Global Kids, in association with the Markle Foundation,
organized a very successful simulcast of a talk by Beth Noveck, Deputy
Chief Technology Officer in the White House, into Second Life today.
The event exemplified some of what I love most about Second Life: how
diverse communities across distances can collaborate, engage in rich
discussions, and have shared, immersive experiences together.
For once, I was not the producer of this event, but merely the in-world moderator, passing along questions from Second Life to Ms. Noveck, who was speaking from the Markle Foundation offices in Manhattan. My colleague Krista handled the event producer role with enthusiasm and attention to detail that made me proud, assisted by Joyce, Amira, and Bing from my team at GK. I did my best to transmit to Ms. Noveck as many of the excellent questions that came in from the virtual audience, as well as provide a flavor of the rich discussion happening in-world simultaneously during Ms. Noveck's talk.
Beth Noveck spoke eloquently about "Wiki Government" -- the potential for social media to enrich and deepen our democracy, to make our government more efficient and transparent. And it's clear that Ms. Noveck gets what makes Second Life so powerful as a medium, despite all its flaws. So it was a unique pleasure being among nearly 100 avatars listening to a representative of the Obama administration talk like one of us about these social media tools.
I love my job.
Video and other reports on the event will be posted shortly to the Markle Foundation and Global Kids websites. Also read the report on the event on the Second Life Official Blog and Any1 Gonoid's excellent write-up on the CNN iReport website.
