speaking

One of the unexpected parts of my time at Linden Lab was public speaking. Lots of public speaking.

It is, of course, Beth Noveck's fault.

When Philip and I spoke at the first State of Play conference, we had the opportunity to write white papers about the talks we gave. I thought it was a great opportunity, so I wrote "Escaping the Gilded Cage," which went on to appear in both the New York Law School Law Journal and in a book from MIT press. When I sent it in to Beth, she liked it enough to invite me to give a talk about it at NYLS. Then Yochai Benkler invited me to speak to his class at Yale Law School. The rest, as they say, is history, as speaking became an important tool for evangelizing Second Life, inspiring new ideas, meeting smart people who could help solve challenging problems, and recruiting new employees.

But speaking is not something of done separate from my time as a Linden, so I am tremendously excited to announce that Washington Speakers Bureau is representing me for speaking engagements. While I continue to learn and consider what will be next, I am thrilled by the chance to continue spreading the word about virtual worlds, their impact on learning and innovation, and how Second Life formed a basic part of our engineering process.