What is it about Second Life...?

While the bloom is off the rose with Second Life, it is far from gone. In order to understand the power of Second Life, you need to see my 15-year-old son. He spends hours on Second Life, talking live with friends. They prowl through this virtual world and meet people from all over the country…and the world. And, most importantly, they collaborate and learn from one another. They build castles and buildings and vehicles. They have fun making each others’ avatars dance and do other crazy things. They learn as a group, continuously honing their 3D modeling and scripting skills. I see a major trend here in collaborative creativity and collaborative learning. Creative and training professionals would be well advised to keep a close watch on SL and other emerging virtual worlds.

Mass Creativity

Crowdsourcing…a way to tap the creativity of the masses. Will it make us better creatively, or worse? Some would argue that by enabling anyone to participate in the creative business we will be compromising the industry. Probably true in the short run. But typically this evens out and once the novelty of everyone being a creative wears off the best work bubbles up. Personally, I feel the more people participating in creative endeavors, the better. We need to raise the overall creativity of everyone in business today. It’s only through exercise that we’ll improve. Meanwhile, I enjoy visiting iStockPhoto and imagining that I’m a photographer...