OpenSimulator Community Conference 2013 – My Presentation and My Thanks to Everyone Involved

Attending the Opening Keynote Presentation

Attending the Opening Keynote Presentation

This past weekend I attended and spoke at the very first OpenSimulator Community Conference (OSCC13).  It was an amazing event full of outstanding presentations, great networking opportunities, and spectacular venues with tons of attendees.  It was also truly remarkable to see how far OpenSim has evolved and matured as a virtual world platform.

I’ve seen my fair share of online conferences, and this was the most professionally managed and engaging online conference I have ever attended.  To everyone involved in making this event a reality, thank you! 

And thank you all who attended my presentation.  I apologize for not having time to answer all your questions, but if you leave a comment on this blog post I will be very happy to reply.

Lastly, for those of you interested in me possibly restarting the Hypergrid Adventurers Club tours (I got a lot of positive feedback at the conference), be sure to join the HGAC mailing list and post that you’d like to attend a future tour.  If I see enough interest, I’ll definitely start them up again.

Please read on for my own presentation summary, video and downloadable slides.  You can also watch recordings of all the other presentations in the Conference Archives.

“Exploring the Interconnected: How Past Dreams evolve into Future Reality”

Join us to hear more about how dreams from the past can dramatically change and evolve into something completely new. In this presentation you will hear all about John’s initial experiences in Opensim while still working at Linden Lab, the creation and mangement of “Pathlandia,” initial explorations of the Hypergrid, and how it all fits in with what he remembers as Linden Lab’s original vision of an expanding Metaverse of self-hosted and interconnected virtual worlds.

ADDENDUM 9/10/2013: Be sure to read this blog post: “The Future of Conferences.” It’s an outstanding summary of the conference by Crista Lopes, the inventor of the Hypergrid and one of the conference’s main organizers.

Take care,
-John “Pathfinder” Lester

My interview with Paisley Beebe on “Tonight Live”

On January 23rd 2011, I was an invited guest on Paisley Beebe’s “Tonight Live” show in Second Life.  Thank you again to everyone on the Tonight Live and Treet.tv team for working so hard to put on such a professional show and the opportunity for me to participate.   I had a fun time, and thank you to everyone who attended as well.

I shared some of my thoughts about my time working at Linden Lab, some simple advice for Linden Lab’s new CEO, my new gig with Reaction Grid, the state of education in virtual worlds, and the future of interconnected virtual worlds in general.

I hope I was entertaining.  If anyone would like me to expand on anything I said in the interview, please leave a blog comment and I’ll happily reply.

Here’s a recording of my interview.

-John “Pathfinder” Lester