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Reconstructing
and
Navigating
the
Crossroads
of
Community
Pam Broviak
Professional
Engineer
Physiological
Physiological
Safety
Reconstructing and Navigating the Crossroads of Community
Reconstructing and Navigating the Crossroads of Community
The original TOS
The Iroquois Confederacy
Physiological
Safety
The Iroquois Confederacy
Physiological
Safety
The first principle is peace, the second is
equity and justice and the third one is the
power of the good minds. And that’s great
power, but it’s a collective power. It
doesn’t work unless it’s together. – Oren
Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the
Seneca Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy
U.S. Public Land System
divided majority of the U.S.
into sections of land one-
mile square (640 acres)
“it is evident that city planning
cannot be a one-man’s concern,
and that for the best
accomplishment it must be the
result of the united efforts of the
lawyer, the engineer, the
landscape designer, the architect,
the economist and others..”
– Aubrey Tealdi
From the
introduction to
“The Law of City
Planning and
Zoning” 1922
Physiological
Safety
Reconstructing and Navigating the Crossroads of Community
Safety
Reconstructing and Navigating the Crossroads of Community
Taken in Second Life Dec 2007
Taken in Second Life Dec 2007
Boardman – one of
the first zoned or
themed sims
Bay City –
opens 2008
Zoning for
Zindra and
Adult Uses 2009
Reconstructing and Navigating the Crossroads of Community
Virtual Based Media
Music Industry
Conferences &
Meetings
Framework
Services
Public
Safety
Resolution
Education
Provides safe immersive platform for serious
games and roleplay – both proven to provide
positive and successful methods of training
in:
• Customer Service
• Conflict resolution
• Management
• Operations
Physiological
Safety
Love/BelongingEsteem
Self-
Actualization
From Psycho Delia on Flickr

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Reconstructing and Navigating the Crossroads of Community

Editor's Notes

  1. Hello everyone! Welcome to Reconstructing and Navigating the Crossroads of Community
  2. My name is Pam Broviak and I am a licensed professional engineer in the State of Illinois. I currently work as a civil engineer for the Department of Transportation in Illinois. In addition to my day job, I manage the Public Works Group - an online resource for public works professionals. My career in civil engineering spans more than 30 years, most of which have been spent in local or state government focusing on the planning and support of communities. My experience with Second Life began at the end of 2006. If you check my avatar rez date you’ll see I created this avatar only about a month after my first entry into Second Life - that’s pretty much how long it took me to start to “get it.” I have to admit this is probably one of the most challenging presentations I have given as an engineer. It follows none of the traditional thought processes or standard topics an engineer would discuss. And because all of us in Second Life and other virtual worlds are still in the process of redefining and rebuilding the idea of community, there’s not yet a clear path or definitive direction I have to offer to ensure our success. But I am going to try to do my best to pull some ideas from our offline community building efforts and touch on how these have or haven’t been adapted to our digital space. And I’m going to try to convey as best I can how a virtual experience can change a traditional professional paradigm and offer what insight I’ve gained into how we can best leverage the ideas and opportunities we have here to improve not only our online experiences but also our offline worlds and lives. So now that the introduction is out of the way,  let’s get started...
  3. Let’s go back to nearly the very beginning. Traditionally the launch of new civilizations and their immediate evolution has rarely been a well thought out or planned and organized process. People were thrust into their new world with little understanding of what to expect or how to leverage resources to best meet their needs. And because people are driven by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, at least in the physical world, the first order of business was always just staying alive. Often when several people found themselves together in a new environment, there was also initially little to no cooperation between them so each activity sometimes led to duplication of efforts or an inefficient use of resources. When viewed collectively, this type of individualistic community presents itself as inefficient, low performing, and chaotic.
