Social Virtuality

Social Media and Virtual Community

Cross Platform Events That Rock - April 10th 10:30AM ET (7:30AM PT/SLT) #10NTC #NPSL #TechSoup

via ntenonline.org

Cross Platform Events That Rock - Humans & Avatars Invited to this Mixed Reality Session

Presenters: Susan Tenby (Glitteractica Cookie), Evonne Heyning (In Kenzo), Megan Keane (Penguin Kuhn), Randi Kopp (Dusty Artaud)

Location: If you are not going to be in Atlanta, you can attend inworld at this Second Life location: Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater

Online events aren't only about having a conversation on your own website. How can you get more people involved by meeting them where they're at? We'll use two TechSoup case studies to show you how.

Case Study -TSdigs event in October 2009: The event took place on forums, webinars, Tweetchat, Second Life, flickr and YouTube. This cross-platform event allowed for multiple levels of interaction with the single goal of teaching nonprofits how to tell stories digitally. The panel will take place across a mixed-reality framework, to illustrate the process and feeling of a cross-platform/mixed reality event.

Case Study - Social Innovation Awards Competition in March 2010: This social media campaign was run by TechSoup (and its Nonprofit Commons volunteers) across Second Life, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, as well as through email, blogs, listservs and forums. This cross-platform campaign succeeded because of the high level of established healthy communitity interaction across outworld and inworld platforms.

The panel will take place across a mixed-reality framework, to illustrate the process and feeling of a cross-platform/mixed reality event.

Life Imitates Games more than Games Imitate Life

via g4tv.com , DICE 2010: "Design Outside the Box" presented by Carnegie Mellon University Professor Jesse Schell.

How technology is moving us towards satisfying our hunger for artificial authenticity through a points-based lifestyle. Coming to a toothbrush, soda can, cereal box and health care system near you.

Kevin Kelly has some cogent commentary on The Technium.

Coughran Mayo Presents Youth Substance Abuse Intervention Report Today, 2/7 at 2:30PM SLT

Presenter: Coughran Mayo (Dick Dillon, VP of Planning and Development, Preferred Family Healthcare)
When: Sunday, Feb 7, 2010
Time: 2:30-3:30 pm SLT
Where: The Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability in Second Life

What: Successful Counseling Intervention on the Grid- Year One Report

Can Virtual Worlds be effective in helping youth recover from substance abuse? How can professionals make wise use of this increasingly popular environment to aid teens? This presentation reviews the outcomes from the first year of a three year grant-funded project to use Virtual Worlds to deliver distance substance abuse counseling to rural youth.

Nonprofits in Virtual World Collaborating to Make a Difference in Real World

via youtube.com

New mixed media video about the Nonprofit Commons, which consists of four virtual locations in Second Life. Housing over 80 social benefit organizations, the Nonprofit Commons is managed by a community of volunteers, under the leadership of TechSoup Global . Nonprofit Commons was designed to lower the barriers of access to Second Life, to create a community of practice for nonprofits to explore and learn about the virtual world, and to investigate the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize this unique environment.

Volunteerism, Collaboration and Virtual Haiti Relief

Virtualhaitirelief
Yesterday,  approximately 50 avatars - representing nonprofits and NGOs from such places as the US, UK, France, Belgium, Kenya, Mexico and Japan - met in Second Life's Nonprofit Commons amphitheater to hear about last week's launch of Virtual Haiti Relief, a grid-wide coordinated effort to help in the relief efforts for those who have suffered in the Haiti earthquake disaster. Virtual Haiti Relief will conduct and promote fundraising events, provide donation kiosks/vendor tools to other groups, offer a wealth of outworld support resources, as well as provide French Creole translation assistance and cultural information on Haiti. All of this is being done through volunteers. Individuals in all social, cultural, nonprofit and other community groups within this virtual world have been invited to participate.
  
Npc_virtual_haiti_011

As outlined at this meeting (by Rhiannon Chatnoir and Katydid Something),Virtual Haiti Relief has already:
  • Launched the Virtual Haiti Relief website , to act as a central point of public information outside of SL
  • Created a Google Group: Virtual Haiti Relief Google Group and Calendar of Upcoming Events
  • Created an avatar, VirtualHaitiRelief Engineer as an account to direct donations
  • Partnered with the successful fund-raising Relay For Life Team who have graciously rescripted a kiosk for collection of donations and a multivendor to sell items whose proceeds go towards fundraising
  • Established a liaison with Linden lab (Jeska Linden) to help coordinate donation collections, broadcasting of the events and support of event locations 
  • Developed a short list of vetted charitable organizations , from which Virtual Haiti Relief will determine where all donations will go

To keep posted on upcoming Virtual Haiti Relief meetings and events, here are a list of resources: