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I was surprised to find at this weekend's RootsCamp DC that Second Life was a hot topic of conversation. RootsCamp is a meeting of progressive activists based on the "un-conference" model made popular in the tech world, first by the invite-only FooCamp and then by the open-to-the-riff-raff BarCamps. At a unconference, if you're moved to hosted a session on a particular topic, you just slap a notice with a time and place up on the planning wall. We had a somewhat intimate RootsCamp two weeks ago here in New York at Brooklyn PolyTech and then another rather larger one at the NEA building in DC this weekend.

I somewhat stumbled into a Sunday session on the political applications of Second Life after Adam Conner said to me, "hey, shouldn't you be there?" (Together with the rest of Forward Together PAC, I helped shepard Governor Mark Warner into Second Life as the first American political leader with a presence in that virtual world. Also, I have a sexy white midriff-baring virtual pant suit and pink "kitten heels" outfit combo that I like to wax on about wherever it's halfway relevant. If you know me offline, go ahead and laugh.) It was a fascinating session hosted by Ruby Sinreich and Andrew Hoppin, who have used Second Life to organize RootsCamp sessions in-world, the next of which is coming up on Wednesday, 4PM EST. A testament to the stickiness of SL -- after hearing Ruby and Andrew talk for a few minutes and seeing a handle of in-world screen captures, more than one participant (at least two!) who walked into the the session never having heard of SL told me that they now expected to waste several first-life hours in Second Life in the next week alone.

The response to SL was so strong that we held a lunch-time demonstration on my laptop to show people how to get started navigating around the space and pick out their own pretty outfits. Aldon's got video.

Speaking of pretty outfits, there's a fantastic event coming up in Second Life to which I have nothing appropriate to wear. The blogging judge Richard Posner, of Project Posner fame (as well as the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals), will in interviewed by Hamlet Au in-world on Thursday at 9PM EST on his subtly-titled new book Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency. The problem is that Jane wants to attend to the event too and has asked to borrow the pant suit. Now I got nothing to wear but my new RootsCamp t-shirt pictured above, and that just seems to casual.

(I spent way too long this afternoon poking around the really lovely Reuters Second Life bureau. That's what you see above. The photographs are the work of the news service's staffers, hanging gallery-style around the space. Now imagine explaining to the kid who's the subject of the photo in the top image what's going on that picture.)