The TED Talk:

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir – ‘Lux Aurumque’:

UPDATE: Eric Whitacre — Sleep (Virtual Choir 2.0):

http://www.ted.com Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on “external brains” (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves.

All hail the new flesh! Woot!

It certainly isn’t my place to argue with her and really, what’s a plebe like me going to add here? She nailed it. Or rather, she nailed us.

The only thing I suppose I could nit-pick is this notion of “slowing down”, which I hear echoed in everything from New Age and Zen to bleeding-edge technology conferences. People are spending an awful lot of time worrying about us becoming creatures that operate on a pure stimulus-response level, rather than thinking and creating ourselves.

This, I would argue, has nothing to do with technology. TV was demonized along the same lines. No, the problem isn’t the tech.

It’s the culture.

We live in a world where the wealthiest nations on the planet can’t be bothered to raise their own kids, or question the veracity of the nonsense that passes for news these days, or wonder if maybe there’s something to be concerned about when animals and insects are spontaneously dropping dead all over the globe. As long as we’re fed and entertained, we’re happy and content to take whatever we’re spoon-fed.

That’s not technology. That’s the sleep we’ve been slipping into as a people since my grandparents were born.

We Live in Public – 2008, 18A, 88 minutes

Ondi Timoner’s documentary chronicles a decade in the life of Internet pioneer Josh Harris, who instigated an “artificial society” experiment in which more than 100 artists lived under 24-hour surveillance in an underground compound in New York City. After FEMA broke up the project, Harris turned the cameras on himself and his girlfriend. Timoner’s provocative film (winner of the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at Sundance) includes clips from Harris’s projects as well as her own original footage.

Keep it digital and catch it on Netflix. It’s scary and awesome, although the ending is a little weak. The point, through, is this notion that we are all encouraged to make our lives public. It is the way forward. “Web 2.0″, “User-created content”, “Social media”, assorted buzzwords yadda yadda…

Now that we’ve lived with these ideas for a few years, the hipster movement makes sense. After all, you can’t be cool all the time, and in an age of constant surveillance and recording you’re bound to do something stupid that people will take notice of. As a result, people claim it was “supposed to be ironic”.

That, or your idiotic status update was “just trolling lololollol”… sure, we believe you. No, really, I’m not typing sarcastically or anything.

The older generation got flinchy about public perception by doing what they always do: hiding behind “professionalism”. The number of dry, sterile public profiles that tell you nothing about the person in question is staggering. People have thrown themselves into mediocrity enthusiastically in order to keep the all-seeing eye of the Internet from making them look like an ass. So, instead, they look ignorable.

Now, if “ignorable” is part of the job description, then your resume is perfect. For the rest of us, its time to just be guileless and let the chips fall where they may. Either you’ll run your business yourself, or you’ll let the world run it for you.

Which one has your best interests at heart?

Lady Gaga Telephone (Pomplamoose cover)

See also Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) – Beyonce. Hipsters are just loving this stuff. Ironic takes on popular songs make people feel so good about how very clever and “above it all” they are. Please remember to wear an expression that encapsulates focused disinterest or you’ll spoil it.

From a technological point of view, however, the above video represents how cheap and easy media has become to produce. Two people accomplish here what used to take dozens, using equipment that used to carry a prohibitive cost. A sign of the times, to be sure.

The issue I take is when people talk about us being able to do something fundamentally new here. Cheaper and faster, sure, but this isn’t actually anything new. The fact is that the same “hipster appeal” media can be produced without even using electricity:

Ukranian Polka Band playing “Hot N Cold”

Ok, sure, they’re not true hipsters because they sniggered before they started but it’s counter-balanced by the retro instrumentation. The point is that 20-somethings always consider themselves innovators by default, but pretty much always try to accomplish the exact same thing no matter what decade we’re in.

There’s a difference between new technology and true innovation.

While pop sociology isn’t what I’m primarily interested in, it’s necessary to point out that technological progress is having a ripple effect through the world of business at the moment. First websites, then email, then cell phones, and now smartphones have forced themselves into our daily lives whether we want them to or not.

