CSCW 08 Keynote

recursive collaboration building linden lab and second life cory ondrejka cory.ondrejka@gmail.com

topics for today communication innovation collaboration 2

using sl development as a setting 3

as well as the broader context of climate change global recession 4

concluding with some challenges 5

or, perhaps, opportunities? 6

45 minutes, 201 slides 7

45 minutes, 200 slides hope you’ve had your coffee 8

ﬁrst, some questions 9

how many of you... text tweet instant message update a blog or sns play videogames play mmos 10

on the other hand know anyone who still has their assistant printing email? 11

on the other hand know anyone who still has their assistant printing email? 12

disclaimer 13

not technological determinist 14

not technological determinist but new technology changes options 15

not technological determinist so failure to understand it means we are missing opportunities 16

most true of communication technology 17

so, why am i talking about this? 18

distant past drove submarines in the us navy national security agency defense contracting lockheed sanders 19

distant past drove submarines in the us navy national security agency defense contracting lockheed sanders (ie,the stuff i can’t talk about) 20

distant past drove submarines in the us navy national security agency defense contracting lockheed sanders (which i raise to establish my non-hippy cred before covering collaboration) 21

more recently arcade game development console game development second life 22

focus on linden and sl 23

so, from our original list communication innovation collaboration 24

it all starts with communication 25

by which we mean 26

sharing information 27

sharing experience 28

at a distance 29

the experience economy 30

the experience economy what happens when the information economy becomes interactive 31

getting cheaper 32

and more ﬂexible 33

the history 34

point-to-point sequential pony express telegraph 35

point-to-point simultaneous telegraph telephone 36

one-to-many radio television (ie, broadcast) 37

many-to-many packet-based the internet the web image cc:by matt britt 38

and colliding with games 39

you know the history, right? 40

30 second online game history 41

emergence of virtual worlds 46

second life 47

what is second life? user-created, online world an online game without the game 48

a synthetic place create work play 49

real-time, collaboration as opposed to the web’s solo, sequential experience 50

on a vast scale millions of people and places 51

economic scale, too residents have built thousands of businesses in an economy generating more than $1 million every day built on microtransactions in digital items and experiences 52

breaking the magic circle 53

the magic circle? 54

all about context 55

all about rules 56

all about rules beating each other up OK 57

all about rules beating each other up OK beating each other up frowned on 58

for online games, about restrictions of commerce of communication 59

no magic circle in second life 60

like much of the web 61

innovation beyond second life ability to create markets collaboration at a distance participation 62

sl and real world mix 63

with more expressive user creation 64

power of place 65

text, sequential, monologue 66

place, collaborative, dialog 67

bringing us together 68

‘cause when you can do anything 69

we celebrate our collaboration 70

even better collaboration is a gateway drug to technology and to participation to entrepreneurship and community formation 71

with impressive results 1.2 billion internet users 3.5 billion cell phone users 100’s million social network users 10’s million game/virtual world users 72

and then... technology, participation, entrepreneurship, and community lead to something else... 73

leading to the second topic communication innovation collaboration 74

innovation? 75

innovation? productized knowledge 76

innovation? productized knowledge innovation is the engine of per-capita growth 77

innovation? productized knowledge innovation is the engine of per-capita growth innovation leads to exponential curves 78

in other words, dramatic change 79

that doesn’t play favorites 80

that doesn’t play favorites buggy whip sales schumpeter and creative destruction 81

leads to interesting times 82

leads to interesting times we predict linearly 83

leads to interesting times reality is exponential 84

leads to interesting times so we’re often really unprepared 85

consider the internet/it revolution moore’s law 86

a good thing moore’s law radical drop in computing costs 87

connecting us moore’s law radical drop in computing costs the internet image cc:by matt britt 88

in unanticipated ways moore’s law radical drop in broadband the internet computing costs explosion 3D acceleration 89

with far reaching results moore’s law radical drop in broadband friend the internet computing costs explosion networks 3D online online games nichiﬁcation acceleration communities trust friends, virtual worlds not experts 90

driving the need for more innovation 91

but innovation is hard expect ready, aim, ﬁre 92

get random walks 93

with lots of false starts start 94

before we ﬁnd the next big thing eureka! 95

and we see lots of false patterns correlation versus causation 96

what we know about innovation knowledge collisions communication learning participation 97

knowledge collisions 98

at the edges of networks bringing disjoint knowledge together 99

with easier communication 100

helped by trends decreasing costs 101

helped by trends decreasing costs increasing ﬂexibility, availability 102

learning and innovation 103

maximizing participation 104

long tail participation 105

this isn’t just consumption 106

this isn’t just consumption total value of hits more or less equal to the rest 107