  4. But because everyone has such basic similar goals of staying alive and staying safe, it makes sense that people who find themselves together eventually end up realizing it might be easier if they work together to find and prepare food, help to keep each other safe, and in doing so provide support to each other. For this to work well over an extended period of time, an agreed upon set of rules must usually be established. People also tend to recognize individual skills and assign tasks to community members that best align with their strengths. This approach maximizes the performance of the group. But it does take a certain level of cooperation and acceptance of one's role in the community.
  5. Let's jump ahead several thousand years to roughly 1300 to 1400 BC and stop in to see how just one specific community was doing. By this time, people had settled into agricultural based groups. They had established some level of recognized government or ruling body. In most areas this leadership seemed to be provided by a type of king or single ruler or as in Egypt a Pharaoh.
  6. Around this time we see Moses leading his people out of bondage in Egypt  and into the desert. The story of the Exodus is interesting from a community perspective. Here we have a large group of people who had been slaves in total submission. Finally free of the strict structure in which they had been forced to live, It doesn’t take them long after making it to freedom to degrade into chaos. While Moses is gone up the mountain, they create an idol or golden calf and do all the types of things people do who have no rules to guide their behavior. So like most leaders of communities who find themselves facing complete anarchy, Moses had to lay down the law.
  7. And that’s how we got the ten commandments  - the world’s first terms of service. Of course the Bible can also be viewed as one of the original governing documents. Not only did it expand upon the TOS, but it offered examples of how to make sure you follow the terms and example of what can happen to you if you don’t. At the time, it served as the primary source of guidance for people who decided to follow that specific faith. And we thought the terms of service in Second Life had gotten out of hand. This early TOS ended up needing two books to convey all the information. And like many terms of service, the majority of people probably have not read the entire thing.
  8. Now we’ll move ahead a few thousand years to roughly the 13th and 14th centuries. During this time the Iroquois were a fractured group of tribes who did not cooperate and often waged war upon one another. Eventually a man known as the Great Peacemaker showed up on the scene intent on bringing order and peace to the Iroquois Nation. Over time, he managed to convince people the importance of working together and uniting as one group, and this success resulted in the formation of the Iroquois confederacy. An interesting side note is that the legends of this man describe him as the son of a virgin and a prophet - a common theme or founding story up to this point for some communities.
  9. Once peace was achieved, the community could better focus on moving up the hierarchy of needs. They now had the essentials of life secured and were safe from regular warfare. And while they might have previously been able to move somewhat up into the love and belonging level, it had been restricted to their own tribe. So with these threats and concerns no longer pressing, they could safely develop friendships and family connections along with sexual intimacy within a much broader community. The Iroquois also have a legend of the Tree of Peace which further reinforces Love and Belonging with its offering to shelter those who uphold its teachings and virtues of peace. It is said that the tree shelters all who are committed to Peace. The roots of the tree are said to stretch out in the cardinal directions and are called the white roots of peace. Anyone who commits to the Great Law of Peace is told they can trace their own roots to this tree and take refuge there.
  10. With their basic needs met, safety secured, and an established path of belonging, the Iroquois were positioned to move to the next level of the triangle. Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca nations of the Iroquois Confederacy describes their governance as based on their first principle of peace, the second of equity and justice, and the third of the power of good minds. As you can see in the quote he goes on to acknowledge that while power of the good minds is great, it is a collective power so does not work unless it’s together. It is basic community guidelines and beliefs such as these that allow their community to achieve self-esteem, confidence, and  respect - all  qualities and elements of esteem.
