickover, over lunch one Friday afternoon. When he mentions something of interest, from shamanistic trances to potentially deadly fugu sushi, I take note. But this was really off-the-wall. He spoke of imaginary worlds complete with their own economies, in which people around the world create avatars, communities and three-dimensional models of their ideas so others can inhabit and enhance them. Mystified, I listened as he explained that virtual worlds are not games, but rather immersive environments in which people enhance their connections to each other and to their personal, social and professional missions.
“It’s all very intriguing,” he added, as people around the table raised their eyebrows at the conversation. “When you go into Second Life®, get in touch with Jessica Qin [aka Craig Becker], an old friend of mine.”
I wrote down the name, not realizing that I was about to befriend one of the rock stars of the virtual world. This was the catalyst for a transformation in my perspective on commerce, community and global culture.
It started simply and suddenly, as many relationships in virtual worlds do, after I’d created my avatar, Eureka Dejavu. Jessica, who was covered in tribal tattoos and had robotic feet, teleported to my excessively expensive beach hut, paid for with the currency of the local economy.
“With this report, Josh and Rita have illuminated a new path–a definite intelligible plan–for practical public diplomacy in an area of supreme urgency. Furthermore, they have done so by elevating humanity’s most distinguishing feature: the imagination.”
– Joel Rosenthal, President, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
In January 2009, DIPs Rita J. King and Joshua S. Fouts released the findings from the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
The project was funded by a grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation. The findings included a trilogy of actionable items available in digital format here. By releasing three types of reports — policy recommendations, documentary video and graphic book — we hope to make what is still a very new medium as accessible as possible.
Cover page of the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds policy recommendations.
[ Update: Rita J. King recently presented the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project at the O'Reilly Media Gov2.0 Summit and Expo, for which she was recognized with the first-ever Gov2.0 Award. You can view the presentation here. ]
On January 29, 2009, Dancing Ink Productions Rita J. King and Joshua S. Fouts released the findings from the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. The project was funded by a grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation. The findings included a trilogy of actionable items available in digital format here. By releasing three types of reports — policy recommendations, documentary video and graphic book — we hope to make what is still a very new medium as accessible as possible.
The idea for Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project was hatched with a very specific idea in mind: How could people learn about other cultures in an authentic, experiential space — specifically, how could we learn about cultures that self-identified as Muslim? We chose the virtual world of Second Life for many reasons, among them that it is the best international platform — more than 70% of its users are from outside the United States. Our goal was to to see what we could learn about Islam — not by inviting particular people with particular perspectives into Second Life, but rather to follow the trail of what was already happening culturally in the space that might yield new insight about Islam.
Watch the short documentary (low-res version) on YouTube:
Comments on the project:
“With this report, Josh and Rita have illuminated a new path–a definite intelligible plan–for practical public diplomacy in an area of supreme urgency. Furthermore, they have done so by elevating humanity’s most distinguishing feature: the imagination.”
– Joel Rosenthal, President, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
“The project’s use of Second Life virtual experiences, where internet users can interact with each other through avatars to engage in intercultural dialogue, is indeed a pioneering initiative.” “A ‘second life’ for public diplomacy in the Middle East,” by Prof. Muhammad Ayish, Abu Dhabi’s “The National”
“Joshua and Rita are THE great explorers of new possibilities and media for public diplomacy.”
– Tish Shute, propietor of UgoTrade.com and TishShute.com
“A fascinating clash of best intentions and actual spiritual desires, transplanted into the virtual realm.”Wagner James Au in New World Notes.
Pictured: Eureka Dejavu, avatar of Rita J. King in hijab before the virtual hajj.
Read Rita J. King’s remarks from the January 29, 2009 release of the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project, delivered at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
Read Joshua S. Fouts’ remarks from the January 29, 2009 release of the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project, delivered at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
Evan M. O’Neil, managing editor of PolicyInnovations.org at the January 29 event.
The Carnegie Council has uploaded edited excerpts from the January 29, 2009 release Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project. Each video is about a minute and a half long.
This isn’t just a new viewer, in the sense that it yields a new view and organizational framework on a pre-existing platform, but rather a massive extension of exciting new capabilities within the platform itself.
Second Life has never been more poised for mainstream success. This milestone has been a long time coming, but I’ve always believed that the day would arrive. I don’t view the new viewer as a Second Life for Second Life, because from my perspective, the space has been vibrant from the start and has only become more remarkable and impressive over time. But this is a new dimension.
The new viewer feels akin to seeing that first glimpse of the earth from the moon. Not necessarily the way an astronaut feels it, from space, but from the perspective of a human being who nevertheless shares in the mixed media gathered over time and gains immeasurably from the new visions it creates when shared and experienced. The ability to embed mixed media within the basic fundamental building blocks of user-created content, known as prims, is revolutionary. Among other benefits, that’s the new viewer’s major headline.
Story is the beam that unifies people during a particular time and place and gives our collective symbols meaning. The new viewer is a door that opens into a deeper form of storytelling, one that contains the possibility of successful collaboration in the face of looming global transformation. Story is at the core of every strong brand, movement and life.
Immersion within such environments will create unprecedented opportunities for the development of business and education as training and simulation expand significantly into the medium–for real world benefit.
Thank you, Linden lab, for developing this amazing new capacity to collaborate, create, document and innovate in an entirely new dimension!
Sometimes the hardest thing about going outside during the bitter cold of winter is covering everything but your face. How many people have thought to themselves, "If only I had a beard!" Or maybe you're an erstwhile spy trying to look inconspicuous under cover of cold. Well, the above Bizarre Etsy Item of the Day is one step closer toward add […]
As an admitted Star Trek gaming nerd who plays Star Trek: Online, I was totally amazed to discover the episodic web series, "STOked" a serial that discusses developments in and around Star Trek: Online.This week STOked is celebrating its 49th episode and one year anniversary, which is amazing if but for the fact that the show began almost six month […]
Montreal-based Musical Group Arcade Fire, in collaboration with Google Creative, has released a beautiful and sometimes poignant interactive music video billed as an experiment. Before launching the video, the site asks you to enter the "home address where you grew up." The video then integrates Google Street Maps and satellite images of that neigh […]
If you're in London on September 7, you might want to check out this event, a debate on "Culture and Class" at the arts venue Circus Space hosted by Counterpoint, the in-house think tank of the British Council. Wish I could make it. It looks great. From the flyer: Join Catherine Fieschi, Director Counterpoint, in a panel debate with author, Jo […]
The European Union Parliament has just announced the beta release of a new virtual world called, "Citzalia," a civic engagement effort to help EU citizens understand and participate in the EU government. Using your avatar you can walk around, interact, network, debate the issues of today, propose legislation, vote and learn about how the European P […]