Those seeking a competitive advantage often ask: “What are the kids into these days?” Many execs still feel scorched from missing the big scores of the dot-com bubble days, and want to know what’s being hyped as the next big thing before it gets forced down their throats.

This works itself out in both positive and negative ways: we sometimes find faster and cheaper ways of being productive, but we also occasionally spend time and money on things that are irrelevant. The real magic happens when we apply a little innovation.

Spinning Flax Into Gold

Take Twitter, for instance. When it first launched it was a waste of time. 90% of the content was completely useless, and only appealed to voyeur celebrity stalkers or friends who were enjoying a new way to chat. Since we were all so paranoid about missing the “next big thing”, however, massive resources were dumped into supporting the platform.

So many people had put their reputations on the line promoting Twitter that, with their backs up against the wall, they were forced to innovate. (Cue defensive technophiles rushing to the comments to tell me how unbelievably useful Twitter was even before it was released etc etc etc… guys, have a quiet moment of honesty with yourselves.) Eventually people figured out how to make it productive, shoehorning in social networking opportunities, hash-tag protocols for live on-location news updates, and quick polling for instant feedback.

The fact is that there was nothing inherently wonderful about Twitter. It was later innovation that turned it into a useful tool.

Here’s another great example: MySpace. Once the darling of the interwebs, everybody just had to be on it. Of course, then people realized that Facebook has a better interface, LinkedIn a more focused network, and custom made websites more flexibility. MySpace started to die.

How did it survive? Innovation. That MP3 player plugin, combined with some good deals with record companies, turned MySpace into one of the easiest and fastest ways for bands to promote themselves to an audience that might never listen to them otherwise. The built-in e-commerce system was a nice touch as well.

Virtual environments have the same issues. They can be a waste of time, or with a little applied innovation, the pivotal tool your business uses to create a serious competitive advantage.

The latest gadget will not save your company. Only innovation will.

Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.

One of the biggest challenges I have always faced in my efforts to broaden the appeal of virtual environments is the perception that they’re just toys. The public’s thinking is often that gaming is not a business application, and so by extension virtual worlds are just a game that isn’t all that much fun.

The effort has been to help people see that a virtual environment has nothing at all to do with gaming, and is often a very practical solution to real world problems. Slowly this understanding is growing.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t acknowledge that the fun factor of virtual environments does play a part. I got involved with Second Life because I’m a gamer, despite it not actually being a game. The intuitive connection exists.

While my primary outreach strategy is currently the Virtual Worlds Keynote series, I’m beginning to realize that I need to start using gaming as a framework in my future planning. Gaming strategies lead to much better ROI than traditional project management. If I can find a way to leverage existing human instincts, rather than my current policy of educating people to overcome what their instincts are telling them, I’ll get further, faster.

The seeds of some new ideas are starting to germinate… but I’d love to hear your ideas, if you’re willing to offer them. I’ll give a +1 Vorpal Sword to the best one.

What got me off topic today was our book club. We’re currently reading one of my favorite novels: “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” by Cory Doctorow. (Read it for free here.)

It got me thinking about something called “the singularity” again. This is a term first coined by Ray Kurzweil to describe the point in the near future when the pace technological innovation becomes, for all intents and purposes, infinite. Here’s a short video describing one aspect of the phenomenon:

THE IMMORTALISTS – a short film by Jason Silva

Immortality is within our grasp. Yes, for real. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Sadly, there’s a catch. Even when humanity is smart, we’re still horrible at dealing with each other. Sooner or later someone will decide that what the world really needs is a good apocalypse.

After all, in an age where the pace of technological innovation is infinite, you’ll have about three dozen cheap and easy ways to end all human life listed on six dozen popular blogs.

It could be that this phenomena of knowing that anyone could end it all at any moment might be the new way people come to live with death. For a time, mankind won’t be fearing their own deaths, but rather the end of all civilization.

