Talking Sustainability at the 3pointD Think Tank
The »3pointD Think Tank« in the virtual world of Second Life held its first ever meetup last night, to discuss issues surrounding sustainability in the metaverse and try to dream up some initial projects people could perhaps push forward. As far as I’m concerned, the event was a smashing success. We had almost 40 avatars who showed up for at least part of the discussions, and more than 20 who toughed it out to the bitter end, over two hours later. A bunch of great ideas came up, which I’ll summarize later this morning, but for now I’ll just link you to the chat log posted by SignpostMarv Martin. Big thanks to everyone who showed up. It seemed like everyone who stayed to the end had a great time swapping ideas and being in the same place with a bunch of other people who were focused on similar concerns. I for one really had the feeling, which I get occasionally when at a good conference or real-world meeting, that there was a critical mass of thought power in the room that could dream up some great initiatives for us to take forward. I’ll highlight some of these in a follow-up post, as they don’t all appear in the chat log. [UPDATE: Read the complete wrap-up in this post.] It was also great to have a half-dozen-strong hard core of SL hackers hanging out in Dirty for another three hours after the meetup was over, talking about how to accomplish various things, rezzing huge clocks and megaprims and generally giving the place an air of usefulness. I’d love to have a scripting sandbox there or something, some way to make it a place that attracts metaversal “makers” (in the Phil Torrone sense) on a regular basis, but that’s a subject for another post. For now, thanks to everyone for making the historic first-ever 3pointD meetup a great success! See you next time.
Feeds
I think that’s the best “first meetup” I’ve been to in a long time. Perhaps it is because the SL dev community is small so most people already know each other, but last night I heard common themes among people’s goals for metaverse sustainability and it was inspiring to meet people who are actively working towards those goals.
Even the disagreements were handled with grace, which is a rare thing for a public meeting.
Long live the community cheese.
Here - have some more cheese: http://www.spacylittlecowgirl.net/private/SL/Cheese_001.jpg :P
Though in all seriousness, I have to agree this session was a great idea builder for the near and distant future as far as what Residents can do to improve their experience of giving and recieving within the SL environment. Many of these ideas are things that can be done by the Residents themselves, rather than relying on LL to provide content or resources (though their added support would be a bonus).
I think the major challenge at this point is keeping the ball rolling. From the number of attendees we’ve seen already, there is definitely enthusiasm. I’m sure there were people who weren’t able to attend either, but who would also be able (and willing) to help make these ideas happen.
What may also be of use is some means of tracking the ideas brought up during this session… perhaps in a Wiki format?
In any case, thanks for bringing us together for this discussion, Mark. As a new user looking for more information on the possibilities of the virtual world, the possibilities raised during this discussion have sparked for me a feeling of enthusiasm I have not felt for some time.
Can we expect more of these sessions in the future?
Definitely expect more, Aki. And a 3pointD wiki is something I’m working on. Hopefully get it going tomorrow.