Welcome aboard, Catherine Winters… as Social Signal takes on Second Life
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January 2nd, 2007 by Alex
A few months ago, Rob and I decided that Social Signal was ready to expand its development team with another web services consultant; Aaron Pettigrew has had such a transformative impact on our business that we realized another Aaron (as though there could be such a thing) would allow us to serve that many more clients that much more effectively.
And we decided that while we were adding another web geek to the team, we might look for someone who knows a little about Second Life -- a virtual world that is the Internet's hottest new home to online community. (Find out more about Second Life here.) So I sent an e-mail to a leading Second Life blogger who blew my mind when we met at last year's SXSW. Here's what I asked him:
since I keep hoping that our business may eventually involve doing some Second Life projects for folks, I have the idea that our ideal next hire would be someone who's an experienced Second LIfer – probably not someone who's doing Second LIfe stuff professionally yet (though possibly) but the kind of person who'd be thrilled to make that part of their work. Basically we're just looking for a bright, energetic, progressive and tech-impassioned person who would enjoy bringing their social commitments and tech passions together. Do you happen to know any SL types in Vancouver who'd fit that description?
Lucky for us, he had an inspiration: a Vancouverite whose SL name is Catherine Omega. He pointed us to Catherine's bio on the Second Life wiki, and that was enough to convince us to get together with her.
A couple of weeks later, we met up with Catherine (known in real life as Catherine Winters) in a local Vancouver restaurant. Over the course of a lively lunch we covered everything from how she first got into Second Life (on a computer she built herself from scavenged parts) to the larger significance of Second Life and other virtual worlds (as a way of bridging social differences and disparities).
That was the first of a series of meetings in which Catherine coached us out of our SL newbieness and started talking with us about how Second Life could support a socially sustainable business approach. We were dazzled by Catherine's brilliant and thought-provoking take on Second Life's social significance, by her strategic insights into how organizations could make innovative and effective use of an SL presence, and by her exceptional clarity and good humor in making Second Life accessible to new users. And we suspected that as one of the co-authors of the new Official Guide to Second Life, she was in a position to take a leadership role in bringing more people to the platform.
Today, we're delighted to announce that Catherine Winters is joining Social Signal as our Manager of Virtual Worlds. Catherine will be leading a new Second Life practice to help businesses, non-profits and government agencies establish innovative, effective presences "in world". This practice will focus on working with organizations that want to create a profoundly interactive presence that stands out in Second Life's every-expanding world, that want an SL presence that integrates with a web-based online community, or that want their SL presence to advance a sustainability or social change agenda.
We'll have more news to share in the coming months about our plans for Second Life, including the forthcoming launch of our own island. Catherine's creative ideas and scripting powers will be put to good use as we introduce new opportunities for organizations to make compelling use of Second Life as a new medium for strategic communication.
Meanwhile our web site can tell you more about Catherine and our new Second Life practice. We also hope you'll join us for an open house to introduce Catherine to our clients, colleagues and friends, and to introduce Social Signal to the Second Life community. The open house will be held from 2-4 pm Second Life time (aka Pacific time) on Wednesday, January 3 at TechSoup's space on Info Island. (Many thanks to CompuMentor for lending their space to us for this event) If you've yet to visit Second Life, this is a great excuse to download their software and try it out (it's free to download and free to register) for yourself.
If you'd like to learn more about Second Life, or about how Social Signal's new practice can help your organization establish an effective Second Life presence, please call (778.371.5445) or e-mail Catherine (catherine [at] socialsignal [dot] com), me (alex [at] socialsignal [dot] com) or Rob (rob [at] socialsignal [dot] com).
We owe that blogger a huge thank-you for making this inspired connection. And yes, this does mean we're still looking for that web services consultant.
Discovering Second Life
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December 2nd, 2006 by Alex
We've recently started exploring Second Life, a virtual world that constitutes an exciting, immersive form of online community. The best way to get your mind around Second Life is to try it for yourself, or to read Snow Crash
Essentially, Second Life is like a video game environment with no actual game. You create a virtual self (called an avatar) whose phsyical appearance you control. Your avatar can then explore Second Life's virtual environment, which looks like a 3-D world on your computer screen. What you see on screen is your avatar walking (or flying) among islands, buildings, and various public spaces. Your avatar can chat with other people's avatars, go shopping, listen to music, go dancing, participate in online meetings, build a house, have sex, learn about social issues -- basically any one of the hundreds or thousands of real-world activities that some Second Life user has translated into this virtual world. And if you think of some activity that doesn't yet exist in Second Life, odds are that you can find someone to help you make it virtually real.
Second Life first crossed my radar a few years ago thanks to Beth Noveck, who introduced me to Democracy Island. But I was inspired to start exploring it for myself when Robert Scoble told an audience at SXSW that Second Life is the next frontier for online community innovation.
