A first in Second Life

TPMA held its first event in a virtual world yesterday, hosting a series of panel discussions via Second Life. I moderated the three panels, which featured lively discussion on collaboration, customer-centricity, and positioning trade promo programs for recovery.

The panelists -- Peter Eschenberg (Hitachi), Harris Fogel (O4), Blake Watts (Plan4Demand), Jim Nadler (afterBOT), Tom Strubel (Oracle), Phil Conner (IAB), Lauren Robinette (Cisco), Armen Najarian (DemandTec), Chris Wiesen (SAP) -- did a great job, and there was lots of interaction from the attendees.

It was different and it was fun. This was a case where the medium was at least a big part of the message. The content was important, of course, but it was also an opportunity for all of us to try out a new medium and see whether it can be an effective way to communicate.

I think the medium passed the test. There were few technical glitches and none of any significance. We deliberately kept things simple, but now we know that we can add other elements (slides, maybe video). And most importantly, we learned that this is a format for delivering information that engages the audience more than traditional webinars. I'm not saying this will replace webinars -- there are limitations as well as strengths -- but its another option to consider.

PS: Armen posted about the event on his blog -- get his view here.