As of October 27th, I have joined the fantastic team at ReactionGrid.
My new role is Director of Community Development.
Read on for some of my thoughts on where I’ve been, where I’m going, and what brought me to make this new career jump.
The Road Behind
I’ve been working with virtual worlds for about 20 years. Back in the 90’s, I worked with physicians and patients at Massachusetts General Hospital to develop patient support communities using web-based and 3d immersive spaces. And I helped create medical education environments for Harvard Medical School to advance the case-based teaching method.
The broad potential of virtual worlds to augment those qualities that make us most human has always buzzed in my brain, and this continues to be a running theme in my deepest interests.
By 2005, I was already using Second Life in some of my education research and patient support work. The possibility of future projects loomed on the horizon. But I had a choice to make.
Did I want to continue to develop my own specific projects, or did I want to try my hand at helping cultivate the broad growth of virtual worlds as a platform?
I chose the latter. In 2005, I joined Linden Lab. My focus for the next 5 years was to help cultivate the use of Second Life as a platform for education. I also worked on broader community development projects, focusing on the innovative intersections between different communities and how they all fit into a broader ecosystem of interests. Along the way, I also founded and helped grow Linden Lab’s Boston Office.
My tenure at Linden Lab ended in March of 2010. In the following months, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do next. For a while I completely disconnected from the online world, seeking to reset my perspective on life and the future.
But my mind continued to come back to virtual worlds. Their amazing potential to change the world. The vibrant communities of people pioneering their use. The possibilities of new tools and technologies. The sometimes spooky qualities of virtual worlds as places to foster deep collaboration.
I spent time exploring the broad space of virtual world development. I began to deeply investigate the work going on with Opensim and, in particular, Hypergrid connectivity. I also joined the wonderful jokaydiaGRID community, setting up my own region Pathlandia as my home-base. I began to explore jumping between Hypergrid-enabled worlds with my Hypergrid Adventurers Club.
The Epiphany
That’s when I had an epiphany. It’s one thing to understand the theoretical potential of interconnected virtual worlds, but it’s another thing entirely to actually see it working. The possibilities of interconnections between virtual worlds exploded in my mind. And I realized I wanted to help cultivate those possibilities.
Now I just needed to find a place where I could help make that happen.
I explored various companies involved in virtual world development. Many folks are doing great work, but something about ReactionGrid really clicked with me.
ReactionGrid deeply understands the value of interconnections between virtual worlds. They have brilliant tools for people to set up and manage their own grids and virtual world presence. They deeply value customer support. They see themselves as part of a collaborative community of companies and organizations working to develop the future of virtual worlds. They are focused on education and business while simultaneously understanding the value of the arts and entertainment. They are developing completely new platforms like Unity3D-based Jibe to broaden access to virtual worlds. And they are even working on ways of connecting virtual platforms with the physical world (sensors, robotics, machinery) and the internet in general.
ReactionGrid is pioneering a lot of work with Opensim, but the company is much more than just an “Opensim Shop.”
And after personally meeting with the ReactionGrid team, I also realized they were scary-smart both in a technical and business sense.
This all made it very easy for me to decide on my next career jump.
The Road Ahead
As of October 27 20101, I’ve joined the ReactionGrid team as Director of Community Development. My broad focus will be on improving the use of ReactionGrid’s tools and service across all user groups, and helping cultivate the communities using those tools and services. I’ll be representing ReactionGrid at conferences and public events, as well as working closely to support all of our clients. There are many educators using ReactionGrid, so I’ll be spending a big chunk of my time working with those folks to learn about their specific needs and help them succeed.
To say that I am thrilled by all this would be a gross understatement. There’s an amazing future for virtual worlds, and I believe I’ve found the perfect place for me to help build that future.
Dreams made Real
I like to dream about the future of virtual worlds. Sometimes I even speculate into the far future around those dreams.
But I want to do more than just dream.
I want to work with people to make such dreams a reality.
So that’s exactly what I’m going to to next.
-John “Pathfinder” Lester
pathfinder@reactiongrid.com
Be Cunning and Full of Tricks 
Congrats, Pathfinder – thrilled that you are back in virtual worlds and lending your vision to the development of communities which are the heart and soul of all of these places. Happy to follow the new paths that you find!
