rabble.ca - Who’s on Second?

Episode Twenty Four - The Cat Curator

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:49 +0000

Kristina Lively is an electronic librarian who hails from Washington D.C. She's also Shadow Fugazi in Second Life, a stylish, feline avatar prone to wearing black and a cat's tail with a mind if its own. I first met Shadow early on in my Second Life adventures and we co-curated the Remember Us exhibit for the Alzheimer Society of Ontario that's up for a Canadian Digital Media Award next week in Toronto. Even though I've worked with Shadow and have chatted with her via IM for months, we've never actually spoken. That changed when she joined me, via Skype, from her office in D.C. You can learn more about Kristina at http://livelyhood.com/ In the real world I run an emerging tech communications company called w8nc. I help educators and nonprofits make use of tools like Second Life.

Episode Twenty Three - The Sculptable Prim - Golam Amadeus

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:43 +0000

Golam Amadeus is a Portuguese painter with a scientific background and an artistic eye. He's become a leading sculptor in Second Life and I spoke with him about his SL work in a week when Linden Lab introduced the sculptable prim to the 3D world. I also discuss Project Open Letter, Christiano Diaz's activism encouraging Linden Lab to get the basics of the SL experience right.

Episode Twenty Two - Lawmen in the Wild West - Jim Milles

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:40 +0000

Jim Milles is the Associate Dean and Director of the Law Library at the University at Buffalo Law School, in Buffalo New York. He's also an avid podcaster who hosts wide ranging and engaging Check This Out! podcast at cto.libsyn.com/. In the last few weeks three people have said to me, "Wayne, you need to talk to Jim Milles". I took their advice, and I'm glad I did. I had a great time talking about the gnarly legal and governance issues Second Life raises and about what works and doesn't work for libraries in Second Life. Please contact me a wmacphail@gmail.com. In the real world I run an emerging tech communications company called w8nc. I help educators and nonprofits make use of tools like Second Life. I'll put a link to my company site, w8nc.com in the show notes.

Episode Twenty One - Search and Access - Donna Dinberg

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:36 +0000

Donna Dinberg is a Systems Librarian for the Services Branch of Library and Archives Canada. So Donna, known as Dinnie Devonshire in Second Life, has to cope with the restrictions and requirements of government accessibility and language guidelines as she explores emerging tech like Second Life. Donna and I discuss that, more effective search and a range of other topics in what was a really fun conversation for me. By the way, Donna has also just launched an exhibit on Jewish Genealogy in the Genealogy Centre on Info Island One. You can contact me at wmacphail@gmail.com My company site is at http://w8nc.com

Episode Twenty - The Titanium Survivor - Stacy Stone

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:32 +0000

Stacy Stone's transformation into the Second Life healthcare advocate Goodwillstacy Stindberg began when she was bitten in the face by a dog. The jaw injury that resulted in facial pain and a series of operations that left her with titanium jaws and a powerful desire to be an informed health consumer. Stacy is now a 25-year-old self-taught online marketing expert, writer and entrepreneur. She's brought that expertise into Second Life on Health Info Island where she wants to make it easier for other patient advocate groups to nurture their niches in the 3D space. She joined me via Skype from her home in Atlanta, Georgia. If you'd like more information about TMJ visit http://www.tmjfriends.com/ My company website is at http://w8nc.com. Please contact me at wmacphail@gmail.com

Episode Nineteen - Building in Space - Chad Oberg

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:29 +0000

I recently ran into Chip Poutine as we were both hanging out at the welcome area of Better World Island. It turned out that Chip, in the real world, is Chad Oberg, a fellow Canadian from Calgary, Alberta. Chad is a design consultant and an intern architect who graduated from the Master of Architecture Program at the University of Calgary. He writes a terrific blog about architecture in both lives, called Virtual Suburbia and he has a Second Life design shop, the Prion Design Group which is working on projects like a virtual vineyard, the Capozzi Winery based on the Russian River Valley winery in California. For Chad, the distinctions between spaces and our experiences of spaces in the real world and the virtual world are very similar and one can teach us a lot about the other.

