SUperStar at PlaNet Work Conference

Report on The PlaNet Work Conference-
Polly and Scott Present SuperStar Avatar to The Geek Chic

The Planetwork Interactive
Planetwork.net
At the San Francisco Presidio
June 5 - 6, 2004
“Join innovators from the world of information technology, peace and social justice activists, environmental visionaries, independent media pioneers and many others to explore how social networks, information technologies and the Internet can play a key role in…”
-----------------------
Now I must first point out, dear readers, the large N in PlaNet Workers.
(though on our conference badges the T had been left out to aptly read- PlaNe Workers)
Hmmmm……an omen that our FUN presentation was needed)
Now, The topic of our presentation, which was the first chosen from 24 entries, was entitled:
“Social Architecture for The Masses- Lets Make It fun!”
Yeah. That’s right. Hip factor And Sex Appeal & Social Networking Technology.
…gets you the the top, baby!

Our intention was to present ‘the challenge in bringing social networking tools into the real world’, present our solution (SuperStar Avatar-Nation), and connect with new talent and resources for moving the project forward. (Funding, programmers, biz advice, etc)
Rolling bags at the ready, we arrived via cab to the fog enshrouded Presidio Conference Center; costumes, disco light, Senor Coconut CD and laptop presentation at the ready.
It had been a looooong week preparing presentations, chucking them out and starting over, crunching new features into the website, finishing and printing the New Avatar Handbooks, etc. and we were ready to get on with the action!
We arrived during the opening PlaNet Work ceremony at which some sort of innovation in persistent identity, E-name, social networking technology was being heralded.
Riiiiiiight.
(Note to self: find out what an ‘ename’ is later from someone that can hook it up for us.)
Time for coffee!
We were greeted by fellow SuperStar Avatar- The Sensational Sensei, at the towering coffee station and soon jumped in to join him ‘at the pour’ as fellow work exchange coffee droids.
Ah-ha! Much to the delight and dismay of the activists, technologists and docker-wearing, geek-a-zoids, Polly and I brought the ART OF ATTENDING THE COFFEE STAND to a whole new level. We whipped out card after card and turned a dull corner of the conference basement into THE energetic and cultural hot spot of the whole conference. Cards displaying Geek Error Message Haiku, Coffee Facts, Mini Conference Schedules and the like brought many a smile.
We attended a haphazardly facilitated morning session in which ‘teams’ of planetworkers assessed their skills and ideas for Bigger &Badder social tech onto big, blank white cardboard boxes. These boxes were then supposed to be connected in a “Glass Bead Game’ style brainstorming session. This session,however, sort of degenerated into an egoic, semantic noise riddled, ‘preaching to the converted’ kind of collegiate playground chaos.

Lunch was nice. Sitting in the sun and grass with the Who’s Who of The Social Networking Set. Eating Salad and sandwiches with biodegradeable ‘sporks’ that looked like your average white plastic. A ‘hippie-geek’ type, overhearing my confident ramblings about Spork technology, made quite the face when I said convincingly that they were made of compost.

Time to present.
4.30 PM in The West Room. Classic academia surroundings, chairs, video projector….College Time again!
We pulled out our materials and got our costume changes ready, attendees filled the chairs,
A silence descended, a lone tumbleweed blew through the room…..and then it happened, the InterNet went down.
Polly seemed to take the whole thing in stride while yours truly sort of paced madly, quietly pleading to any tech-head present to please help…please help!
We forged ahead, bravely, daringly….internet be D*MNED!
Of course, and I say this humbly, we were brilliant.
Point after point was delivered with consummate skill and panache. Examples of things obtuse and noble were offered to dazzle and delight the crowd.
The smiling faces of our friends present beamed at us while we hailed the power of play and sang the praises of Truly Social Architecture.
I think it was the costume change paired with the KraftWerk cover by Senor Coconut that sent the crowd into a ‘Justin Timberlake’, post presentation frenzy.
Literally, after the 30 minute chat, our offer for the crowd to come up and grab a handbook was met with a ‘angry towns-folk’ type of scenario.
Pocket liners flew and Birkenstocks were scuffed that afternoon, let me tell you!
Basking in a post-presentation glow, we were approached by programmers and tech types of many descriptions. This continued into the evening cocktail hour as we (and by we, I mostly mean Polly) were approached by more of the same.
Except now, inebriated.
Riiiiiiiiight. Time to go!
Overall: Some good contacts were made and SuperStar Nation introduced its colorful message to the PlaNetWorkers Conference. Only time will tell what effect that week had.
(Final note-the Internet came back up directly after our presentation!)
Scott Levkoff
A.K.A.
Prof Violet
scott@superstaravatar.com
'Lifes A Game, Are You Playing?'