[slcc] Barry's commentary from the SLCC - Sunday
On Saturday we only had six presenters/moderators. Today we had double that, so it was a day of rich content and fascinating examples and questions raised from a variety of perspectives.
The non-profit panel was streamed into Second Life (yeah! ) but began with no project (boo!). After a little scrambling around, the track leads pulled it off and we had a fascinating panel. John Lester/Pathfinder Linden introduced the track and spoke to the importance of non-profits active within Second Life. The presenters that followed each spoke about their organization and their work in Second Life. Some are just beginning while others presented stories of unexpected and dramatic growth. There was barely enough time for the question and answer session afterwards, which might explain why the panelists were swamped by people three deep wanting to talk with them afterwards. About seventy people attended the panel. I was delighted that the final question was asked by Simon Stevens, who has cerebral palsy, the creator of Wheelies, a SL-club for people to feel comfortable about disabilities; we had met before when he participated in SL Big Brother and it was great to meet him in person.
I posted many of the Powerpoints on Slideshare.com the evening before, a sort-of social network for Powerpoints. I thought it was fascinating that, as a result, before Alex Struminger from UNICEF even shared his Powerpoint in person it had already been viewed over two dozen times online.
By Sunday I was beginning to get a clearer picture of the divide I was, well, not so much concerned about, but more paying attention to coming into this event, this idea of the convention versus the conference. I came to see the convention, driven bottom-up by fans, being more about the person. I am there for myself and I expect the event to speak to my extra-curricular interests. While I came to see the convention, developed top-down, as being more for a professional or a field. This was not CALLED a convention, but much of the event was developed or treated like one. My interest was to see how the two interacted and I found that, overall, they lived quite well side-by-side. I had expected more tension between the two but only saw it around the presence of the Leather and Lace Masquerade Ball.
ABC’s coverage of the convention contrasted the business side with the social side. I think this was their attempt to make the distinction I made above. However, their distinction is flawed, as anyone who knows Second Life can tell you, and as panelists from Connie Yowell to Larry Johnson discussed: Second Life is so powerful because it is a social environment. Whether you came to the convention for business or pleasure, it’s all about harnessing that social space, what Yowell called its “Collective Creativity.”
It was so exciting to moderate the funders panel, four impressive people from four impressive organizations. More importantly, I like all of them – they are all great people, willing to spend their time to mark a space in the timeline and help define these beginning challenges to philanthropic work related to virtual worlds. There were some great questions, from OneWorld.org and Prokofy Neva.
Overall, I met people from England, Thailand, Germany and Australia who are all doing fascinating work with whom we might collaborate and, through our online presence reflecting this thread, heard from folks in Hong Kong and South Africa. I was really surprised but delighted with all of these non-U.S. voices and the ways they are exploring the applications of virtual worlds.
By the end of the day, I was exhausted – I introduced Brad from Learn and Serve as Chinwe from Robert Wood Johnson – but I could not have been more pleased with how all five of presentations were received nor how hard both the Global Kids staff and youth leaders worked to bring the work of non-profits into the spotlight. I am excited now to work with Cathy and Rik, who both left the SLCC with strong analyses of what they heard, as they each develop their thoughts, and re-connecting with those I met for the first time whose work overlaps with our own.
