IEEE - A Work in Progress

I dunno about you, but as a fairly seasoned Second Lifer I have got used to an oddly high incidence of odd coincidences in SL - "Synchronicity" was Jung's rather elegant term for it. So, in a spirit of community and collaboration, I offer you "SLynchronity" - thus far without the trademark - for your free use and enjoyment, to describe this effect. In my last post I gave you a view of the current state of play with my company's island in Second Life. I touched on a couple points - one: I had not blogged about an island for a while, and two: I expected the company island to go through a couple of reconstructions before we felt it was complete. After posting that entry I decided to rectify point one, and set about finding a sim that looked promising. I quickly found IEEE and, as you will see, had a SLynchronous moment relating to point two.

But first, a little about IEEE - or "Eye-triple-E". The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers sounds like it would not be out of place in the steampunk world of Caledon, the name reeking as it does of hot engine oil and Tesla discharges. In fact, the institute rightly describes itself as "the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology." Its vision is that "IEEE will be essential to the global technical community and to technical professionals everywhere, and be universally recognized for the contributions of technology and of technical professionals in improving global conditions." It is perhaps the world's pre-eminent standards body for all standards pertaining to technology today. Since my RL self works in Information Technology I was rather pleased to find them in Second Life... and even more pleased to find the sim (soon to be 2 sims) open to visitors.

Shortly after I arrived, while I was snapping some photos for this post, I was joined by Buildit Nikolaidis (Kyle Nikolich in RL), the builder of the island. We had a long conversation, during the course of which it became apparent that we shared a lot in common. Buildit is the sole builder for the island, at least for the present, and (coincidentally) many of his experiences matched my own. I was not surprised to learn that the island was not officially open. In fact, given his workload, he is not expecting to have a public launch until, say, June this year. The main reason for this is that he is about to embark on a major reconstruction of the island. In fact, this will be the fourth - and hopefully last - reconstruction (see point two above). As I say, I was struck by the synchronicity of this, given that I had been writing about this topic scarcely 30 minutes earlier! Perhaps the main difference is that Buildit is, thus far, keeping the sim open - so hopefully you can always pop in for a chat yourself.

Since the sim is due for reconstruction I won't say too much about the current build, other than to mention that I did find the hidden room! IEEE are using the site for internal meetings from time to time, and have dedicated various buildings for different teams or groups within the organisation. More will come with the second sim, now delivered, but as yet not built. It will be interesting to see how this build unfolds, as IEEE have eschewed the use of an established build company in favour of a self-build approach. Buildit certainly has the skills to pull it off.

Finally, here's my small portfolio of snaps: