Mo Hax

Virtual Real Estate Space Fulfills Psychological Need

Posted in Uncategorized with tags edtechretreat, immersion, office, psychology, secondlife, work on February 8, 2010 by Mo Hax

We talk a lot about immersion and sense of place and spatial memory when talking about Second Life, OpenSim and other virtual worlds platforms and grids. Then every once in a while you have a renewed aha moment when it happens to you again. I just had one of those.

An island or an office?

While building out EDTECH Retreat early on in the process I fell in love with a lagoon and hammock spot that I started calling my office. Even though Rob has to work hard, Mo can relax. Amazingly, like so many other things, the relaxation translates across the virtual divide.

Then as the lodge started to take shape I realized I liked being here more than, well, in my home office—especially because I could share a virtual cubicle with friends, new and old, from all walks of life while actually working. For someone who works largely unconnected from others at any formal workplace this is significant.

With most of the island done now, I sit on high peaks overlooking amazing atoll textures and oceanic waves far below.

I’m relaxed and at home. I realized in that moment, this island is my office, not my home where I type on the keyboard. In fact, I made a simple titler so my avatar can sit comfortably in that office while I work on other things in other windows.

I realized having this virtual office space fulfills the psychological need for a definitive space. It feels more like I really am running a small business because I have office space, even if it is a hammock, couch, or overlook point on a peak.

Return to relationships

I have met many new friends in our new space and, yes, discussed business with some. But business is approached more like I imagine it would be on a golf course, indirectly and sincerely emerging from mutual need. Business is about relationships. And what better way to promote sincere relationships than starting with social media and the immersive experiences available in virtual worlds.

Hanging your shingle

Something about having walls and a storefront to hang your shingle on communicates a feeling of having really opened, taken the dive. Today the shingle has HTML and JavaScript inside it but what about the store itself, not just the store front?

Come on in

Never during this move to internet commerce, which probably started in the 90s, has any internet vendor or service provider been able to say these simple words to everyone, not just those in physical proximity. Today they can. Today someone learns about your goods or services through whatever means, usually word of mouth or internet search. They read your web page, sure, but now they can visit you in virtual person when meeting in actual person is prohibitive.

Big business lesson learned

In 2006 and 2007 we saw big business learn important lessons about use of virtual worlds, particularly marketing in Second Life. Many big Second Life supporters are quietly shutting down SL islands for different reasons including the natural migration to internal virtual worlds, like Second Life Enterprise. But one of the main reasons enterprise SL sites seemed to fail in 2007 is that enterprise failed to understand these virtual worlds best cater to smaller, intimate groups and settings, though large gatherings are certainly possible. Most enterprises are not equipped to work on that small level at all. Even if they manage to staff their space with greeters and such, those staffers are so removed from the core services and goals of the company that the spark of commerce fails to ignite.

Small business flourishes

Small business, on the other hand, leverages personal connection and attention as a core competitive advantage, as Daniel Pink describes well in Free Agent Nation. Virtual worlds like Second Life with large public communities, large availability of resources, and relatively low costs to maintain seem ideally suited to give that come on in feel which drives small business customer attraction and success.

Everyone can have a space now

Linden Labs apparently recognizes this need for space, for real estate. Giving premium members even the smallest bit of land is something that should have been done from the first day. Even if Linden Labs hadn’t decided to give land, the popularity of ReactionGrid and others shows that people want this probably based on that same psychological need we have to own real land. Nothing promotes ownership and belonging more, whether it be just for entertaining friends or discussing small projects with them. Isn’t that how business should be done anyway? Why should the executive golfers get all the fun?

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Fiddling with Social Media, Tevye Needed Twitter

Posted in Uncategorized with tags belief, dogma, education, fiddler, philosophy, socialmedia on February 3, 2010 by Mo Hax

My favorite movie of all time isn’t Star Wars or even The Matrix, it’s Fiddler on the Roof. It wasn’t always my favorite, but it has knocked out all the other contenders by a long way, and I’m not even Jewish.

One of my favorite scenes is when Tevye, like with all his daughters leaving in marriage, considers the pros and cons for his daughter’s happiness weighing them with his own happiness and tradition. During the dialog with himself he often says, “on the other hand…” until he stops himself with his last daughter, who loves a Russian, the symbol of their repression and a complete infidel according to his faith. “THERE IS NO OTHER HAND!” he shouts. Why? Why couldn’t Tevye consider it? Why couldn’t he love his own daughter despite his reservations like the others? That moment has set with me since I first saw Fiddler when I was 12 (and reminds me I need to show it to my sons).

I believe the answer is because the consideration simply pushed Tevye’s boundaries, mental and spiritual past a point his own psyche could withstand. Accepting that ‘other hand’ would mean taking all the truths he had know, his absolute foundation, his belief and his culture, and rendering them sandy, unstable, relative, non-absolutes without any stable replacement. In modern terms, Tevye could not and would not swallow the red pill, it would kill him.

Dogma

Dogma often comes from strong belief systems, scientific, political, or religious, for better or worse. This commitment and foundation of rock is what sustains it, it gives life and happiness to the adherents. When cracks in that foundation are discovered and the foundation ultimately rocked, by one’s own mental exploration or by others, perhaps violently presented with new truths, the destruction of the house built upon the rock often kills those in it unless they manage a safe move to other shelter. But all too few survive coming out of that house into the wild and even fewer actually want to leave the safety of the house upon a rock. The longer we live in that house, the less likely we will ever leave unless we see problems with it ourselves, even then, we’d likely stay in the house poisoning us with carbon monoxide to a slow but painless death rather than seek safety in the blizzard of clean air.

Humanity needs stable foundations as well as exploration of new ones.
The very structure of society through the ages has depended on these foundations. Without these things, the stability to have any life or advancement would not exist (as any Civ III fan can tell you). In our modern age, however, the ‘decline of values’ is likely more a result of people feeling safe enough to come out of their safe houses but not strong enough to follow their own path than it is from humanity failing. This is where social media comes in.

Social media provides new frontiers for exploration.

Social media, this unprecedented contact with individuals and ideas connected to specific people, rather than canonized or expounded in one book or another, is opening the intellects and souls of billions. People feel safe to discuss topics they never have before, to broaden their philosophical considerations and adapt their life paths. The repercussions are uncharted. Humanity has never experienced this level of interconnectedness. This huge collective rethinking could lead to mass adoption of popular values, or it could lead to real exploration with the safety without dogmatic repercussions. We read. We learn. We share. Together.

Yes, Tevye, there is an other hand.
Had Tevye been raised in more open, more connected, and frankly more anonymous world he may have taken the opportunity to seriously engage in dialog and exploration of other ways of thinking, other approaches to life and happiness. Perhaps then Tevye would have found his ‘other hand’ and given his daughter the unconditional love she needed and deserved.

Machinima of VSTE 2010 Second Life Fashion Show – Part One

Posted in Uncategorized with tags fashion, machinima, secondlife, vste on January 24, 2010 by Mo Hax

Really enjoyed filming and editing this machinima for the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) group. This is the first part of a fun fashion show held on January 19th on VSTE Island in Second Life. Includes hosts Thunder Insippo and jazmemo Zimminy, master of ceremonies Summer Nachtigal, and VSTE member models Neo Kalnoky, Merry Difference, Spiff Whitfield, Emilia Cornwall and Julie Sugarplum. Built by pikskate Clip.

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Odyssey of an Adjunct, A New Blog

Posted in Uncategorized on January 19, 2010 by Mo Hax

This blog started out on the topic of Second Life and OpenSim with the focus on beginners and adopters. It has taken turns into business virtual worlds, education and elsewhere. Sometimes it is on topic and contains something related to Second Life and/or OpenSim, sometimes not.

So…

I’ve created a new blog to cover the purely educational posts building up in my brain that I don’t feel right posting to this one. I’m calling it, Odyssey of an Adjunct. It’s more a personal travel log of events and topics from my journey to make it as an educator and edtech developer.

Educational topics that involve Second Life will still likely land here and all of it gets tweeted from @mohax. Thanks for everyone’s help and encouragement along the way.

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Second Life for Artistic Expression in Business

Posted in Uncategorized on January 4, 2010 by Mo Hax

Using the word art around business types is often like saying shoe shopping to guys from that episode of Scrubs. They zone out. So what’s the equivalent of lace bra to get them back? Could it be bonus?

In 2001 Sir Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds, Learning to Be Creative captured and fed the inertia of the creative culture revolution both needed and emerging in business and education. This revolution continues to manifest itself all around us and has been further captured by Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. It is certainly no secret that creativity is at the heart of business innovation and profit.

Content is art

The term content sounds better to many when money is involved. But let’s face it, this stuff is art, the product of hours, sometimes months of creative expression and innovation. What if we actually called it art? I suppose we can’t if only because some of the content is hardly art at all.

Good content (art) + community = creative productivity

We already know community brings real business return on investment since it promotes what Sir Ken calls the ‘network of knowledge.’ But that network can be nurtured to produce even more.

Ever really focus on a problem and been unable to solve it during that intense focus only to have the answer come to you, say, on a good run outside, in the shower, or even dreaming? Many more intelligent folk than I have found the reasons for this, the same reasons synergizing and strategizing at a corporate retreat or other fun place has long produced not just big expense reports, but amazing innovations, often written down on napkins rather than sketched out on a white-board in a high-pressure, white-walled, prison-like conference room.

And, by the way, why are those ‘wacky’ creatives put in fancy, colorful spaces with bean-bags, Nerf hoops, and music?

We are all creative and can benefit from techniques and environments known to bring out creativity—especially now through virtual worlds.

Virtual worlds are like low-cost creative retreats. They provide a wonderful, profitable opportunity for business to foster innovation though creative inspiration and unprecedented immersive experiences within works of art if they are treated as such.

Think art and experience, not build and run

People want to be in places that are more enjoyable, visually stimulating, even fun. It amazes me that schools remain this prisons of brick and concrete not allowing more design and art. Some even punish those who attempt to change the colors of their own classroom walls. Somehow we are allowed to have creative spaces when we are young and slowly they fade away into mindless cubicles free from distracting images or colors that we desperately try to revive with our kitschy additions.

Virtual worlds give the opportunity to have real collaborative, productive business and educational sessions on the beach, in a lodge, on a mountain, even while sharing a ride. I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. But these experiences don’t happen if we simply recreate virtual representations of the drabness that has overtaken so much of our physical world experience. Next time you plan your virtual world space, break the rules, be creative, have fun. Work will happen, even if you are deeply immersed in someone else’s work of art.