What will finally end it, of course, will be those who try to prevent the end from coming. As organizations are formed to lock down the “dangerous” information or censor “dangerous” people, there will be a backlash from people objecting to being controlled. The schism between the opposing points of view will rise until eventually it produces someone who can’t stand an eternity of humanity being controlled in this way.

So they’ll end it for all of us.

When people make guesses as to how the world might end, they usually point at natural phenomena or ecological disaster. I’m putting $50 on the singularity. Any takers?

If you think you might have questions do make sure you’re there for the live session; the Q&A portion is not recorded! This is to keep each episode short and to the point for maximum usefulness in business environments. As usual, if you have questions for a speaker you might have missed, you can also email me at info [at] calebbooker [dot] com.

Recap from last time:
Last week we held the very first session of Virtual Worlds Keynote with guest speaker Jonena Relth, President of TBD Consulting. Her topic was “Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual” and proved to be a valuable resource for anyone who has ever considered taking a team online. I loved how grounded in real-world concerns her approach was, and the story that she tells about the discovery of this new tool is meaningful for a wide variety of professionals. You can view it in its entirety here:

Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual

This video now begins its life as a tool that you can use when proposing a solution for cutting travel budgets, team building exercises, or cost effective training. You can get the code for embedding this on your blog by right-clicking on the video itself, or click here for various social networking options.

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To join us in Second Life, you’ll need to do the following:

1. Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
2. Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
3. Click here to be teleported to our studio before 2pm Pacific.

• Myst Online is back! Why does this mean anything? Well, it failed twice. The game just isn’t financially viable. The creators, however, just switched the lights on and aren’t even worried about making any money out of it. That’s how cheap it has become to run these things!
• Apple gets a patent for a 3D shopping destination! Apple fans are fanatical. We have now officially bought ourselves a few million supporters of 3D environments.
• Layoffs Won’t Stop Project Wonderland – The latest from a GigaOM affiliate blog about the Wonderland team’s determination, stating that the project has enough momentum to carry it forward without any need for Oracle’s help and a number of companies are taking a serious look. Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing we started seeing just prior to the first dot-com bubble?

These are three specific examples, but in general I can tell you that there’s more virtual worlds news trying to cram itself through my news reader than ever before. I’m also hearing a lot of behind-the-scenes chatter of some huge announcements coming this summer. Brace yourself folks, 2010 is going to be a big year for virtual worlds.

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Want some hard facts, but don’t want to go through hundreds of articles to find it? I can’t blame you. Here, chew on these PDF links:

• BP Improves Online Collaboration, Reduces Costs With Protosphere – A straight-forward case study.
• Engage! Exhibit Hall Cheat Sheet – A list of companies who are selling virtual goods and reaching out to people at a physical conference.
• The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide – Great if you need a quick overview of what’s out there.

Firstly, why should you bother?

I took a tour of Mellanium‘s environment again today, and what really struck me was the level of detail visible. I was looking at this highly detailed model of the Titanic with textures so good I could zoom in on the knots in the wood. That’s impressive, but what was even better was that I could glance across the room and see a fully rendered locomotive and old fighter plane.

The interface was obvious. Fixing up my avatar was easy. The voice just worked. Full-screen mode just worked. We could easily hand files to each other, view PowerPoint and fully rendered web pages with Flash support, and snap privacy settings in the room on and off with a click. All of this right in the web browser.

So its a beautiful thing, tested with up to 90 concurrent users and it runs on your mom’s laptop. While things with Avaya’s buyout of Nortel make things a little shaky, this isn’t a platform to be underestimated.

At the beginning I promised information on how to get an early start. Its simple: buy a cheap copy of Unreal Tournament 2004. It comes bundled with UnrealEd, which is all you need to begin building environments right now. Import your static meshes from Maya or 3D Studio Max, and you’re just a step away from publication.

Now we just have to wait for Avaya to release the dev kit. I’ve been lead to believe that good news is on the way, but beyond that we’ll just have to wait and see.

About TechSoup’s Nonprofits In Second Life, Nonprofit Commons project. Learn more about how nonprofits are making a real-world difference through virtual world work.

Kudos to Draxtor Despres as well for his video work; genius as usual.