Kristofer D. Layon

Yesterday I attended a New Media Research Network presentation entitled Second Life, Second Body: Microethnographic Analysis of Nonverbal Communication in the Virtual Environment (try saying that ten times fast!). I don't know...I'm still a skeptic of Second Life, even though it has companies in it making money, bands playing concerts, etc.

(the graphic above shows 'HealthInfo Island')

I am particularly skeptical of Ms. Antonijevic's ability to study the body language of avatars. Other attendees clearly doubted this, too, and raised questions about how we could even know to what extent various users could manipulate their avatars' gestures, and how the entire interface issue limits what is really communicated. For example, real facial microgestures can be mere microseconds in length, and we are not consciously perceiving them but rather do this subconsciously. If realtime, realspace interactions are this subtle (and not even consciously controlled or perceived), wouldn't these meaningful gestures be entirely absent in Second Life? Or, when they are there, how do we know they are intentional versus accidental?

Is this a case where the research proposal was inherently flawed?

Comments (0)

Two projects from our office were recognized with Maroon Awards at this year's Communicators Forum conference. Awarded to projects of exceptional merit, the prizes are determined by a jury of peers from the design, public relations, and media/publishing industries.

The first award was for the Wish You Were Here faculty recruiting web site (multimedia category):

• Sharon Reich Paulsen, Executive Director
• Jon Binks, Editor
• Kris Layon, Web and Multimedia Producer
• Additional consultants: Eaton & Associates (Kari Finkler and Tim Eaton, Creative Directors and Designers for the companion print collateral)

The second award was for the Uncharted Territory 2006 Communicators Forum annual conference materials (campaign category):

• Kris Layon, Creative Director
• Amy Kalbrener, Graphic Designer and Project Manager
• Meenal Patel, Graphic Designer

A PDF of the conference invitation can be downloaded here.

Yesterday I participated in the annual conference of the University's Communicators Forum. Some notes from the sessions I attended:

• Web 2.0: Nora Paul, the director of our Institute for New Media Studies, gave a great keynote presentation about the "Four Cs" of our changing internet landscape; changes in Channels, Craft, Client expecations, and Customer base. She also showed one of my favorite videos on the topic, which also highlights the importance of adopting CSS and XML.


• Web Demographics: Jen Alsted, president of the interactive agency bswing, discussed some of the findings of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Key question: how to package and deliver content to different demographic audiences when they appear to use the internet so differently?


• Interviewing and Storytelling: Former Minnesota Public Radio host and Air America Radio co-host Katherine Lanpher gave an entertaining talk about tips for interviewing so that people's stories are told well. Part way through, I realized that she was not just speaking to the writers and editors in the audience. Starting a design project for someone is very similar to doing an interview—their project has a story, or perhaps even is a story. I look forward to using her suggestions.


• Podcasting & iTunes U: Bill Duff and Mike McGraw from Apple presented iTunes U, a web service that aggregates educational content from across a university into one central and branded location, using the same technology and format as the familiar iTunes Music Store.