Did you make it to SLA this year? I did – from the relative comfort of my home office. I, and a number of other virtual attendees created avatars and joined SLA2010 for the opening and closing sessions, and for the Spotlight sessions.
There was a 3D and a 2D option, depending on your preferences or computer access limitations. The 3D experience included being able to see and hear the presenters, and their powerpoint slides, and the opportunity to submit questions to the presenters, just like the live audience could. And we could communicate with one another via “chat” – without disturbing the people around us! It wasn't always perfect, but it worked pretty darn well!
We also had the added feature of being able to see a continual scroll of “tweets” about #sla2010, and we could move our avatars around. A bunch of us rushed the stage during the final moments, to dance to the music! (I understand this was broadcast to the live audience. Wish we could have seen that!)
For me, highlights were all of the Spotlight sessions on social media, as well as the session on real time search. Very informative!
I felt vaguely guilty while listening to Nicholas Carr’s closing address, which covered the research that’s been done into how access to the internet and social media tools is affecting our ability to do deep thinking. I say I was listening to Nicholas Carr, and taking the occasional note, and chatting with others about what we’d just heard, and watching the twitter stream, and peeking at my Blackberry and … yeah, his point is well taken!
This was my first foray into a virtual world (“inworld” – my new word of the month), and I’d do it again, when unable to attend the full conference or other meeting. How about you? -- Nora
I'm delighted that you enjoyed the Virtual Conference. I had a great time doing sessions and interacting with both meat-space and inworld attendees. Kudos to everyone involved in making it run so smoothly!
Posted by: Mary Ellen Bates | June 25, 2010 at 11:12 AM