Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Virtual Worlds Presentation for 2012 Virtual Enterprise Conference at Glyndŵr University


The Virtual Enterprise Conference at Glyndŵr University brings together a diverse range of web entrepreneurs, students and academics to discuss the opportunities for e-entrepreneurship offered by virtual worlds and the social web.  It's hosted each year by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at Glyndŵr University.

On Feb 23 at this year's conference, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation on Best Practices in Virtual Worlds.  Here's the full video.  


The Right Tool for the Right Job: Best Practices for Virtual Worlds from John Lester on Vimeo.

You can grab a copy of my slides on Google, and you can visit the Jibe world featured in my presentation by going here.

Thanks again to Matthew Draycott from the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at Glyndŵr University for inviting me to speak.  It was a great opportunity!

- John "Pathfinder" Lester
Chief Learning Officer
ReactionGrid, Inc.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Talking about Virtual Worlds on MetaReality



Yesterday I was a guest on MetaReality's weekly podcast about virtual worlds.

We chatted about my time at Linden Lab, cool stuff happening at ReactionGrid, virtual world platforms like Jibe and Opensim, the Hypergrid Adventurers Club, and the future evolution of virtual worlds.

Great people, great discussion and quite a few laughs.  Kim, thank you again for having me on the show.

My favorite part was when all of us logged in to my Jibe world and ran around exploring while we were chatting live on the show.  Lots of fun!



-John "Pathfinder" Lester
Chief Learning Officer, ReactionGrid Inc.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

ReactionGrid Mobilizer Expands to Game Based Learning & Sim Studio

ReactionGrid's "Mobilizer" group for Android publishing is expanding to become our division for start to finish rapid Game Based Learning & Simulation production and publishing for our Jibe platform.  Like a video game producer that works with partners and contractors to create great titles but in this case focused on game based learning and simulations.

Our team paired with vetted Jibe/Unity3D industry titans and community newcomers and veterans are already in production of several 6 figure indie game based learning and simulation efforts based on Jibe.  If you have a huge idea and need support quickly expressing the idea to grant committees or other decision makers we have the team.

Remember you can start proposing Android and iOS mobile concepts now to the NSF and others because we support that out of the box.  We think mobile game based learning and simulations is an exciting new area of virtual worlds.  When you need a supporting grant or proposal document that genuinely has thought put into your particular project's 3D multi-user needs contact us at www.reactiongrid.com .

We also have a path forward for our community to become a qualified partner for producing content for our projects.  The following Jibe levels are to encourage the building of a community of developers for rapidly developing 3D applications.


  1. Jiblet-Has a Jibe project kit and successfully completed our Chief Learning Officer's introduction Jibe/Unity3D course (free with Jibe order).
  2. Jixxer-Achieved creating a new mesh object and adding it to their Jibe world.
  3. Jinja-Has written or modified a C# or JavaScript script and published it to their Jibe world.
  4. JiMax-Contributed a new core functionality to Jibe or changed how it works in a new way.
  5. JiFleet-Part of our approved contractor fleet for Mobilizer by climbing the Jibe ladder or industry & Jibe/Unity3D experience.

The Mobilizer Core Team:
  • Kyle G Producer/QA/Art Direction
  • Robin G Project Manager/QA/Storyline/Avatars & Characters
  • Chris Hart Technical Writer/QA/Game Designer/A.I. Lead
  • Jeff Lowe Game Designer/QA/World Developer
  • John Lester Instructional Designer/QA/World Developer

All Mobilizer qualified projects are developed using a combination of our JIRA management tools, our ISO 9001 focused Production & QA procedures and our own virtual world environments & collaboration tools for maximum customer involvement and team building. 

If you would like to find out how to move up the Jibe qualification ladder watch this blog as we're growing fast and will always look to our community first for partnerships.  A list of JiFleet partners will be published soon as well.  Let's succeed together!

Kyle G

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

ReactionGrid featured in the Virtual Education Journal

The 3rd Issue of the Virtual Education Journal is out, and ReactionGrid is featured in several of the articles. Of particular interest is the article contributed by educator Scott Merrick of Metro Nashville Public Schools. In it, he explains his and other educator's use of Opensimulator, as well as his ongoing work with the Jibe platform. You can visit his Jibe world mentioned in the article by clicking HERE.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Looking Forward: My New Role at ReactionGrid – Chief Learning Officer

It's been a year since I started working at ReactionGrid, and my initial role with the company was Director of Community Development.

As of this month, I'm very excited to announce that I have been promoted to Chief Learning Officer.

As Chief Learning Officer, I'll be responsible for all aspects of knowledge management at ReactionGrid, both internal and external.  My primary responsibility will be to help ReactionGrid identify, evaluate and effectively use a combination of the right knowledge management tools and best practices.  Educating our customers is also critical, so I'll be focusing a great deal on ways to help our customers learn to successfully use our products and share their strategies for success.  I want to make sure everyone has the necessary knowledge and confidence to succeed at their own goals.

I'll also be helping guide the company in feature prioritization and R&D efforts.  By listening carefully to our customers and the community at large, we can make smarter decisions about how to evolve our virtual world platforms.