Episode Eighteen - Masters of Media - Gerri Sinclair

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:27 +0000

Gerri Sinclair is an entrepreneur, a new media pioneer in Canada and has walked the halls of government, Microsoft, where she was MSN Canada's general manager, and now, academia. Gerri is the Executive Director of the Masters of Digital Media Program at the Center for Digital Media at Great Northern Way Campus on the outskirts of Vancouver in British Columbia here in Canada. The 20 month long degree program is accredited by Vancouver's four major post secondary institutions: the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. And the Centre for Digital Media also exists in Second Life, on Erie.

Episode Seventeen - The New Architects of Information

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:24 +0000

I first met information architects Stacy Surla and Andrew Hinton as they were hammering the first planks together for their new island for the Information Architecture Institute. The space is just offshore from Cafe Fireball, so I got curious about what was going on over on the new plot of land. What I discovered was that the IAI is keenly interested in creating real world, online and Second Life experiences that let users get work done, find there way around and find the information they need easily and sensibly. We got talking about just that and I thought it deserved a show. Stacy is on the Board of Directors of the IAI and is an IA with the Mitre Corporation. Andrew is a senior IA at Vanguard, a U.S. financial institution.

Episode Sixteen - Everybody's Sister - Jeska Linden

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:20 +0000

This is Who's On Second? a podcast about educators and nonprofits who have jacked into the online 3D community called Second Life. This time out, the people's Linden speaks up. Jeska Linden, Jeska Dzwigalski in real life, is a Second Life Community Developer. That means she's an avatar advocate, fighting for user good user experience, tools and training as Second Life creaks and copes with the strains of 30% growth month-to-month. And, it's taken me months to finally get her on the other end of the Skype line for what turned out to be a wonderfully frank discussion of Second Life's problems, shortcoming, challenges and opportunities. She joined me from Linden Lab's offices in San Francisco, California a few days before her company introduced voice to the grid.

Episode Fifteen - Transformers

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:17 +0000

No guest this time, just me talking about transformative experiences in real and virtual, my lunch with Judy Rebick and why I think Second Life is sort of broken right now. Please send feedback to Wayne MacPhail wmacphail@gmail.com. My company website is at http://w8nc.com

Episode Fourteen - All Roads Lead to Peoria - Lorelei Junot

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:16 +0000

Anyone who's spent time in the education archipelago of Second Life knows that Lorelei Junot is a miracle worker. She is the white angel of all good land, and good things there.Lorelei (Lori Bell in the real world) is a grant writing machine and has given birth to two real world children and an entire Micronesia of Second Life real estate. Her work is all the more remarkable because she's the Director of Innovation for the Alliance Library system, which serves a network of libraries, many of them rural, in the 14,000 square miles around Peoriam Illinois. She spoke with me this week and explained how her hometown became the centre of the library world in Second Life. For more info on the Alliance Library System please visit http://alliancelibrarysystem.com

Episode Thirteen - A Heart of Gold - Jackie Brosseuk

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:14 +0000

I first Riversong Garden, Jackie Brosseuk in real life, a couple of months ago, when she invited me to watch the sunrise over Betterworld Island. Jackie and her inventor husband Randy Brosseuk, recently found themselves the owner of this uplifting plot of good energy. It's a strange journey for the Canadian couple, who in the real world, design and sell heavy industrial equipement used in alluvial gold mining and other applications. Well, that, and ship containers full of free tools and empowering technology to the South Pacific and more recently Africa. Betterworld Island is a small Second Life Jewel. We've already met two Betterworld residents in this podcast. In Episode Four I interviewed In Kenzo, who's Amortation Studio has build the calming and crystalline Manor Meta there.

