After a quick commercial break, thanking the sponsors, the second group session of the morning was lead by Christopher Klaus of Kaneva. Chris talked about the evolution of media, virtual worlds and online interactions . Chris is doing more of a presentation, so many heads in laptops in the audience. After a great kick-off session things are slowing down. I mean we're talking about set-top boxes for TV. I'm checking out for now.
It's painful to watch things grind to a halt. The wifi is good though!
At BlogOrlando one of the session leaders started with slideware, after about 10 minutes I walked up and said, no more slides.
One interesting comment from Chris, "I want somebody to create a virtual world where people are themselves."
Update: I was glad to see things pick back up at lunch and in the afternoon.
Visitor Comments
You're very honest.
I can appreciate that.
I didn't get very much sleep last night.
Posted by: Betsy | February 10, 2007 11:14 AM
some people need to re-examine the idea of "UN" conference.
Posted by: Tia | February 10, 2007 11:30 AM
Heh. And by "some people," you mean Chris.
Posted by: Amber | February 10, 2007 1:30 PM
Luckily, things picked back up in the breakout sessions. At least in the sessions I attended.
Posted by: Rusty | February 10, 2007 5:41 PM
Can't agree with you at all here. I think Chris brought a great perspective. He's sharp and he's a businessman. I loved hearing his spin on gaming and its evolution and logical consequences. Convergence is real. Set top boxes is a laughable reality were in. Can you say dinosaur ready for the scrapheap. I think he's got a key aspect gaming and it's relation to social networking. It's becoming much more real - real people w/ real identities conversing AS THEMSELVES just in a new way. Where the first hour was about struggling with Firefox/IE and Waffle House, he brought talk of revenue, value, use of game metaphors into the conversation. There were lots of interesting people and perspectives, but he made my short list of folks to talk to.
Posted by: Eric | February 10, 2007 7:39 PM
@Eric: I never said he wasn't a sharp guy or a good businessman. It's just that the format of the conference is open discussion and when somebody gets on stage and shows text-filled powerpoint slide after another it draws the energy out of the conversation.
The conference had a great start and then it stalled for a bit. As I said in a later post things got back on track in the afternoon.
Posted by: Josh Hallett | February 10, 2007 7:43 PM
Fair enough. It was certainly not an un delivery. I was ok with what he did, but your right it was a standard presentation. It would have been great to hear Chris in a moderator rather than presenter role. Could have gotten some great creative ideas going.
Posted by: Eric | February 10, 2007 9:17 PM
I liked Chris' talk, although it was way-heavy on the gaming chit-chat. I thought he made some excellent talk about the "value" (I'm really starting to loathe that word) of virtual communitites. Of couse, why would he say otherwise, given his current occupation! And I REALLY loved how Tim Moeck's (sorry if I mangled your last name, Tim) about raising 40K for charity in the virtual world was done. Believe me, every PR and marketing person there started salivating at that point, when that light bulb went off for 'em. I'm sure those Edelman slimes are sloozing in everywhere now, if they haven't already...
Posted by: Grayson | February 11, 2007 8:49 AM