Follow-up to Second Life workshop in Rochester, NY

I have been doing Introduction to Second Life (SL) workshops for months and on Tuesday ran into a situation that I feared would one day happen. SL went down for maintenance. Thankfully, I use videos in the workshop, so people can see a bit of SL before I do the live demo. With SL "down", I then went to Flickr and showed some of the SL screen shots. Actually having SL down meant that I got through all of the information that I needed to include, but "seeing is believing" and the participants didn't get a chance to see it live today. (I'm following up with them all, though, to see if personal tours can be done.)

Below is information that I want the participants to have. Some was said during the workshop and some is new -- and will help to answer questions asked.

• CNN is now reporting on SL events on its web site (link). With so much happening in SL, this is just a glimpse of the activity.
• Anshe Chung became SL first millionaire in U.S. dollars in fall 2006. Below is a screen shot from her press conference held in SL on Nov. 28, 2006.
• Librarians jumped "whole hog" into SL during early 2006, just when the SL "buzz" was increasing.
  
• Many people are interested in working in Teen Second Life, but adults are not automatically allowed on that "grid." In fact, all of the adults who work on that grid with teens must pass an FBI background check.
  
• Large parts of Teen Second Life are private areas. For example, a school might have an island specifically for its students (and which no one else can access). There are public areas in Teen Second Life, one of which is the Eye4You Alliance Island run by librarians from the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County (NC). The Eye4You Alliance blog is here. Notice that they have letter and application that explain how adults can become involved in their project.
  
• How do we know that adults don't disguise themselves as teen and get on Teen Second Life? Librarians who work with the teens say that they (and the teens) keep an eye out for for avatars that seem suspicious and "too adult." Those that seem un-teen-like are reported to Linden Labs, who can ban adults who should not be in Teen Second Life. (Linden Labs can also ban anyone who violates the community rules.)
• Linden Labs has been modifying the user agreement (terms of service) for Second Life and when it is modified users are asked to read the new version and agree to it. Basically Linden Labs is putting in place an agreement that protects them (and hopefully you). For example, although many people are making money in SL (yes, real money), Second Life should not be considered a bank. Money in SL is not guaranteed by Linden Labs or any government agency. Therefore, what money people have in Linden Dollars (which can be converted to U.S. dollars) could be here today and gone tomorrow.
• Second Life is changing how some people operate.
  
• Some people are placing their avatar names on their business cards, especially if they are working in SL.
• Some are creating business cards (or likely Moo cards) specifically for their avatars.
• Some people are better known in real life by their avatar names and may have email accounts, etc., that are based on their avatar names.
• Some people use Second Life Time (SLT) -- which is equivalent to Pacific Time -- all the time for everything.
  
• One video that I've been showing is not on the handout. It is "Exploring Virtual Worlds," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R1SrZua5ww [Added 1:49 p.m.]
  
• Where should people go in-world to experience Second Life? Here are a few suggestions. For each, I'm giving you the Second Life URL. Put the URL in your browser address bar and it will open SL for you and take you to the location. (You must have SL installed on your PC and must have an SL account.)
• Info International Island, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20International/125/240/35
  Info International is in the midst of the Info Island Archipelago, which is a growing number of partner/allied islands focused generally around information and education. If you are interested in visiting libraries, there are libraries on several of the adjacent islands, including Info Island, which is "next door." The area where you will land on Info International Island is the Welcome Area, which contains a reference desk. This area is generally busy around 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. SLT) since many people are in SL in the evening.
  
• Globe Theater on Renaissance Island, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Renaissance%20Island/195/46/27
  This was built to be exactly like the theater as it existed, except that the stories are taller since our avatars are taller than people were in that era.
• HealthInfo Island, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Healthinfo%20Island/65/141/22
• Genome Island, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Genome/127/129/49
• Caledon (idealized Victorian island), http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20VictoriaCity/48/202/23
• NOAA, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Meteora/177/161/27
  
• Why should your institution be in SL?
• With children using virtual worlds, they are not going away. In fact, they will become normal. We need to become familiar with virtual worlds now before they are ubiquitous. Since Second Life is free for a basic account, getting involved with it is a good way of understanding what virtual worlds are.
• If you are an academic institution, many are building virutal campuses. Your may soon be involved, so it would be good to gain some experience now before you are asked to support its virtual world efforts.
• Many businesses are using virutal worlds to create virtual trade shows or to host meetings. This is a growing area, so it is likely many businesses will have some sort of virtual world presence in the future.
• Although your institution may not be in the position to use SL now, you as an individual can either at work or at home. Yes...you may need to do this at home, just as you do some professional reading at home. Consider that you're investing in your long-term professional future.
  
• Finally, an updated version of the PowerPoint is here. The handout given to the participants is here. I already have SL workshops schedule in 2008 and I can guarantee you that both the PowerPoint and handout will be changing! The more I do these workshops, the more information I realize that people need to know especially since the audience generally includes people whose focus is quite different.
  

In my talks, I always mentioned a few negatives about Second Life. Two of them are:

• Residents can make SL change quickly, yet as humans we like stability. The landscape (buildings, etc.) can change quickly and without notice. That can be disconcerting.
  
• The infrastructure is unstable. The grid can go down (crash) unexpectedly. Maintenance seems to take a long time. Those things make SL hard to count on.
  

That's it for now. If anyone has questions or comments, please feel free to leave a comment.

Anshe Chung's press conference on Nov. 28, 2006. She was SL's first millionaire (in U.S. dollars).

People dressed as their avatars on Halloween (2007).

This is a photo of the exhibit mounted by the Alzheimer's Society of Ontario (Canada). Unfortunately, this photo was taken before the exhibit was completed (and when it contained more stuff/information. Medium Helvetica did an excellent job putting it together.

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