I loved this video: Melvar and Lien building a physical scale model of their web site.
And I think there’s a very important lesson in this. For too long, too many of us have assumed that people who excel in virtual worlds are useless in physical worlds. Get a life before you get a Second Life, that sort of thing.You know what I mean. But we’re wrong, very wrong.
I remember reading a Pew Report which indicated that the super-communicators in the emergent generations actually spent more time face to face with their friends than the rest of the population.
We have to keep remembering this. When Generation M, the mobile multitasking multimedia millenials, spend time online, they’re not sacrificing face time with their friends and family.
They’re sacrificing TV time. And advertisement time. And everything else that goes with it. Particularly when you compare them to earlier post-TV generations.
So they’re going to do what we never managed to do enough of. They’re going to choose what they do in their leisure time. Choose whose recommendations they trust. Choose whom they spend time with. Choose who they share their intentions with. Choose.
[It should come as no surprise that I found out about this site and project via Scott Beale, who knows a thing or two about virtual and physical worlds. Thank you Scott.