Episode Twelve - Social Profit in the Myst

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:11 +0000

I first met film maker and facilitator Bill Weaver on the idyllic Cortes Island on Canada's west coast. Bill was co-hosting the famous Media that Matters there at the Hollyhock Resort, which looks like Hobbit Town organically cross-pollinated with an upscale scout camp. But, these days, Bill is nutured a new, and as yet unnamed virtual island in Second Life. Right now it's just a precambrian hump of crags and rocks with some intriguing infrastructure in its bowels. But, Bill hopes it will be a space where for-profits and social profit groups can come together, meet well, and change the way each other work. He spoke with me about his new water-rimmed enterprise, via Skype, from his home in Victoria, British Columbia.

Episode Eleven - Hypertext in the Memory Palace - Richard Smyth

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:09 +0000

Richard Smyth is the Library Media Specialist/Technology Coordinator at Catherdal High School in Boston. Over the past couple of months Richard and I have been corresponding, and it turns out we both cut our teeth in new media by exploring hypertext, even hypertext before there was a web to put it on. We were both fascinated by the postlinear possibilities for storytelling that was more like stream of consciouness than traditional tale weaving. Richard's been using hypertext, Multi User Domains and now Second Life to push the edges of writing, communicating and getting his students engaged with the art of self-expression. He spoke with me about hypertext and electracy (literacy for a web-enabled world) a few evenings ago, from his home just outside of Bean Town.

Episode Ten - Dancing With the Graces

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:07 +0000

Catherine and Alan Petersen are, in real life, a couple with a shared love of art. Catherine is an academic programs librarian and Northern Arizona University and Alan is the chair of the art department at Coconino Community college in Flagstaff Arizona. Right now Alan's real life artwork in hanging in the couple's Ceres Chenille South Shore Gallery. It's gestural and evocative of the raw landscapes Alan has visited in his home state and Scotland. There's even a touch of quantum physics influence tossed in for good measure. But soon that work will be replaced by historical artwork curated by groups of Alan's students.

Episode Nine - The Island Where Anything Can Go Wrong

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:06 +0000

On Asterix and Obelix people prepare for the worst Second Life,and real life can offer. The islands are the home of Play2Train, a disaster simulator complete with hospitals, helicopters fire trucks and restaurants which can blow up at a moments notice. Play2Train is the Second Life component of the Idaho Bioterrorism Awareness and Preparedness Program, IBAPP for short. And, that program is headed up by Ramesh Ramloll (Moriz Gupte in Second Life). Ramesh is a research assitant professor in Institute of Rural Health at Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho. Learn more at http://irhbt.typepad.com/play2train/.

Episode Eight - Blood Plagues and Red Rain - John Anderton, CDC

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:03 +0000

I first met John Anderton in mid-December at Second Life exhibit I helped create for the Alzheimer Society of Ontario. He was there as his avatar, Hygeia Philo, a striking redhaired woman in a natty business suit and a santa cap, doing a wicked job of nailing a concentration type game we had folded into the exhibit. In real life John is the Acting Associate Director for Communications Science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Within the CDC, he works in the National Centre for Public Health Informatics. What that boils down to is that John gets to explore new media, like Second Life for the Centers for Disease Control, He's helping them get health information out to the public using emerging technology.

Episode Seven - The Undead Librarian - Floria Hand

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:02 +0000

This time out, a 3D world smackdown between Second Life and World of Warcraft. Abbi Ball is a librarian with three lives, her real life one in Palo Alto, California, her role as as reference guide on Info Island and her most unusual one, as an Level 60 undead priest in World of Warcraft. Massively multiplayer online games, the generic name for 3D spaces like Second Life, neither began nor will end with the Linden Labs creation. There are nearly two dozen major MMOGs available today, most of them swords, scorcery and fantasy based. In the MMOG space, World of Warcraft is the undefeated champion, with about 60 per cent marketshare. And Second Life's recent, and problematic peak concurrent user level of 20,000 pales in comparison to World of Warcraft's 660,000 concurrent user numbers.

