Metanomics Gets Feedback (and a response)

This is my Connecting the Dots segment from Monday's show, in which I talked about some feedback we received on the prior week's show, and give a partial response. Feedback is really helpful to us--keep it coming!

One of the pleasures of running live virtual events like Metanomics is that we get immediate feedback through text chat, backchat, on how we’re doing in our shows. But we also get more traditional feedback after the show. Last week’s show in particular we got quite a bit of feedback.

First, we got one email from a viewer expressing disappointment with our segment featuring Nonny de la Peña’s Gone Gitmo installation in Second Life. This viewer was unhappy with the fact that we’re focusing on Real World politics rather than economics. I’d like to just take a moment to respond to this comment.

Quite simply, I’m interested in people who take Virtual Worlds seriously. People who are developing Virtual Worlds or developing businesses within Virtual Worlds are obviously a key focus of the show, as are those who are working on underlying technologies and developing policies for governing such Worlds. Nonny de la Peña is a documentary filmmaker. You may not agree with her politics, but she is taking Virtual Worlds seriously enough to develop some compelling installations in Second Life. Similarly, today’s guest Paulo Casaca is taking Virtual Worlds seriously enough to stream tomorrow’s book discussion from the European Parliament into Second Life. As long as people are using Virtual Worlds for serious political activities, Metanomics will be interested in covering it.

[Due to a lack of time, I didn't say the following during the event, but I think the points are worth including--Rob]

The emailer also complained about the show's apparent left-leaning slant. On this point, I have two responses. First, there aren’t many conservatives in virtual worlds, as far as I can tell. If you have suggestions for right-of-center guests, please let me know. Second, the viewer who emailed assumed I was endorsing Nonny’s political views because I wore an orange jumpsuit that I received from her installation. In retrospect, that was probably inappropriate for me to do…I should have stuck with my suit, so as not to appear to be taking a political position on Guantanamo, and let my guest make her own political points herself. I will be more careful about that sort of symbolism in the future.

I also received feedback from another viewer, who criticized my softball questions his term to our main guest Sibley Verbeck, CEO of Electric Sheep Company. In this viewer’s eyes, Electric Sheep failed its investors, its clients, and Second Life residence with a poorly designed and executed strategy marketing products in Second Life. The viewer believes I should have called Sibley on that more aggressively. Some of you already know, but many of you probably do not, that Metanomics began as a guest speaker series for students. I think the nature of my questioning reflects that. An investigative journalist or a talk radio host might well take a forum like this as an opportunity to make their own points about the shortcomings of the interviewee. But that’s not how we treat guest speakers in academia. Instead, the goal of the hour is to give the guest speaker the opportunity to have their voice heard. I’ll ask difficult questions when they’re called for, and I expect honest answers.

But Metanomics is not an inquisition. Non-responses can be as much as we can hope for from some guests on some topics, and they tend to be informative in their own way. If I get a non response or stonewalling answer, I’ll move on to another topic that will yield more fruitful discussion. But keep two things in mind: First, the interview with the guest is just part of an entire conversation, and you’ll see lots of very frank comments in the backchat. And our guests are free to address those, and, in many cases, they have done exactly that. And second, like any guest speaker in a class, this discussion is just the beginning of a conversation, not the end, and I do hope that you will all pick up on these points on your blogs and continue keeping the discussion moving.