Tag Archives: virtual worlds

May 7 2010

Grab Yer Cyber Shovel and Start Diggin’! Virtual Town Begins!

Today I posted a message to the MuniGov mailing list announcing the development of our latest MuniGov collaboration project. During our last few regular group meetings, the group has finalized the scope our next venture.  We are going to immediately begin a build out of a “town” within the virtual world of Second Life.  This town is going to include several simulations and resources that will be focused on establishing a resources kit for all local governments.

The concept is simple:  we want to build a series of training simulators and tools that can be used, free of charge, by any member of the organization.  We intend to include the basic tools (conference room, auditorium/lecture hall, etc.) But we also are working on some very basic customizable tools such as a polling center, a paramedic training simulator and the like.  We even intend to build a forum for use in public meetings. This is only the beginning of what we hope will become a centralized hub of virtual world resources for all of us to share and “check out” for specific purposes within a locality.

It might sound far-fetched to consider virtual worlds as a tool for real life government business, but believe me, it isn’t new.  Many of the agencies at the federal level are using SL or other virtual worlds as a cost-effective means to conduct simulations, meetings, interviews and collaborative strategy sessions. And just this week I read an insightful article about how major corporations, like IBM, Dell and Intel are now giving virtual worlds the second look that typically indicates a technology’s staying power.

So the MuniGov organization is trying to capitalize on the richness of these virtual worlds in order to achieve some real-world results. It seems kind of silly for each of us to try to establish and experiment with our own sort of virtual world presence.  We determined it would be best to pool our resources, talents and interests into establishing a virtual “Town” that can be shared by all, since so many of our service needs at the local level are similar. We intend to build this without any funding, however we are also currently evaluating several grant opportunities that would enhance the town and speed the construction process.

At our next meeting, we will be focusing exclusively on this build-out.  I invite you to join us in SL on Wednesday, May 12th at 7PM EST/4PM PST at our new MuniGov HQ ( http://slurl.com/secondlife/Second%20Earth%204/227/30/24) so that you can be a part of this exciting new venture.  If you are new to SecondLife, no problem!  MuniGov also offers one-on-one tutotials.

I am very excited about the potential this new platform holds for us in government. I’ll be sure to provide you with regular updates via the blog and we’ll keep the info coming via our twitter stream and our Web site as well. Please leave comments if you have any questions.  I hope to see you next week!

Jul 17 2009

White House Deputy CTO Gets a Second Life

On Monday, July 20, Second Life will be hosting a simulcast presentation from Beth Simone Noveck, deputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House responsible for Open Government. Ms. Noveck will be presenting her new book, WIKI GOVERNMENT: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A, in which participants from both Second Life and in person can ask questions of the author. The event will begin at 12:00pm EST/9:00am PST on Monday, July 20, 2009 and will take place in Second Life on MacArthur Island.

According to the book’s summary, “Ms. Noveck’s Wiki Government insightfully demonstrates how technology, along with citizen participation, can help the government become more open and effective at solving the complex social and economic problems we face today.”

These kind of small incursions by the nation’s senior technology executives into the virtual realm provide me with some hope that eventually, with some refinement, some standardization and some positive educational opportunities, more of our peers in the government sector will sit up and take note of the broad and deep potential that maintaining a presence in a virtual environment can have for us in the public sector.

Virtual worlds are not going to solve all of our problems, but they certainly will go far in creating that “open and effective” government that we strive for.  Requiring minimal funding and relying on platforms that exist today, virtual worlds afford a prime opportunity to extend two-way channels of communication and provide a permanent collaborative realm in which citizens can come together with each other and their governments to design and build products, open dialogs and fulfill concepts that can result in innovative solutions of which we can all be proud.

This Monday’s upcoming virtual simulcast of Ms. Noveck’s presentation will certainly be interesting to watch.  I am curious to see how many other SLers will opt to show up and hear what she has to say, and how the feedback and Q&A from the SL audience will differ from her real world audience.  If you are there, please shoot me an IM and let me know what you think too.  I’ll be the wolf in the top hat (Greever Wemyss).

Virtually Yours….
~G
May 28 2009

MuniGovCon’09 – A Belated Recap of a Virtually Historic Event

Well, it occurred to me this week that it has been nearly six weeks since the MuniGov2.0 group pulled off our very first organized project – MuniGovCon’09. I’d be remiss (and perhaps flogged) if I didn’t do a post on the conference and what it meant to us and the growing 2.0 movement in government. It turns out that I had to miss the conference due to a last minute family emergency, but I was there in spirit, my peeps were representin’ and we got it all on film for eternal posterity. You can view all of the speaker sessions on the MuniGov2.0 Blip.tv channel.

