The Lucas Notes
Well the morning started off with George Lucas being interviewed by Famous adviser to Salesforce Robert Thurman. This guy has written tons of books on Buddhism, very close to the Dalai Lama, and Marc takes it down to: "Mostly famous for his daughter, Uma." Good one. George dressed up for the occasion, he wore a jacket with his jeans and flannel, and being a huge fan of the denim, my booth-uniform was tired.
George talked about his own philanthropic effort Edutopia. Great concept. Instead of a teacher barking and yammering at you all day, make it more of a collaborative effort. Collaboration you say? It's the name of the game at this year's Dreamforce. So kids should do more of a group learning environment (especially to learn to work with people they "hate" as GL put it). "If they taught that in school we wouldn't be in Iraq right now" (Applause). This gets them ready for their potential future work life when they have to work with people they hate.
Kids today need to be challenged to think about things instead of a one way communications from the teacher, and it's up to the schools and the teachers to embrace it.
Weird? When he did say that the world will never be destroyed, and that it's not about saving the planet it's about saving ourselves. Wonder what Al G. thinks about that one?
He did however say he has faith in bacteria to survive. Ok. Positive note? We as a race have come really far in just 50 years and that we're starting to pay attention.
I did like to hear him talk about collaboration as it related to him helping other Directors and other Directors helping him, which creates a better "playing field" if you will, for everyone. He applauds when any summer movie blockbuster comes out because it gets people going to the movies more. We see this ALL the time with our winery clients. They work collaboratively to try to get more people in general to buy wine and travel to the wineries themselves. Great point George.
2nd Life
What was cool? I stuck around for the next panel and being a fan of anything Social Networking, Philip Rosedale of 2nd Life (who is a FANTASTIC customer of VR BTW) was up next. I took 3 "wows" away from this one: 
- There are about 1000 people who make more than $1000/month selling goods that don't exist. Fascinating.
- In keeping with that magic Dreamforce word "collaboration", he showed an "avatar" shopping for a non existent phone, with another random avatar approaching to give advice about the product.
- The 3rd wow? Four people in a real company coming together in a "room" to have a meeting with audio. The kicker? You can be whatever you want, even a horse.
Other Notes
Pot shots and Microsoft - In George Hu's keynote demo the fake company was a software company in Seattle called "Dinosoft". In today's fantastic mini-movie the demo had a dropdown called "Scared of the Big Players" and one of the choices was MSFT. Nicely done.
I had a panel on Corporate Social Responsibility and what we do at VR here to help our community. I think it went well especially on the heels of the keynote as well as our participation with the Salesforce Foundation. Thanks to all who attended.
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