SecondLife for Nonprofits - Two Mixed Reality Events

Two seperate groups inspired by the Net Squared gathering of web innovators who promote social change are holding back-to-back events to discuss the potential of nonprofits making effective use of the virtual world platform, SecondLife.

Both are on July 18, 2006. Both take place partially inside SecondLife at the TechSoup online meeting space. BUT they each will be holding a simultaneous meeting in the physical world with video and audio being passed between the online and phsycial meeting spaces so both sets of participants can see and hear each other.

First up on July 18 at 3:30pm Pacific/6:30pm Eastern, the Ethos Roundtable will feature an introduction to Second Life. John Lester, Community Manager at Linden Lab, (the company that created and runs Second Life), will present a tour of this online community including how Second Life can be used for educational and non-profit work. John will have slides and also give an in-world demo to show you how Second Life works.

Ethos Roundtable event physical location:
77 Huron Avenue (Yahoo!Maps)
Cambridge, MA

Soon after that at 6:30pm Pacific/9:30pm Eastern, TechSoup will present on how nonprofits can effectively use SecondLife. Susan Tenby, Online Community Manager of TechSoup.org, and Jeska Dzwigalski, Community Manager at Linden Lab will also present a tour of this online community, including TechSoup's satellite office and demo a directory of nonprofit organizations in the Second Life world. The event will feature a number of guest speakers from organizations who are actively working in the Second Life community to better achieve their organization's missions.

I'll be attending the TechSoup event in both the physical and online sense. I'm easy to spot in SecondLife as I made my avatar look like me (though avatar customization hasn't quite caught up with my actual beard growth).

TechSoup event physical location:
Net^2 HQ
322 Ritch St. 2nd Floor (Yahoo!Maps)
San Francisco, CA
415-633-9446

BOTH events take place online in the same online location. Go directly to the TechSoup area in SecondLife by following this SLurl:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/InfoIsland/52/171/33/

To ensure smooth operation of the online event, the organizers will restrict the TechSoup space to 50 members, and they will allow those in on a first-come-first-serve basis. Arrive early to secure your spot.

You will need to download (25-50MB) and register (free) for SecondLife to visit the online location. I strongly recommend you make sure you can run SecondLife early as it has some fairly strict system requirements.

Once you get started, take a look at the SecondLife Wiki for some more info on how to operate SecondLife. (Or just hit o get the chat input and start asking people for help.)

Also read what some nonprofits, innovators and activists are doing in SecondLife.

Other folks who blogged recently about nonprofits in SecondLife:

Non-profits in Second Life at Omidyar Network

Nonprofit Life in Second Life at Spare Change

Announcing the TechSoup Second Life Event: July 18th at 6:00 PM PST at Beth's Blog

Second Life for Nonprofits at sufolla - community weavers

Tech Soup to offer mixed reality event in person and in second life at Second Life Library 2.0