Second Life a learning opportunity ...

... I was speaking to Mericat Ireland during one of the regular Monday night Music events she DJ's for us in The Pig & Whistle on OneFinalDarkness. I was explaining about the new Wedding packages Babette and I were developing for the Love's Trinity area of the estate; I told her about the website we are developing for the estate (Http:\\www.onefinaldarkness.com); I mentioned the machinima techniques we use to produce promotional video clips for the site and our current integration with services such as Google Calendar and Flickr.

Not long after I had got into this list of things we do Meri turned round to me and said 'You girls are just so busy trying all sorts of new things in Second Life ...'; Meri is of course right! Indeed it is one of the most appealing things about Second Life; it provides opportunities to explore new things and learn new skills. In fact it's not just about opportunities ... to some extent unless you have an endless supply of money it is essential you learn at least some of the new skills that go with trying to run/promote a sim; it is prohibitively expensive to try to pay others to do all of the work required.

Neither Babs nor I believe in solutions being exclusively homegrown ... we tend to find there are still clear advantages to using some bought in skills usually in the form of objects for specific purposes which would otherwise take months perhaps to properly script. What we have both discovered though is that many of the items/services which are for sale in and around Second Life are not really that extraordinary ... they only survive because people don't have the inclination to push back against their own limits and try out new challenges.

A good example of this last is sculpties. There are a number of software packages and inworld devices which allow anyone to begin experimenting with the sculpted objects that Second Life has in it's rich repertoire of building blocks. Although I would agree that making sculpties is not 100% straightforward it really isn't impossible to produce some of the less complex shapes like cushions for seats or seat pads for furniture ... even parts for simple weapons are not that difficult to construct. I for one would always suggest that everyone at least has a go at all of the various building disciplines and other such related tasks that abound in Second Life simply because ... you will probably surprise yourself!!

It's not even just the skills and services and tasks that I would recommend experimenting with. There are so many different types of lifestyle represented in Second Life and of course there are no long term issues or problems to be experienced as a result of choosing to experience any of them. If nothing else everyone should at least visit as many sims as they can to see and be amazed at the bewildering variety and depth of peoples imagination and patience that have led to hundreds of unique and wonderful environments.

In short I believe Second Life is probably one of the most flexible and approachable learning experiences i have come across for some considerable time and for anyone thinking they may be a little past adapting to new things and ways or working/thinking .... think again ... Second Life will fire up your brains and turbo charge your creativity!!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device