No Matter Where You Go, ....

....There You Are.

Does where matter? In today's connected world, does it matter where you are physically? Is 'there' just a state of mind? Can you be just as inspired and productive in a cold, clinical, anonymous, man-made environment as you can in a sunny, blue sky, warm breeze blowing, music drifting environment? Is it all a state of mind?

Or at a higher level, when you are completely engaged, you lose track of time and sense of environment so the real key is to be inspired and engaged.

'There' can be more or less conducive but it only matters to the extent you think it does. It can matter less if you want it to. There doesn't give the fabric, the meaning that interest and engagement provide.

Brave New Simu World

What an exciting world we live in with so many new and evolving forms of entertainment, learning, experiencing, interacting and actualizing. And they are all converging, merging and bubbling into new possibilities. It's all part of the trends to seamlessness between learning and entertainment and people being more interactive and expressive with every medium.

We used to have radio, then TV, then cable, then video games, then online video games and MMOGs (massive multi-player online games).

As one great example of what is available now, SimuLearn offers the Virtual Leader simulation elearning tool to develop leadership skills for corporate and government customers. What a great tool this could be. What if everyone in a work team played themselves in the online simulation? What if everyone played others especially swapping roles up and down the power hierarchy, what could you learn by playing your supervisor? What if every role was played by others with your personality and work skill characteristics? A dream or a nightmare?

There can be at least two ways to play a role; first by being yourself doing the responsibilities of that position or second by inheriting or creating character attributes (personality, skills, etc.) that filter/direct how the player you are playing can perform their role and interact in that context. Being someone else from the constraints of their value system, background, personality, skills, mindset and outlook can be hugely educational. Identifying these aspects of yourself can be extremely educational. This would be useful in any and all contexts of human interaction: professional relationships, personal relationships, interactions between any entities, politics, international relations in particular....

Kuma War offers game simulations of real world events, mainly war strategy related. The Great Divine is a move-through-the-stages video game but ability to move up is measured via biofeedback of how calm you are. And of course The Sims were the original simulation platform, with Sims Online and Second Life now growing exponentially as users create their experiences, realize their creativity and interact with others.

How soon can we have holographic 3-D displays and simulated conversations with non-human characters representing our dream characters or real-life people!