In the past month, I've had a couple of interesting experiences. First I was the opening keynote at the Social Media Conference Suriname, where I talked about the future of Social Media and shortly touched on the impact of the Metaverse. Second, a couple of weeks later, at Hivefest 6, I got to talk about Social Media in the Metaverse.
I must say, it was a lot a fun, I got brought back to reality in a very IRL kinda way and I learned a lot along the way, so I decided it would be cool to share the story here on Hive.
### A Little Intro: From Social Media to the Metaverse
*[Behind the scenes at the Social Media Conference Suriname 2021. The host MC Ferranto and myself discussing opportunities online for Suriname]*
At the Social Media, I told the story of the Patient Panda, a VeeFriend character of Gary Vaynerchuk, at the emergence of NFT projects across the internet. The main topic of course was the utility of these projects and of course, I included my usual Hive plug. A local cartoonist made a nice drawing of the talks during that day, with me at the top right.
Around the same time, @traciyork has discussed the opportunity with me to speak at @hivefest, the annual fest for Hive. The @hivechat team had been invited to speak, or at least try out a live hivechat at the event. And Traci being Traci (and not/never taking any credit) politely ask me to speak.
Of course, I was very excited, but on the other hand, I was a little worried as well. I had signed up for HiveFest 5 last year, but ended up not attending due to some tech issues, and being a speaker meant committing to actually appearing at the event.
### The preperation: Welcome to the Metaverse
I'm really thankful for @roelandp and the Hivefest team for planning in a rehearsal, because without it, I would have been completely lost. A couple of days before the event, the speakers got a sneak peek of the main stage at yes, for me it was needed.
The thing I found kinda ironic is that while we are really on the pioneer side of the decentralized web 3.0 space with Hive, we ended up with some of us using VR gear powered by the most centralized companies in the world on a platform that I had to get access to through the Microsoft store. The best part, I had to use my Hotmail email address, which (no joke) I have had since 1998. In all fairness, back then, Hotmail was revolutionary as it symbolized freedom of ISP-based email.
But setting up was a crime. AltSpace didn't work on my MacBook, so I had to use an old PC at the office, and after toying around a couple of hours, I was connected. I managed to capture some selfies of the rehearsal.
*In the main hall of the main stage. Trying to get a nice picture with the 'HiveFest' for my attendee card.*
*Sneaking in a picture while everyone is listening on stage*
*@roelandp in action, giving the speakers a briefing on what's to come*
*Just a mandatory picture with the coolest game on the blockchain @splinterlands*
### Hivefest: Speaking in the Metaverse
On the first day of Hivefest, I managed to follow most of the event, I had cleared my schedule for the day, with the intention of attending as many sessions as possible.
*Behind the scenes in the green room that had been set up for the speakers. Just like with IRL events, a place where only the absolute noobs (like myself) hang out 😂*
*A picture of me on stage, thanks to @solymi.
For those of you who missed the Hivechat Hivefest Giveaway, you can read about it here: https://peakd.com/hivefest/@jeanlucsr/hivefest-hivechat-winner-announcement*
*After the Hivechat talk, Splinterlands was up and I quickly managed to get this shot in before @yabapmatt officially started his presentation.*
*Because I was speaking quite early and I was very nervous, I only actually picked up my Hivefest badge after I was off stage. So here's a shot of me ready to teleport and explore the different parts of Hivefest.*
*Quickly jumping in to the main stage to watch and listen to @themarkymark talking about @punksonhive. Full disclosure: I bought one, then bought two more, then panic bought two more (the FOMO was real during Hivefest) and eventually panic sold two again. Still in HODL for my two rarest HivePunks and the one that I use as my profile on Twitter.*
So, this basically concluded my VR experience at Hivefest, because shortly after Marky's talk our local electricity/power company decided the fun was over and had a power failure, meaning electricity got cut off (not making this stuff up people, just stuff we have to deal with here 😒). And when it returned, AltSpace wasn't working anymore.
Luckily, I was able to follow the rest of the event live on Twitter. In case you've missed it:
**Day 1**
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">HiveFest⁶ - Day 1 <a href="https://t.co/TpqH0jMSZO">https://t.co/TpqH0jMSZO</a></p>— hivefest (@hivefest) <a href="https://twitter.com/hivefest/status/1459172582750490630?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
**Day 2**
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">HiveFest⁶ - Day 2 <a href="https://t.co/4PDBb2r5ih">https://t.co/4PDBb2r5ih</a></p>— hivefest (@hivefest) <a href="https://twitter.com/hivefest/status/1459536732626436103?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
There really is a lot of awesome stuff from a lot of awesome speakers in there, so make sure to check it out. Also, if you are on Twitter, make sure to join us for @hivechat. I think @victoriabsb (who is the initiator of Hivechat Espanol) has something awesome planned for the regular Hivechat next Tuesday with Hive Power Up Day scheduled for December 1st:
https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@victoriabsb/hive-power-up-day-especial--orca-month-diciembre-reglas-and-premios
### Thank You!
I really want to give a big thank you to @roelandp and the Hivefest team for this experience and allowing me to share a little bit about #HiveChat at @hivefest. To close off I want to finally share the selfie we took after the talk.
#lobi from Suriname,
@jeanlucsr
hiveblocks