Virtually Present: Discussing The Digital Future

Changing gears from talk about politics and the UK General Election, I’ve been meaning some time to address a topic that I’ve been thinking on for about 6 months now - namely that of Virtual Participation. What I really want to do is get the conversation started before fleshing out these ideas, so here are my main threads of thought on this at the moment (which interestingly are all sparked from conversations with friends.)

Understanding Virtual via The Multiverse

My friend Joe Pine has a framework called the Multiverse in which he talks about the degrees between reality and virtuality (as per photo above). If reality is based in time, space and matter, and true virtuality is non-time, non-space and non-matter, then this means we have degrees in between. This means that augmented reality can be defined as being based in real time, in real matter, but with virtual space (this is the augmented bit.) There’s a 50 minute video where Joe talks about it that you can watch here if you are so inclined.

What this does for me is clarify the plains on which virtual and physical participation can take place – time, space and matter. What I can now do is mix these with non-time, non-space and non-matter to create varying plains of participation. Consider today’s launch of the Like Minds Insights platform which is most importantly non-time – where as those people who were virtually participating in Like Minds Conference live were doing so in real time. Immediately, we see the use of both.

You’ll also notice that while he uses the term reality for being in real life, I’m more inclined to say physical participation than real life participation. Whether some engage physically or virtually, I consider it all to be real. When you’re on the phone to someone, you are really talking to them – and what’s more, there is a question of where you are present. Though physically you are present in the room, your mind is present in the call. Something I’m still trying to get my head around.

The Need for Virtual

My friend Robin Dickinson wrote some great words last year when he said that “room filling is the last thing a post internet leader does.” Robin says that in the light of all the innovation and social technology, there is often little innovation to found when event organisers pile people into the same hotel conference room as they normally do:

It just seems ironic that they use the ancient method of room-filling to share this leading-edge information. It’s like putting a horse and buggy on a brand new railway track and hollering “Giddy-up!”

Robin’s point ends with what my consultancies specialty is: using Social Media to enable, extend and enhance offline events, experiences and engagement. Peter Gorman echoes this sentiment in his recent article on ‘The Virtual State‘ (good title, Peter.)

The Edge of Virtual: Curation

In a post last month, myself and a virtual friend of mine, Kristi Colvin, got talking in the comments section about where we see virtual going and how it blends with the physical participation through the idea of shared real time.

Much of thought was coming from a very peice Robert Scoble wrote on The Seven Needs of Real Time Curators, in which he pretty much provides a roadmap of needs for anyone who is serious about developing in this virtual arena. I found each of Robert’s seven points directly applicable to what I’ve learnt through pushing the idea of virtual participation at Like Minds, something that Kristi and the guys at FreshId where instrumental in.

Robert’s points build upon each other, the first of which is the need for curated bundles. When we worked on the virtual participation platform for Like Minds, we were keenly aware that the #likeminds hashtag quickly becomes like a sawn off shotgun with all the content that goes through it – much it of duplicate, non-useful or heavily contextual. What we needed was to sift the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, for those virtually participating, otherwise they’d drown in all the data coming through. For this we looked to our Media Partners live blog feeds, as well as targeting content that was connected to real-time events (like the Twitter username of the current speaker.)

What also becomes apparent is that the community curates itself. I love this post about Jo Porritt who virtually attended Like Minds, and says this abotu the experience:

I could log into my Twitter account from the interface which enabled me to not only watch the event in real time, but converse with others on Twitter both at the event, and scattered around the globe in different timezones. An entirely connected audience. The advantage from this stance was being able to see the event, watch the inspiring panelists and speakers in action, but at the same time relay information to the online community. I found myself watching the stream from Olivier Blanchard who was tweeting some of the salient points as soon as the statements had been uttered by the speakers, and then immediately seeing the reactions from those on Twitter that weren’t there. I felt like a bridge between the two – which is social media in motion and at it’s very best!

There’s more to say here and I’ve got lots of ideas, but I’m keen to learn what people’s needs are of events from a virtual stand point – especially when we have video and slides in front of us. What is the information that we then need to know, or want to know in order to be more connected?
My friend Karima-Catherine relayed her experience of virtually participating in Like Minds, where she age points out that the strong point of virtual engagement is that it happens before, during and after. Someone else said the same here and here. The best write up is Krisit’s own on the FreshId site where she really gets into the nitty gritty and practicalities of this.

A Starting Point

I’ve thrown these points out really am hoping we can talk them through. Pick off one of the questions below to help us get started:

1. What matters to you if you are attending an event virtually? How could this be enriched?
2. How we begin to categorise and understand the idea of ‘presence’ with virtual and physical worlds?
3. How do you think curation can be better done than it is today? (Read Robert Scoble’s article)