Understanding Transitions

Today was the day.

After 7 years, I no longer work at Linden Lab. It was surreal to get home last week and see myself on the television while carrying a banker’s box of stuff from work, but all good things come to an end. Lots of different writers have already weighed in on my departure and really I don’t have anything more to say. Linden has great people working on an amazing product. I wish them all well.

This space is for what is next.

With this initial post, I wanted to take a moment to look at a few pieces of Second Life work that have appeared just as I leave Linden. First, MIT Press has published the MacArthur Series on Digital Media, including the Ecology of Games volume with my chapter, “Education Unleashed.” Second, the journal Innovations: Technology, Governance, and Globalization just published my paper”Collapsing Geography,” which this blog is named for.

As I ponder my future, I am most interested in continuing to explore how we — how people — can play, interact, connect, collaborate, learn, and innovate at a distance. How we can best leverage our myriad talents as a social species that are today so hamstrung by geographic distance.

I can’t wait for 2008.