  11. As we continue through time, we’ll take a detour from strict community governance and rules and look instead at an innovative move made by the U.S. government soon after the revolutionary war which ended up having more impacts on community than most people probably realized which is why I’ll spend more time on this topic than what you’d probably expect. Being an engineer and having worked for a few land surveyors in my time, this is one of my favorite stories of community building. And as I tell it, some of it might sound a little familiar to those of you who have been in Second Life for some time. As the newly established United States emerged from the Revolutionary War, the founding fathers realized they had significant debt and needed to find a way to make money to pay it off as soon as possible. So they looked around at what they had and decided they sure had a lot of land. But they needed money fast so the traditional land models did not offer a quick and easy process to generate cash. I think it’s a little difficult for those of us who live in the U.S. today and especially those of us who own land to realize how land had been handled up to this point. The model in Europe for centuries had been one that restricted land ownership to a select few, many times only the few the ruler of that country chose. But many landless people needed land in order to survive. There’s different estimates out there, but one average number thrown around is that 40 acres would be needed to sustain a family. So because many back then relied on the land to feed their family, the average person had to lease land from the “landed gentry.” In many countries the lease required the tenant farmer to also tend to the landowners crops and farms so many days out of the year. Land ownership in the original 13 colonies had not been much better. So the leaders of the newly formed U.S. decided to open up land ownership to anyone - it was quite an innovative idea at the time. the other problem then became how to handle the description of the land that was to be sold. Up to this point, land descriptions of boundaries were confusing and difficult to determine or re-create. Some read like this: “Begin at the northeast corner of Farmer William’s barn, thence north 1,000 feet to the old Oak tree where John Smith killed the bear, thence west 750 feet to the pile of stones placed near the end of Robert Small’s fence, thence … Well you can get the idea. It all worked at first, but then the barn burned down, no one could remember where the bear was killed, and Mr. Small’s fence fell into disrepair and rotted away. So how could anyone ever figure out where that property really was. That method of describing property would not work. So the idea of splitting the country into essentially squares was developed. Each square or section would measure one mile by one mile and  consist of 640 acres. Because each square was laid out from a specific baseline and meridian, any square in any part of the country could be easily described and referenced. And each section could be further subdivided. An example would be “the SE quarter of Section 33, Township 20 North, Range 2 East of the 2nd Principal Meridian.” The one trade off in using this method of land subdivision was it ended up positioning people’s homes as far as possible from each other with usually at least a mile between homes. In Europe and other places following the tenancy model, the acreage for each family had instead been laid out in a long, thin strip of land lying next to a roadway. This allowed people’s homes to be placed at one end of the strip along the road and resulted in houses being only a hundred or so feet apart and provided for a tighter community feel. Some might believe the story of the writing of the constitution to be a significant step in community governance. And while it certainly was a monumental achievement at the time, it was not totally unique in that the document incorporated many of the past rules and guidance we’ve already touched on and that other countries had already either instituted or experimented with over time. Instead, the true innovation of this country’s founding had been the distribution and sale of land and how it contributed to or detracted from community building. Land ownership by the individual is so important, I have to wonder if it really should have its own level on the hierarchy of needs. As an aside if you really want to ever dive into this topic, a great book on this is Measuring America by Andro Linklater. I think it will resonate a lot with those of us who are interested in land ownership in virtual worlds. Anyway, back to our travel through time...
  12. While there was much effort put into the layout chosen for agricultural land, little thought sometimes went into the subdivision of towns. And by the late 1800s, it was evident this lack of planning in cities was causing problems. Incompatible uses were located next to each other. Sometimes land that should have been set aside for parks or open space was lost to developments. And overcrowding of parcels and buildings let to the spread of diseases and reduction in the health of the community.  So in the early 1900s there was a push for communities to develop their plans. One of the key takeaways from this effort is found in this excerpt from a planning book which states, it’s important that city planning be more than one person’s concern. It takes everyone to develop the best plan.
  13. So where are we today on the hierarchy - how well have we made it through the ages, and did we make it to the top of the pyramid yet? Perhaps yes to some degree, but it doesn’t seem the communities we have built have completely achieved full self-actualization.
