More from BlogPhilly Unconference

The second installment from guest blogger Heather:

We've passed the lunchtime milestone. It was a lovely buffet of Philly cheese steaks (with cheesewiz – what was up with that?), onion rings and cheesecake. Yum. And during friendly lunchtime banter I learn there's a neat collection of people here that probably would not come together under normal circumstances.

But now it's time for the afternoon sessions and it's very …. unstructured, maybe that's part of an unconference (it is a free conference).

I'm sitting in a session on Social Life <http://www.secondlife.com/> . I am curious to learn more because a work colleague asked me asked me recently, "Why aren't we doing more with our products in second life?" WHAT?! This question made me a little uneasy and I wondered if I should question the credibility of a colleague I respected. I had previously checked out Second Life before and thought it was mainly for gaming and living in an alternate virtual persona. But I seem to be a little misguided.

Don Bain <http://www.electricsheepcompany.com/> is talking about how socially engaged communities are creating environments in Second Life for a wide variety of things.

Medical educators can set up a learning environment for medical residents wanting to specialize in surgery – in the safe virtual environment they can practice their procedures on a virtual avatar before on a real patient.

If this is all true, I wonder what other opportunities there are there? Can I do user understanding in Second Life? Usability testing?...

BTW, the youngest person here is in 4th grade!


Heather Williams
Elsevier UCD Philadelphia
h(dot)williams(at)elsevier(dot)com