Sun in Second Life

I'm excited to announce I'll be working more with the developer community in Second Life for Sun.

In the past, chats have been given to developers on various topics of Java programming, especially to beginners. These are always fun events because the developer community in Second Life is so enthusiastic about learning the Java platform, and they are so appreciative of the time Sun employees spend talking to them in SL.

This brings me to why environments like SL so valuable to our company and the community at large: communication. Most of interaction with developers is in the form of email: responses  directly from articles and blogs, and comments in the feedback form on the site. But the atmosphere of a virtual world is quite different, and  encourages dialog in a wonderful way.

While it's true we are not person to person in the material sense, we are avatar to avatar, which brings in new dynamics. Some might argue that this is so artificial as to be considered ridiculous, but I have to argue that it brings comfortable anonymity to those who might otherwise be shy, uncomfortable speaking in large groups, sneaking in Java technology on the sly outside of their current jobs, or just otherwise not social. In addition, those who are more social and comfortable are not held back in anyway. Lastly, virtual worlds are just darned convenient and bring people together who otherwise would never meet because of geographical distance, time constraints, etc.

Sun's space in Second Life provides us the opportunity to share our technologies and programs with a wider audience of developers, but even more importantly it allows us to talk to you directly, or at least avatar to avatar, to get your feedback and thoughts on what we're doing, how to use our technologies, and how we can help you grow your business and careers. It is exciting and enlightening to talk to developers in this way and get your feedback, hear your questions and concerns, and have the opportunity to respond in kind. These interactions in Second Life are two-way with synergy. I believe we all benefit from the interaction.

I'll look forward to seeing your avatars inworld!

Posted at 01:04PM Aug 27, 2008 by Criss McCauley in Events  |  Comments[0]