  14. Then we have Second Life. Not founded by a prophet like some of our past communities. Well, at least I don’t think he was a prophet, but I suppose time will tell that story. This year we will be celebrating the 12th birthday of Second Life, and even with it being around an impressive number of years, there’s still some uncertainty by people over what it really is. It’s a game; it’s a place; it’s a building and graphic arts tool. Whatever it is to you, it’s definitely unlike anything that’s come before. I can still remember the initial wandering of my avatar in confusion then the moment weeks later when it finally clicked for me. Probably many of you can too. But even then I didn’t really truly understand the depth of possibilities until I spent more time here and started meeting more people.
  15. I have to think our experiences here allow us to secure a stronger self actualization. The uncertainty over anyone’s actual race/gender/religion/etc provides for an absence of prejudice that we don’t fully have in our offline worlds. Yes, in Second Life I’ve heard there is some prejudice over specific avatar types, but avatar type is a choice and easily changed. Prejudice as we understand it offline comes from someone judging another based on attributes they did not choose or cannot change or can’t easily change. Many of the other aspects of Self-actualization can also be realized here perhaps more easily than we can achieve them offline. But as you can see, in Second Life, there is no longer a bottom to the triangle. when we come here, we are not expecting it to sustain our basic needs by providing us food or water. Some might argue sex is provided, but I would believe the type of sex here does not result in physical contact, at least yet, so the sex here becomes more of a sexual intimacy found in love and belonging. As a civil engineer, I primarily operate in the red zone or bottom of the triangle each day. Everything I do at work is designed to support the basic needs of a community. So initially you would think Second Life would have no professional value to someone in my field. However, what actually has happened to me professionally is that my experiences here have developed skills that are useful at work, but that typically are not acquired by a civil engineer or if they are not to the same degree. And I’ll get into that  more a little later
  16. So it turns out land is just about as big an issue in Second Life as it has been for the U.S. Here’s a map of the original 16 regions with which we are probably all familiar.
  17. And here’s a slide showing land sales which are designated by yellow on the map. For those of you who follow the land issue in Second Life, it’s probably no surprise that in every survey taken, land and its cost and impacts to our experience here are always some of the most important topics of interest. The ability for us to own land in a digital world or to have our own space over which we have control seems just as important to us as it is offline. It has been interesting to see other virtual worlds, even those that are more typically thought of as true games begin to incorporate this feature. Landmark started out with it, and the recent release of World of Warcraft added garrisons. So as we plan our digital worlds and lives, it is vital to keep in mind the importance and impact of land ownership and individual space to our virtual experiences.
  18. This screenshot of somewhere in Second Life in 2007 is an example of the chaos that can ensue when there are no  land use or zoning  rules or guidelines. If you were around back then, you can probably recall the issues this caused and the impacts it had on your enjoyment of Second Life.
  19. From what I understand there was at least one sim back then that did have zoning. And there were eventually other private sims controlled by one person or entity that were themed or zoned and the building controlled by the sim owner.
  20. And eventually as Second Life developed more themed or zoned areas were developed and encouraged. This is a screenshot of Bay City which opened in 2008.
  21. Finally in 2009 Adult Uses were addressed and specific areas zoned for their use. So at this point, just like offline, zoning was and will most likely continue to be an issue that needs to be addressed in any digital development.
  22. I want to touch on the other aspects of Second Life that are fairly robust and can have a lasting impact on anyone taking advantage of what they offer. As most of us are aware, there is quite a cultural subcommunity. There are artists of all types in residence and sims dedicated to just displaying their art. We also have international communities that display and promote cultures of different offline regions of our offline. Obviously I don’t have to tell this crowd how much education in Second Life has impacted many of us here. And the digital economy provided by the tools, the creators, and the consumers is impressive. Many people rely on the economy here to make a living or to supplement their income.
  23. Of course, recreation is an obvious benefit of Second Life. It does look like a game and it has gaming elements so it’s no surprise people visit to hang out and have fun at the many different types of venues available. We also have several well established media outlets, a robust music industry, and an incredible venue for conferences and meetings. These elements of our lives here all contribute to supporting our community and most likely, along with the friends we make along the way, are the reason we continue to return and want to spend time here.
