While IrishSpace was certainly the most exciting thing I've
been involved in OnTheNet, I have to wonder if it could be
done again. We were either blessed or really dammed
lucky to pull that off. The tech was brittle, the group was
loose, the objectives were ill-defined (that was an advantage
actually), and everything had to be done so fast (also
an advantage). I guess some things work because they
are supposed to and because those who want it won't let
them fail. The human heart is the strongest hand to wield a tool.
It seems there are periods in a community's
maturing like Camelot, when the strong and able are willing
to work together not just for their own good, but some vague
idealized good which they can see in communion. Isn't that
what a vision really is? A few years later, we have so much
concern for the business model and the push and pull of whose
approach to the technology will win, it is hard to consider trying
something like IrishSpace without solid backing ($$$). I don't
think this is bad, just different. Those who put the tools on
the table also have to be sustained. This is just a period
of concentration to fix infrastructure and healthy.
Still, when the whole becomes fragmented, there are always
pockets of cooperation led by the Gawain's of the world who
though young, are witness to the Age of Heros (Pesce's notion).
They will emerge, perhaps, in server based equivalents of the
online communities that congregate around the performance
events springing up to support other gatherings (eg. WorldCon).
Just as bands are formed when musicians hold walk-on jams,
I think events that bring together talent for these pioneer events
will spawn some aggregates. For example, the emergence of online
equivalents of community theatre groups seems inevitable.
Driven by strong mature creatives, hopefully funded, with lots
of traffic in younger talent, there is real potential to create
powerful fermentation vats of art and new tech. The VRMLDream
project was like that.
The fledgling groups need successes and that is a game played best
by realizing what is inside the envelope even if it stretches it.
The StepToFar is to be avoided if the effort is to be sustained
because in the long run, the highest goal is to sustain
the community itself. The loose rules of information ecosystems
are not to be regarded lightly. Grow talent; inseminate them
with attitudes of success by dint of smart projects that succeed.
For example, look at Alan's stories. They were a smart use
of the tools for the medium. Now that we are entering the
age of MUSpace and avatars, we should adapt to the use
of chat and partial streaming. Next, we may get better streaming
and more MUness, but while that is being worked, we should
work more within what the medium can do.
The vrml-lit community should build a suburb in CyberTown
as a place to perform.
len
Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h