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Congratulations and welcome aboard! It’s an privilege and an honor to be working with such a fabulous team of such individuals such as yourself, Pathfinder. Cheers to the Future!
Congratulations! All the best of luck- Pathfinder.
Glad to see you back in action in such a role. It seems like such a win-win scenario for everyone. I see the promotion of virtual worlds in general as something we can all do, regardless of grids (including LL’s), as I fully expect them to grow in parallel. There is so much potential for all worlds, and so many people waiting to discover them. We can promote virtual worlds together, and all benefit, while enriching new arrivals with entirely new concepts. I’m sure having you in place in such a role on any grid will encourage many to find (or remain in) virtual worlds. Feels like the Internet in the 90s; a “few” people have been added to it since then. 🙂
Super cool move Path – but then you knew that din’t you? The very best of luck as always in the new explorations.
Congrats Path, I think you made a wise choice, and would love to know more about Reaction Grid. We should talk. Meanwhile if I can be of any help to you, or there are things you think I need to see or be aware of, please, let me know
D
Congratulations!
One of these days I’ll have to remember to go to your hypergrid club meeting.
Congratulations, Path! ReactionGrid is very fortunate indeed, to have you involved.
The grid-jumping has been fun. Looking forward to things to come!
Terry / Tab
You definitely “have seen the future,” like those folks who got a little pin with that title in 1939 at GM’s Futurama at the NY World’s Fair.
I once read an enthusiast for private spaceflight describe the next frontier as “the one that goes on and on forever.” That’s scalability, and a hypergrid of connected worlds is just that.
Good to be along for the ride!
Thank you everyone for the kind words.
I’m very excited about the future.
And we’re going to have to build it together. All the users of all the different virtual worlds. All the companies and organizations building worlds to suit different people’s needs. It’s going to require a real team effort. 🙂
Congrats Path!
I think this is a great partnership. Your background and skills in education and community building combined with the technical expertise and goals of the RG team. The timing is good too, with a lot of educators branching out and exploring . Also very pleased that you are now a Jokaydian too!
Regards, Chimera
I feel late to the congratulo-party, but oh well. Belated congratulations to you and Reaction Grid! Getting you on their team is a coup. Over the years, you’ve earned a reputation for your ability to explain, connect, convince, and show how-to. More than that, you probably know most of the educators using SL, many of whom are looking for alternatives lately…
I will say my congratulations now so that Troy can feel like he is less late to the party. John, it is great to see you settling in and doing what you do best.
Here’s to magical beginnings and a virtually perfect future.
Yrs,
Tuna
Congratulations Path! That’s great news, for everyone working with virtual worlds.
Congratulations 🙂 it’s always been great team over at Reaction Grid plus one more now 🙂
Congrats Pathy! sounds like a perfect fit.
So good you’re joining this great team. After you, Chris and Kyle took us to some of the tips last week, we can’t wait to see more of the iceberg 🙂 Best wishes from Hamburg.
I am so happy to read you have found your way to virtual worlds development again. Sometimes the next major step in the evolution of grand ideas requires a new place altogether to nurture it, and it looks like you not only found it, you are making it happen. Congratulations!
-Balpien
Congratulations to and thanks for your new contribution to RG. As excited as I am about Opensim and the future, I’ve got something I’d like to ask you: Why do you think the grid-based approach is “the future”? Not that you would’ve said so, but your decision to join RG seems to indicate it. I’m just curious because I personally believe the future is more a future of interconnected standalones – much like webservers interconnected via hyperlinks. With wonderful software like the Diva Distro or the up-and-coming Kokua Sim making it easy for everyone to run their own opensim installation I personally see no big use for grids in my everyday endeavours – and certainly a few significant drawbacks (no control over inventory etc.).
Anyway, congratulations and thanks again.
V
Congratulations Pathfinder, I am sure that you will finally express your amazing potential as it should be, and after reading that post I seriously think on moving on opensim to express my potential too (hahaha)
Remember to add some “Art” in your projects ;-p
Best regards
Thank you, Sextan. Your artwork is always amazing, and I hope to see more of it in the future! 🙂
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