This was a virtual government conference held entirely in the virtual world of Second Life. The theme of the conference was introducing Web2.0 to the government realm. Based on our estimates, this conference would have cost us $165,00 (USD) to pull off in the real world. By offering it virtually, we estimate that we saved each attendee at least $1300 to attend a similar real life conference of this caliber (and we gave out the souvenir t-shirts to prove it!)

By the time the conference time rolled around, we had nearly 170 registrations. And although we don’t have an exact number, we estimate that the number of attendees was actually at least double this. Many organizations filled a real-life conference room and watched the conference on the big screen via the virtual eyes of a designated avatar. As you’ll note from the session videos, we certainly had a fair share of technical hiccups throughout. We knew this was inevitable, given the heavily concentrated noob herd that the conference attracted. However, your friendly and courteous MuniGov2.0 hosts and our speakers showed tenacity, resourcefulness and perseverance in working through the problems and still putting on a good show. And if you were in that audience – thank you for showing patience with us and thank you for being willing to help us try out this new avenue for collaboration and discussion!

Our speakers at the event were certainly well-received by the crowd. We had all levels of government and higher-education covered with intriguing ideas and engaging topics that seemed to be very popular with the audience. We even had an interactive Q&A session that engaged the audience with a panel of government 2.0 enthusiasts focused on several social media related topics. (Again – you can see all the sessions at our blip.tv site).

If you want more detail on the conference itself, I’d encourage you to take a look at Pam Broviak’s blog post about it (hers was much more timely than mine). If you are in Second Life, you can also visit the MuniGov2.0 Center to view some excellent billboards that highlight the dynamic demographics of the conference attendees. And while you’re at the center, you can take a stroll through the Technology Showcase – a virtual mini-exposition highlighting the wares and services of some of the vendor members of MuniGov including CDW-G, ActiveGovernment, Microsoft and Earth911.

During our post conference wrap-up, we gathered tremendously valuable feedback from the attendees in the form of a survey, and we documented a lengthy list of lessons learned from the MuniGov members who pulled the conference together. All of this feedback will guide us in the development of future events and gatherings to make them even more valuable for the participants. For example, we are working now on a regular schedule of Second Life Orientation sessions exclusively for government participants.

And finally, this post would not be complete without a special shout-out to the MuniGov peeps who stepped up to really make this thing happen. This conference was a culmination of the efforts of many members of the MuniGov group, without whom this would have not been possible. I would like to personally recognize my fellow ringleaders in this endeavor:

  • Barry Condrey, CIO for Chesterfield County, VA (who also stepped in to be my stunt double for the keynote when I had to unexpectedly bail at the last minute)
  • Leslie Fuentes, IT Director for Hampton, VA
  • Robert Menter, Human Resources Analyst Virginia Beach, VA
  • Lisa Nelson, Program Manager with the Intergovernmental Solutions Group of the General Services Administration
  • Jeff Jacob, Junior Applications Analyst from Nanaimo, British Columbia
  • Joe Mangano, Bus Dev Mgr, Vertical Solutions, CDW-G
  • Beck Sullivan, Manager of Interactive Communication Services, Municipal Association of South Carolina
  • Sonya Shoreman, Public Information Officer, San Diego County
  • Wayne Chronowire, Detective Sergeant, Wells, ME Lynette Shaull, Web Content Coordinator, City of Winston-Salem, NC
  • Michelle Gardner, Coordinator of Administrative Services for the John Scott Dailey Florida Institute of Government at the University of Central Florida
  • Paulette Robinson and Jim Rich and the rest of the folks from the Information Resources Management College of the National Defense University, who were gracious enough to lend us their experience and this excellent venue for the event.
  • And of course my founding partner in all this, Pam Broviak, a Public Works Director and City Engineer in IL

If you are not a member of the MuniGov group, I would encourage you to register today. Pam Broviak and I started MuniGov2.0 back in Sept of 2008 with the purpose of bringing together like-minded government people who were interested in exploring the possibilities that the tools and concepts of 2.0 could bring to us here in the public sector. I am happy to report that as of today we are over 430 members strong with a diverse membership from all levels of government in several different countries and from a dozen different disciplines! We have a very dynamic Web site, an active list serve and some very productive meetings in SL each Wed evening at 7PM EST/4PM PST. In addition to the group meetings, access to the list serv, etc. we also offer every member organization free use of the Munigov facilities, including your own customizable govpod – a virtual office that you can use as a home base while exploring SecondLife. If you are interested in membership, you can sign-up on our Web site.