I have learned to be optimistic about classes, lectures and seminars; or when approaching anything from tutorials to conferences. I am absolutely optimistic, and it is an “all or nothing” evaluation: If I learn one new thing then the time invested has paid off.

Sure, that is a low bar to jump over; but I said I was being optimistic, not enthusiastic.

Nasus Dumart with guest lecturer, Hiro Pendragon
(image by nasus.dumart)

Hiro Pendragon appeared at Molaskey’s Pub as guest lecturer last night, and he did not let me down. Actually, I learned several helpful bits. According to Hiro:

• educators always pay
• in Second Life “the user is part of a story” (and, in fact, his company “focuses on the storytelling element to drive the whole design”)
• much of their success is due to the fact that they invest “a *LOT* of time researching the technology”

But, the single most striking lesson for me came by way of demonstration…

Recently, I have spent many hours revising the design of an object, the iDP-Voyager, to create a more useful interactive display panel than its predecessor. The project has become one of passion: More features due to changes in LSL since the original version, enhanced usability given a greater understanding of the platform and the users, user-friendly due to a hard-won intention to market objects, and well-documented (of course). This object deletes content to ready itself for your next set or presentation; it speeds up, slows down, even hangs around ’til you’re gone and deletes itself; it slices, it dices…

Crap’s key (image by isfullofcrap)

And then, I am sitting there at Molaskey’s Pub, watching the chat roll by, wondering how Crap winds that key sticking out his back…and Mr. Pendragon rezzes a plywood cube, re-sizes it to an appropriate aspect ratio for images (”This was my first creation in SL…”)…and begins to illustrate his presentation by dragging images from Inventory onto that plywood prim.

No buttons or menus; no dialog boxes or listeners, no lengthy instructional notecard with highly verbose directions including a URL for a wiki support page or email needed. Just sort your pics in a folder, then drag each image onto a prim.

He turned a plain ol’ box into an effective multimedia tool.

It is said that the great ones make it look easy. Well, that was great.