Not a game: Virtual worlds are serious business

Conference highlights entrepreneurs, trainers, pathfinders and new products

Amanda Van Nuys (known in Second Life® as Amanda Linden) and Doug Thompson (Dusan Writer) will be among the featured presenters at the Leadership in Business fall conference, Oct. 27-29 at the Beta Business Park (www.betabusinesspark.com) in the virtual world of Second Life.

Amanda Van Nuys is the executive director of enterprise marketing at Linden Lab®, owner of Second Life. Her role is head of marketing for everything non-consumer, which encompasses government, education, nonprofit, and the developer community.

Doug Thompson is the CEO of Remedy Communications and a driving force behind Metanomics (www.metanomics.net), a popular weekly panel discussion about virtual worlds that attracts some of the best minds, bridges real and virtual worlds, and tackles some of the trickiest problems facing entrepreneurs.

The virtual conference will showcase a wide range of knowledge and experience in the non-profit, governmental, educational, and private sectors. It focuses on entering and expanding a virtual world presence, as well as critical real world business and leadership skills.

The lineup also includes:

Gwyneth Llewelyn, now Beta Technology’s CTO (www.betatechnologies.info), has been a manager in several other high-tech firms. She has experience in international business, contracts, billing, finance, marketing, and promotion. She will be speaking on e-commerce solutions in Second Life.

Garrett Glaser (Garret Nirvana), president of Glaser Media (glasermedia.com) and a former CNBC reporter, will discuss dealing with the media and getting your message out in the virtual and physical worlds.

Neil Canham (Richard Mieklejohn) will explore the uses of immersive technologies in collaboration and teams and will be previewing the new product his company, Flying Island (www.flyingisland.co.uk), is launching to facilitate them.

Paul D’Ambrosio (Nicolo Anthony) will focus on the efforts of the Fenimore Art Museum (www.fenimoreartmuseum.org) in Cooperstown, N.Y., to establish itself in Second Life over the past two years. D’Ambrosio, the vice president and chief curator, will describe how a mid-size art museum in a rural area navigated virtual world issues.

The conference will also feature displays by all the presenters and the B2P tenants. The full conference schedule is available on the B2P Web site: www.betabusinesspark.com


About Beta Business Park (B2P)

Beta Business Park (betabusinesspark.com), a project of Beta Technologies (betatechologies.info), is a community of businesses and the people who own, operate, and work at them. This business-to-people community offers a different way to use Second Life. B2P provides a coherent territory dedicated to businesses and their clients, allowing easy connections between people, as well as conveniently shared costs of common facilities.