Episode Six - Riding the Orca - Linda Kelley

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:02 +0000

There are all sorts of landscapes in Second Life - hyperformalist, hyperactive, mechanical, Victorian and sometimes, just sometimes, gentle, natural and refreshing. Linda Kelley, Delia Lake in Second Life, has created a half dozen of those sorts of landscapes. Well, waterscapes, really. She's the Centre for Water Studies on Better World Island (Better World 24, 51, 22). They're tiny perfect habitats full of fish, mammals and flora Linda hopes remind us all how precious water is. In the real world Linda is a success consultant who believes how we move through the world and appear in it can shape and improve our progress, as individuals and as a species. She spoke with me, via Skype, from her home in Boston.

Episode Five - Leaps and Parachutes - Beth Kanter

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:20:00 +0000

Beth Kavka seems to be everywhere in Second Life. Well, everywhere there's a nonprofit, anyway. At a weekly gathering of nonprofits I attend she sports wide anime eyes, ornate kimonos and has about her the a multitasking dervish energy that can't fail to pull you in. Beth, her last name is Kanter in the real world, has been attracted to nonprofits and technologies for decades. She is a former flautist and arts administrator and now a professional blogger about the use of social media tools in the nonprofit sector. She also calls herself a digital immigrant coach. If you'd like to learn more about Beth you can at bethkanter.org.

Episode Four - The Green Fairy of Amoration Studio

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:19:59 +0000

Who's On Second? is a podcast about educators and nonprofits who have jacked into the online 3D community called Second Life. In each episode of this podcast, I'll chat with some of most interesting groups and individuals exploring this new online space. This time out, a former chaplin turned Second Life activist, artist and movie maker. I first saw In Kenzo at a meeting of nonprofits in Second Life. She was hard to miss, being green about eight feet tall, and sporting spikey white hair and gossamer but very goth bat wings. In real life, the giant goblin is Evonne Heyning, a young woman who heads up the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Amoration Studio.

Episode Three - The Homeless Professor - Harry Pence

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:19:57 +0000

In Second Life, John2 Kepler is a natty gent in a tweed cap and jacket with a swatch of rainbow on the front. In real life, John2 is Harry Pence, a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Chemistry at the State University of New York. He's 70 and has been a SUNY prof for 40 of those years. Harry's aways been ahead of the curve on technology and how it helps communities and students grow and learn together. I caught up with him just a month after he'd got caught up in Second Life. We began the conversation back with his earliest online experiences.

Episode Two: Code PINK - Women for Peace

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:19:56 +0000

CodePINK is a real world female social justice group, based in the U.S. CodePINK (www.codepinkalert.org) opposes the war in Iraq, all wars, really and uses absurdist humour, pink lingerie and solid activism to colour political debate. There are Code Pink chapters across the U.S., but the one in Second Life is probably the most rustic. It's a small cottage filled with posters, CodePINK attire and literature and art. The cottage was created by avatar Ana Herzog, Nancy Hill, in real life, a mother of two who also founded the Tucson, Arizona chapter of the fun-loving, but deadly serious group. I caught up with Nancy Hill this week to find out why she's intent on getting Second Lifers to think pink.

Episode One: Health Info Island

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:19:55 +0000

Second Life (secondlife.com) is a 3D virtual world you enter via software on your computer. In Second Life you're represented by a virtual you, an avatar. Male or female, tramp, vixen, animal, average Joe or fashion plate, how your avatar looks is up to you. My avatar, named Medium Helvetic looks like a skinny bald old guy, because I'm too shy to make myself look like a cross between an extra from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a pole dancer, a combination that is surprisingly popular. My avatar, under my mouse and keyboard command can walk, run and fly, yes, fly, through hundreds of square miles of terrain, shops, houses and nighclubs. There are lots of nightclubs.