but also potential contributors 108

but also potential contributors traditional employees everyone else 109

examples all over 110

wikipedia 111

“but that’s easy” 112

(who would have bet on it?) 113

something harder 114

“but those are open source people” 115

lowered barriers are a big deal 116

participation Web Wikipedia Sims Open Source Mainstream Media 70% 35% 0% 117

participation Web Wikipedia Sims Open Source Mainstream Media Second Life 70% 35% 0% 118

leading to the third topic communication innovation collaboration 119

what impedes trying? capital stigma regulation 120

capital 121

stigma 122

regulation 123

so, to maximize progress lots of communities sharing knowledge creating together 124

bringing us back to the web 125

which has some broad trends moore’s law radical drop in broadband friend the internet computing costs explosion networks 3D online online games nichiﬁcation acceleration communities trust friends, virtual worlds not experts 126

free-ish computing bandwidth storage 127

communities connecting learning collaborating 128

enabled new models cheap computing + communities = crowdsourcing collaborative ﬁltering niche fulﬁllment 129

this is a real power shift 130

consider 935 image cc by:nc 2007 esther dyson 131

the gray lady 935 1851 98 pulitzers 1.5m circulation $4b advertising (1999) 132

lots of free stuff 935 1995 1851 0 pulitzers 98 pulitzers sf classiﬁeds 1.5m circulation incorporated $4b advertising (1999) (1999) 133

about as threatening as 935 134

about as threatening as 935 135

and if there ever was a problem 136

go clubbing 137

simple, right? 138

except 2008 advertising down 63% 139

except 2008 2008 #1 classiﬁed ad service advertising down 63% 30 million ads/month 140

except (despite $500m from nyt.com) 141

except “little interest in (despite $500m from maximizing proﬁts” nyt.com) 142

what have we learned? 143

don’t screw with baby seals 144

incredibly powerful cheap computing + communities = crowdsourcing collaborative ﬁltering niche fulﬁllment 145

moreover experience economy + crowd computing = new economies of scale 146

remote collaboration redeﬁnes distance tradeoffs local/cluster hiring face-to-face 147

driving value and participation 148

nichiﬁcation ﬁnding what you want is valuable friends more trusted than others 149

which shouldn’t surprise us ebay wikipedia youtube ﬂickr google second life etc 150

and what can niches do for you? markets employees partners 151

consider crowd computing 152

getting the right people 153

doing the right work 154

when you need them 155

just in time employees 156

consider the development of sl 157

2000-2002 158

2000-2002 linden street several desks right next to each other a&os culture of asking questions 159

2000-2002 linden street several desks right next to each other a&os culture of asking questions face-to-face interactions ad hoc meetings whiteboards 160

2002-2004 161

2002-2004 2nd street one large room beta and release remote employees 162

2002-2004 2nd street one large room beta and release remote employees entangled seating local face-to-face social signals email, wikis 163

2004- 164

2004- sansome and davis 165

2004- sansome and davis and mountain view, battery 166

2004- sansome and davis and mountain view, battery seattle, boston, brighton and singapore 167

2004- sansome and davis and mountain view, battery seattle, boston, brighton and singapore rapid scaling 168

2004- sansome and davis and mountain view, battery seattle, boston, brighton and singapore rapid scaling multiple ofﬁces irc voice second life 169

reducing non-local penalties mixed-reality meetings pure virtual meetings virtual rooms live channels 170

more complications awaited 171

residents 172

plus metaverse entrepreneurs 173

and the fortune 500 174

all collaborating remotely most employees never meet in the real world most hired directly within sl 175

brings challenges for the future 176

user experience ease of use accessibility 177

search 178

making the lessons real 179

how can remote collaboration help? 180

relating this to the headlines unemployment ﬁnancial crisis climate change 181

but that’s just the start 182

we’re smarter together 183

bridges two key challenges 184

economics and education 185

because as we worry about math and science education stimulating entrepreneurship 186

with accelerating complexity 187

we need new options 188

for entrepreneurs and education 189

and whether we call it learning by doing 190

or situated learning 191

or performance before competence 192

we’re smarter together 193

and it’s easier to do online 194

critical for innovation 195

innovation is exponential 196

innovation is exponential small differences today 197

innovation is exponential huge differences tomorrow 198

which curve do we need to be on? 199

and this is just the beginning 200

because remote collaboration today 201

is the web a decade ago 202

we’re just getting started 203

stop talking now 204

cory.ondrejka@emimusic.com image credits to ﬂickr users torley orphum shadoe landman thomas roche uma ceawlin nancy redgrave metamidia jake sutton r.rasmussen joe shlabotnik katiya rhode poid choi skinstad chrispearson72 Sougent Harrop eﬂemming hvx silverstar mahovlich badgerstew ttrinoid isfullofcrap mako kungfu saeru Meta.Live.Nu laura grace Fleep Tuque atul666 Erehwon Yoshikawa for cc-by licensed images 205