Headed out to Brooklyn to meet up with some of the heavy hitters of the Metaverse(s). Was looking for inspiration and a sense of where additional help was needed. I was also looking for like minds and some indulgence chit chat about topics that you don’t find in general circulation – such as the finer points of interactive data modeling.

It is clear that the metaverse community is operating at the very edge of networked social experience. Simulated virtual worlds aren’t new, but pushing them beyond entertainment value is new. Employing them to enable new means of communicating and realizing information is new. These folks get that, and are part of a large community of thinkers and engineers working to prepare these tools for mainstream consumption.

I’ve been fortunate to have friends like these over the years, back when we were just running simple computer bulletin boards, up through the academic-only days of the Internet, and onward to teaching our parents how to email us and check out our online photos. We’re pioneers in a new realm.

So I came away from this meeting feeling inspired, and began to formulate what sort of contributions most interested me and which might provide the greatest value to the community.

Meetups are great catalysts for this sort of work.