Lastly, I'll be working with new clients on large-scale virtual world projects, focusing on grant proposals, project management and plenty of hands-on Jibe development work.  I've been using our Jibe platform for only a few months, but I've quickly learned how to do quite a bit with it.  To be perfectly honest, this fact is less a testimony to my own skills and more an indication of just how simple our Jibe platform is to learn and use effectively.

Taking on this new leadership role brings with it a great deal of new responsibility.  I am now part of the executive team directly responsible for helping ensure the future success of the company.  It means a great deal to me that our CEO and the rest of the management team have the confidence in me to offer me this wonderful opportunity.  Thank you.

I strongly feel that virtual world platforms are poised for broader adoption, providing new opportunities for learning and community development on a global scale.  The team at ReactionGrid is simply the smartest and most driven group of people I've ever worked with in my life (and I've worked with some very smart people in the past).  I consider it a privilege each day to be part of the ReactionGrid team.

And by working hand in hand with our community of innovative colleagues and pioneering customers, we're going to build those virtual world platforms of the future.

Together, we're going to change the world.  I'm confident that we'll do it.

Do or do not.  There is no "try."
-John "Pathfinder" Lester
Chief Learning Officer
ReactionGrid, Inc.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Islands of Enlightenment at the Virtual Pioneer History Conference (Jan 20-21)

The Virtual Pioneer History Conference is an online history conference for educators interested in using virtual worlds for immersive learning.  It's being held today and tomorrow (Jan 20 - 21) in Second Life.  For more information and a full schedule, see the conference website.

Andrew Wheelock is an innovative Technology Integrator who works with teachers and students in k-12 schools in Western New York.  At 1pm EST tomorrow (Jan 21), Andrew will be giving a presentation in Second Life about his "Islands of Enlightenment" project using an Opensim environment from ReactionGrid.

Here are the details:

When: 10:00 am PST (1pm EST), Saturday January 21.
Where: Second Life - SLURL
Topic: "The Islands of Enlightenment" (project website)
"Andrew Wheelock (known as Spiff Whitfield in Second Life) will highlight his work using a ReactionGrid Opensim environment that gives students a glimpse into history as avatars.  The Islands of Enlightenment consist of 2 islands that have been developed as historical sims.  One of the islands has the Understanding the Holocaust Project whereby students are guided through a series of activities involving the 1942-44 streets of Amsterdam where Anne Frank and her family lay in hiding.  Students can interact with the secret annex and learn from source material from PBS, Masterpiece theater materials. We may get a sneak peek at the second island which is going to be used for a Medieval Roleplaying sim for 6th grade students to learn about the life and challenges of this age."
At ReactionGrid, we firmly believe in the power of immersive environments to create incredibly moving educational experiences. Which is why we're so excited about Andrew's work!

A group of us from ReactionGrid will be attending his presentation tomorrow, and I'll be at the opening keynote presentation for the conference tonight at 4pm PST (7pm EST). 

Hope to see you there, and congratulations Andrew on your fantastic project.



UPDATED 1/21/12: If you missed the presentation, you can check out Andrew's slides or watch a recorded video stream of his presentation.

Chief Learning Officer
ReactionGrid, Inc.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

The time for Tablets is 2012

This week I had to fly to Baltimore for a kickoff event with the University of Maryland, State of Maryland and the ADAA whereby we will use Jibe to develop counseling spaces for those struggling with addiction.  When deciding how best to pass through the auspices of the TSA I decided to leave the laptop at home and take 2 of my Android tablets my Acer Iconia 10.1 inch and my Kindle Fire 7 inch.



Jibe will initially be integrated via our browser based system with medical records systems and other computer services but mobile will come into play once this foundation is completed.

In addition to lightening my load I was able to worry less about battery life and bothering those in the seats next to me with a large laptop.  But would I be able to show off our virtual world platform Jibe without a traditional computer?  The answer ended up being "yes"!

After the cake cutting ceremony (there was actually a cake with the project name "AVATaR" on it) I was able to pass around my Acer Iconia Honeycomb tablet with the 3D Jibe multi-user world running on it.  I had to do no explanation of how to move your avatar around, it was just intuitive even to non-gamers and those when never logged into a virtual world before.

When discussing with counselors about the lowered barrier to entry for our web browser based deployment of Jibe and the mobile app version many heads shook in agreement that this was the easiest way to introduce this concept to new users.  People just started using it!

When combined this year with our upcoming inworld mesh building tools and the touch interface Jibe will be a compelling platform for those wanting the easiest way to create and use a virtual world.

So in terms of general computing and our own virtual world platform my load has been lightened both in weight to carry around and in the need to teach users how to interact with 3D worlds.  To me this litmus test proved that 2012 is truly going to be the year of mobile virtual worlds and mobile computing in general.

To try the simple beta demo of Jibe-Mobile click here https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ReactionGrid.JibeAndroid&feature=order_history or search for Jibe on the official Android marketplace.

See you in 3D-anywhere!
Kyle G