Education Keynote Speaker: Dr. Robert Bloomfield - Give Me a (Virtual) Place to Stand and I will Move the (Real) World

[Kevin Feenan]

Dr. Robert Bloomfield (Beyers Sellers) is a feature presenter at this year’s SLCC and will be presenting “Give Me a (Virtual) Place to Stand and I will Move the (Real) World” on August 14th from Noon to 1pm.

Archimedes tells us that we can move the world by standing close to the fulcrum and pushing on a lever very hard for a short distance, or standing far from it and pushing less hard for a long distance. Virtual worlds and other social media allow us to move the fulcrum, and stand in the places that best suit our goals and the resources we have available to us. Traditional practices have us standing close to the fulcrum, engaging in expensive, infrequent and high-effort tasks done by a small number of people. I will discuss when and how we can use new technology to step away from the fulcrum and engage in cheap, frequent and low-effort tasks involving a large number of people.

Beyer Sellers Bio: Cornell Professor Robert Bloomfield hosts the popular virtual television show Metanomics, and brings a community of policy makers and researchers into Second Life every week, through his work with the Financial Accounting Standards Board and http://fasri.net.