About Brigadoon

Welcome.  What follows is a detailed explanation of Project Brigadoon.  If you would like to be involved in this project, please email me at [email protected].

All of the Authors on this blog are participants in Project Brigadoon.  This Blog is a place where they can publically share their thoughts, experiences and feelings.   About Brigadoon, Second Life, Asperger's Syndrome/Autism, or anything else.  This Blog is also a place where the general public can interact with participants in Brigadoon by posting comments.

-John Lester
President, BrainTalk Communities, Inc.
Founder, Project Brigadoon
Second Life name: John Protoype

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What is Brigadoon?

"Brigadoon" is the name of a project that I've been thinking about for a long time. The name is actually a reference to an old musical, which was a wistful fantasy about two Americans who stumble on the enchanted village of Brigadoon while hunting grouse on the Scottish moors. This village of Brigadoon was a beautiful place full of magic, but it would only occasionally materialize from the mists of time every 100 years or so.

Anyway, now that you know where I got the name from, let me explain this idea. I have always been interested in creating online worlds where people dealing with neurological problems could find each other and, most importantly, help each other help themselves. I am not a physician, and I do not give medical advice to anyone. However, I have always felt that there was a need to give patients the ability to find other people dealing with similar situations, and that the help they could give to each other in a self-help supportive environment was invaluable. Like I've said before, I'm just a landlord...I build and maintain places where people create their own communities and help each other.  That is why I created BrainTalk Communities Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to providing online communities for patients and caregivers dealing with neurological issues. I started BrainTalk back in 1993, and it is now the largest online community for neurology self-help groups in the world. (here's a bit of history if you'd like to know the origins of BrainTalk)

Aside from online bulletin boards and chatrooms, I have always been interested in more "advanced" online worlds and communities. Places that could provide more realism, in a graphical and interactive way. Virtual worlds, where people could not just communicate with each other, but where they could BUILD virtual places and homes. Where they could, in essence, build a world around themselves within which they could talk to each other and create a whole new kind of online community.

Over the years, I've explored and experimented with such virtual worlds. Online worlds such as Active Worlds and The Palace. And about 3 years ago, I was in a meeting with Mitch Kapor (the founder of Lotus) at MIT. He told me he was funding a small software development company called Linden Lab and that they were going to be creating a fantastic new online virtual world. A place that was going to be totally open to allow participants to create whatever they wanted. He said that it was going to revolutionize online communities, giving people the ability to communicate with each other and create social networks in a way that was never before possible.

That world is called Second Life. And naturally, my first thought was "hmm...I wonder...if there's some way I could use this world to help people dealing with neurological issues." Second Life is a commercial system (you pay a monthly charge to use their servers), and although it is often classified as an "online game" (like The Sims Online), it really ISN'T a game. It's an online world, with no content or goals except those created by the people who use it. I think of it as the next evolutionary step of something like the World Wide Web. You give people the tools to create, and then just sit back and watch what everyone builds. For an excellent review of Second Life, please read this article in the Houston Chronicle.

I've been exploring Second Life a lot the past year. Testing it out for myself. By default, everyone is logged in to a large communal world that is totally open to the publc. BUT...a few months ago, Linden Lab created a new policy. Individuals can now purchase an entirely private "island" in Second Life...and they can basically restrict access to this island however they wish. So the ability to create a private world within this public world is now possible. It just costs money to have Linden Lab set up and maintain this island for you.

So...I had found an amazing new technology, and I could use it to give people the opportunity to communicate and build their own virtual world. Now I just had to think of EXACTLY HOW to use this opportunity. Who might benefit the most from such a world, where people could interact socially in a much more creative way than just using email or a bulletin board or chatroom? Where people could customize their online "virtual" environment however they liked?

I thought about this for a month or so. Then one day, I was speaking with John Ratey at Harvard, the author of "A User's Guide to the Brain" and "Driven to Distraction." He is very familiar with Braintalk, and has always been interested in ways to give patients the ability to help themselves. We started talking about people dealing with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome. How many of them are very high functioning and computer literate, how they have embraced online communities as a way to communicate. How they have such difficulties communicating in the "real world," and how they find the computer to be a very liberating tool. How they have problems dealing with physical environments in the real world, and how they often have a strong desire to modify their physical environment to better help themselves deal with social interactions.

I started rambling about Second Life. About how it might be the "next big thing" in online virtual worlds. And I said something like..."wouldn't it be neat to create a space in Second Life exclusive to people dealing with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome...you could give them a private space and the tools to modify that part of the world...and you could work with them to allow these people to create their OWN customized environment. A virtual world essentially made BY them...FOR them. A place where they would be with other people dealing with very similar issues. And just see what they come up with to help each other?"

He looked at me very quietly and smiled and said something to the effect of "nobody has ever done anything like that. It could be really amazing."

We started talking about other things, but my mind kept coming back to this idea. And I thought "well, I think I need to really explore this crazy idea."

So here we are.  BrainTalk Communities Inc. is funding this project as part of it's core mission to explore online communities that help neurology patients and caregivers, and we have purchased  a private island in Second Life.  We will work with people to help them use it as a totally new way to interact socially with each other. Mind you, I have no idea if this will really work...if it will really help people dealing with Autism/Asperger's...if they might find it too complicated or overwhelming...if they can really use it to help each other. But I would like to try.

Please let me know your thoughts and ideas. Thank you.

-John

Want to know more about Brigadoon?  Please see this next post.