Scoble's not alone in his excitement about Second Life. There are now 1.2 million registered users, and new registrations are expanding at an exponential rate; more than 200,000 users have logged in during the past seven days. Businesses -- and to a lesser extent, community organizations -- are following. Some notable organizations flocking to Second Life: Reuters has assigned a full-time reporter to report news from Second Life. American Apparel has opened a virtual store. Dell sells PCs and Telus sells virtual cell phones. And our friends over at TechSoup have opened an office on Info Island, and are helping other nonprofits develop a Second Life presence.
We encourage you to check out Second Life for yourself (you'll want a pretty recent computer and high-speed Internet access to do so, and even so, be patient: it can take a little time for objects to "resolve" thanks to the high number of users now online). While you're there, be sure to look for us: Alex's username is Consultini Paperdoll; Rob is Dayglo Maladay.
And if you need some help learning your way around Second Life, be sure to keep coming back to our blog, or to our Second Life page. The fabulous Catherine Omega -- one of Second Life's longest residents and leading scripters -- is coaching us on the ins and outs of SL. We'll be blogging her coaching sessions, so stay tuned!
…by not consuming
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December 2nd, 2006 by Alex
I'm the consumer queen. You know how everyone has one weakness or another where they overspend? For some people it's clothes, for others food, books, music, electronics, home furnishings, kids' stuff, pet stuff -- everyone has some area where they overaccumulate.
For me it's ALL of those categories. Which is why I find myself thinking more and more about my personal consumption and how it conflicts with my values and beliefs about social and environmental sustainability.
But I'm not sure that conscious consumption is the solution, per se. OK, it's part of the solution. Buy American Apparel rather than the Gap (if you feel better about underwriting sexual harassment than underwriting cheap labour). Buy recycled paper. Buy organic. Et cetera.
The problem with all that is that in our culture, consumption isn't only -- or even primarily -- about the end of acquiring goods or services. It's really about the addictive, numbing process of acquisition: every minute I spend searching for the perfect pair of chic, waterproof black boots (suggestions, anyone?) is a minute I'm not spending in reflection about the prospect of global warming, the situation in Iraq, my kids' prospects for happiness, my mortgage, the possibility of suitcase nukes, or any of the other ten thousand anxieties that zoom through my postmodern worrybrain.
Conscious consumption is arguably a better way of channeling that numbing behaviour -- if only because non-exploitative goods are more expensive, and thus shopping consciously probably means shopping less -- but it doesn't address the underlying problem of a society in which the process of consumption is a core social, psychological and identify-forming behaviour.
All that said, having given up so many other helpful self-medicating behaviours in the name of responsible parenting, I'm not yet willing/able to separate from my shopaholism. So my latest experiment in displacing the consumer urge has been to switch from real-world shopping (which consumes resources to produce and ship goods) to virtual shopping (which consumes a little energy, but remarkably little.) For all the other shopaholics out there who want to hit the mall without destroying the earth, I recommend checking out Second Life.
…by not consuming
.2.12 | No Comments »
December 2nd, 2006 by Alex
I'm the consumer queen. You know how everyone has one weakness or another where they overspend? For some people it's clothes, for others food, books, music, electronics, home furnishings, kids' stuff, pet stuff -- everyone has some area where they overaccumulate.
For me it's ALL of those categories. Which is why I find myself thinking more and more about my personal consumption and how it conflicts with my values and beliefs about social and environmental sustainability.
But I'm not sure that conscious consumption is the solution, per se. OK, it's part of the solution. Buy American Apparel rather than the Gap (if you feel better about underwriting sexual harassment than underwriting cheap labour). Buy recycled paper. Buy organic. Et cetera.
The problem with all that is that in our culture, consumption isn't only -- or even primarily -- about the end of acquiring goods or services. It's really about the addictive, numbing process of acquisition: every minute I spend searching for the perfect pair of chic, waterproof black boots (suggestions, anyone?) is a minute I'm not spending in reflection about the prospect of global warming, the situation in Iraq, my kids' prospects for happiness, my mortgage, the possibility of suitcase nukes, or any of the other ten thousand anxieties that zoom through my postmodern worrybrain.
Conscious consumption is arguably a better way of channeling that numbing behaviour -- if only because non-exploitative goods are more expensive, and thus shopping consciously probably means shopping less -- but it doesn't address the underlying problem of a society in which the process of consumption is a core social, psychological and identify-forming behaviour.
All that said, having given up so many other helpful self-medicating behaviours in the name of responsible parenting, I'm not yet willing/able to separate from my shopaholism. So my latest experiment in displacing the consumer urge has been to switch from real-world shopping (which consumes resources to produce and ship goods) to virtual shopping (which consumes a little energy, but remarkably little.) For all the other shopaholics out there who want to hit the mall without destroying the earth, I recommend checking out Second Life.
Unexpected phrases
.30.11 | No Comments »
November 30th, 2006 by Alex
I’m shopping for a baby in Second Life and came across this gem:
“We will not replace babies that have been lost, stolen or had their contents removed.”
posted by Consultini Paperdoll on The Avenues using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]