Peters participates in … first virtual conference.
the Internet
Robert L. Peters was a presenter on Saturday at <head>, billed as “the world’s first virtual conference—interactive, green, and affordable.” While <head> did have ‘meatspace’ hubs where participants could meet in person (Brighton, London and Manchester in the U.K., Fribourg in Switzerland, and San Francisco in the U.S.), the majority of participants from around the world took part from wherever they happened to be (or in the Second Life hub). Peters’ talk on best practices in working and living as a designer was entitled ‘Do the right thing. Do the thing right,’ using Circle’s Maxim/Dictum as a framework.
Feedback by participants on blogs, Twitter, etc. has been fast and effusive, e.g. “Dude, this is the way conference presentations should be. Hella fun. No messy travel plans, No standing in lines at airports, No rental car misadventures with wrong MapQuest printouts. No need to dress up. No consuming bad closest-restaurant-to-hotel food+coffee. No worrying about hooking up the projectors, no worrying about having enough battery power, or being close to an outlet, or being able to read the slides clearly behind the head of the person in front of you, all the while juggling the cup of coffee and danish and laptop in the lap. No trying to rush to get to the session conveniently located the opposite end of the convention center, only to find the room already at capacity. No staying up late nights adding last minute details to presentations… well okay that’s tradition.” (from TroyWorks).
Interactive, real-time, and global, this web-development and design conference saved tons of emissions by attendees not having to fly anywhere. Learn more about <head> here, and about its founder—the impresario/developer/consultant Aral Balkan here.