  24. So how does an engineer like me leverage all of this to enhance my professional career, skills, and work? How can a place like Second Life make an impact on what I am designing and building offline? Particularly when nothing I do or build as a civil engineer is needed here? Well, as a graphics and building tool, Second Life has provided me and other engineers I know a tremendous opportunity to easily create our designs or concepts in 3D and to even develop professional looking exhibits to use at public meetings to convey design ideas.
  25. Second Life also provides a comprehensive and engaged framework in which to learn. There’s also the opportunity to role play customer service and management situations, safety concepts, conflict resolution, and emergency response efforts along with other types of operational activities in which we need to be trained.
  26. But how can watching a community develop over the years in a space that does not rely on physical infrastructure make me do a better job at building physical infrastructure and supporting an offline community? What I’ve realized over my last eight years in Second Life is that interacting with all of you and what you’ve built here has taken me up through the pyramid not just as a human being, but surprisingly enough also as a civil engineer - I want to emphasize the upper regions of the pyramid are not normally a place engineers would professionally go in executing engineering designs or implementing ideas. We just are not taught to approach things from any other level than the area of the triangle I showed as the “red zone.” If anything perhaps we may move into the orange or safety zone. The idea of engineering from the other zones is not an easy concept to convey to others who have not been here.  It’s not even something I realized had happened to me until just a few years ago when I started to have non-engineers who I work with start telling me I am not like a typical engineer. Now I knew it had nothing to do with me - I very much was trained and mentored as a traditional engineer. So after this continued to happen, I had to finally ask myself what had changed and realized my time and experiences in Second Life have impacted my approach and decision making skills as an engineer. My time here has made me more aware and understanding of just what a community is which I’ve realized is important. How can I do a good job meeting the basic needs of my community if I don’t even know how they function as a group and why and what rules and motivations drive them? This is where the disconnect would often come into play before because an engineer will design what they think is right then be surprised when the community makes it clear the design is nothing like what they want. It also comes into play when competing for scarce public dollars. Without understanding a community and its priorities, it is almost impossible to do a good job allocating dollars to the right improvement. Watching our community develop has also given me better definition and understanding of how the hierarchy of needs drives community development and why some engineering ideas work and some do not. But what I’ve also realized is at least for me the hierarchy of needs is no longer a pyramid - instead it has morphed into a type of circle where the lessons and experiences flow between worlds. With this model, we can also take what we learn and what works in our physical lives and use these ideas to sustain our digital space. As we continue our digital development, we can ensure the rules we follow are reasonable and necessary, contribute our skills and abilities to the community and work collectively and cooperatively to maximize our performance and efficiencies, and provide the framework and tools to help us all move up the pyramid or rather around the circle.
  27. In the end at any point in time we are a city of roughly 50,000 people following a specific set of rules or governance established by Linden Lab. And like most the people in most cities, we also follow a more informal code of behavior the community has developed based on the environment in which we interact. Just like what happens every day in our offline cities, some of us commute here to work or attend classes, we hang out with our friends, nod to our acquaintances - even if only through a quick IM, and some of us might even be looking for that special someone. But what makes us different than a regular city is that each of us is a potential connection to our offline communities or places. Like the roots of the Iroquois Tree of Peace, we can be a conduit between this world and our offline world, and if we choose to do so, we can channel the positive energy, thoughts, creativity, ideas, and even love and friendship we find here to those with whom we physically interact and then return the benefits we derive from our offline worlds to our lives here. We can do this in our professional or personal circles. It really is a tremendous gift we have here that we can share with others and with our individual offline communities. And it is entirely our choice to decide - each of us needs to ask, am I going to make the most of the skills and insight I’ve gained here by channeling them to my own physical spaces and the people with whom I interact and then return my offline lessons to improve my digital life? Imagine the impact 50,000 roots can make. Thank you for your time and your contributions!