Profile

His name is Jason, he spends a lot of time in Second Life

12 August 2007, just before 9am… Jason displays an easy politeness when asked to vacate one of the three seats he has claimed at the end of the fourth row. Without a word he places the open laptop from his knees to the floor, slips a Blackberry into his pocket and gathers his large and black work bag from chair No.3 and places it on the floor in front of chair No.2.

He does not stand to let the fellow conference-goer through to chair No.3 – there are too many gadgets, items of dark clothing and bags to rearrange first. Behind him, sitting in the end chair of the fifth row, his acquaintance or possible co-worker slides chair No.3 and shuttles the fellow conference-goer into place with a warm smile and thoughtful acknowledgement.

The conference cameraman’s large and professional camera is positioned on a high tripod a few feet to Jason’s left. He will not appear on camera until he presents to the conference later this afternoon.

Glancing up occasionally to look at still screens or footage by an interactive TV expert and the ABC’s director of TV, Jason listens while working on his own presentation on his wide and silver laptop and replying to emails using his Blackberry.

Currently living in Sydney, as BigPond’s new MD for innovation, his hangs his thick coat over the back of chair No.2 along with his black suit jacket as it grows increasingly warm in Melbourne Town Hall. His white shirt is still morning-crisp.

His wide and square face looks surprised when offered a mint by the conference-goer now sitting in chair No.3. It is a few very quiet seconds before he replies. “No thankyou - that is very kind if you.”

“User-generated content is already part of our offering,” the ABC’s director of TV says as Jason leans forward to unzip and then re-zip his work bag.

A youngish man with slick-black hair, and whose picture is in the conference program, crouches down beside Jason’s chair during the morning tea interval to offer company and his business card. Their conversation is awkward – it is possible they have never met before. 

More people approach and crouch down beside Jason’s chair during the morning tea interval. One could be Tom Kennedy, who looks much, much older than his conference program picture.

“Have you been on conference call the whole time?” someone asks, pointing to Jason’s Blackberry and headphones.

Interval over, Jason keeps an eye on Brian Gruber from FLORA.tv, and the other on his laptop. At some point during the morning presentations, he also manages to reads the Sydney Morning Herald’s business pages.

By the lunch-time break he has relaxed and leans back to speak to the late-30s man sitting in the end chair of the fifth row. He does not miss a beat when someone interrupts his casual lunch-time conversation to mention the management bonuses outlined during the recent Telstra end-of-year results. “Well, they are based and measured by performance,” he explains matter-of-factly.

Jason continues to work on his presentation during the two or three presentations after lunch. Possibly finished, he leans back into his chair, relaxed, to listen to the informally dressed former NineMSN CEO who is talking up his new mobile networking service business. Jason looks around the room and decides to remove the burgundy tie with the gold paisley print.

“I think those guys are prehistoric animals in this environment,” the Moko mobile social networking head says of NineMSN and Yahoo!.

Jason takes to the conference stage following a well-practised presentation by a Chinese dignitary about a virtual world created around a Chinese fashion label.

Explaining Telstra’s aim to be an “integrated communications and media company”, Jason clicks-through to an up-close shot of Telstra BigPond’s busty and blonde Second Life virtual world mascot, Very Mulberry. A few conference-goers groan.

“How many people here have been into Second Life?” he asks the medium-sized audience of interactive industry professionals. He looks surprised when only 20-or-so hands appear in the air.

It’s like one continuous party,” he says of BigPond’s 11 Second Life islands. “We come into work everyday wondering what vagaries have been perpetrated against the islands.”

Jason talks about BigPond’s race to “RSS content”, of the lots of Second Life land recently sold for “residential” settlement, the Billabong Bar, of the need for a Paintball Captain and how some employee’s “sole role in Telstra is to make Second Life guests comfortable etc”.

He pauses and finishes his presentation with the news that that BigPond’s Second Life endeavours have “generated $1million worth of media coverage since March 9”.

Jason returns to his chair for the last and quite unconvincing virtual world presentation. At conference-end he quizzes the conference-goer in chair No.3 for suitability for his innovation team before excusing himself from post-conference drinks in order to return a number of calls, messages and emails.

Back