Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative

We finally got the funding we wanted from the MacArthur Foundation! We can now run the Global Kids' Digital Media Initiatives, an essay contest on digital media in the teen grid.

What did that mean? It was time to buy an island! Linden Labs introduced me to Blue, seen here as a cat (a "furry"). Blue showed me around the teen grid, eerily empty as it was closed during school hours. I saw a teen-run mall, making a profit.

Blue runs the teen grid. He would become my liaison and, over the holiday, take us through the process of setting up our new Global Kids Island, built first in the main grid, then moved to the teen grid for the February launch. In the meantime, he gave me some cool flotation devices and we tried them out.

I learned Linden was holding a holiday festival. Residents temporarily received land to build something, to give back to the community. What a perfect opportunity - creative, motivated individuals showing off their work. Time to shop for a team!

I arrived and teleported to the region. I got a new t-shirt, ice-skates, and an amazing snowball thrower. I put on a snowboard, flew up a mountain, and swooshed down. For each item, I could click to learn it's creators and send them an IM.

I found this simple ice-fishing pool. Sometimes fish were pulled out, other times a junky boot. It looked fun. I said hi and asked where I could find my own rod. Margaret, on the right, told me it was from another region, next to her home. Cinta.

Cincta? That's my region! It turned out Margaret was my neighbor. I teleported, got a rod, and returned to fish and kibitz.

Rhiannon, the woman in red, was interested to learn about my work. "I went through my friends list and thought about those that might be good. I have gotten to know a lot of people through various creative projects." Has she ever! Before I left the festival I was already receiving IM's from interested parties.

I was also excited since I could hold the meeting in the daytime. You see, due to the NYC transit strike, I was forced to stay home that day. And I took the opportunity to explore the daytime social scene and build a new network whose hours matched those of my workplace. It had paid off.

I would be working on the Global Kids watery place and Rhiannon's friends would track me down and ask for a TP (teleport offer) to talk. Here's one from Kim, on December 20:

"Hi, Rhiannon Chatnoir suggested I contact you and join the Global Kids Allies. I've joined and I'm excited about the project. Please IM me so we can discuss the project! :)"

Kim liked our plans, but she was also different. She had a team that worked for $US. I had checked out SL a year earlier. There were teams then as well, doing remarkable work. They worked more out of passion for sharing and staring in their own creations. A year later, more teams existed. And they were organized. And they knew what it meant to work for a client.

"This sounds like a great project," Kim said. "I like working with the kids -- giving them opportunities."

As Kim described projects her team had built, one after another, they appeared above my swimming area. I could not only see them, but walk around, sit in and touch them. "Let me just find the right folders in the mess of my inventory," she would say. "I think I can just whip out this kitchen for starters."

Before long I realized we had passed some imperceptible point and the social dynamic had changed. Kim and I were no longer just chatting. We were in an interview. And when I was watching as she pulled out items and popped them back into her portable inventory was her resume, in full 3D.

Kim and I toured various locations she had build, one TP at a time. We went to a prohibition-era bar, a lava covered mountain, her home beside a frozen river, and this relaxing fountain.

At one point his guy appeared, just watching. Did EVERYTHING in SL have to be so public? "Hey buddy, I'm conducting an interview here," I wanted to say. "Fly back later."

I sent a private IM to Kim to ask her advice. How do we politely get rid of this buy? She wrote back: "Gus is one of my team members." She had sent him a private IM to join us!

When we finished our tour, she told me she looked forward to the meeting in January and would invite her team to attend.