There is some sadness in Second Life today at the news that one of the favourite Linden Labs workers, Pathfinder Linden, is leaving the SL company.  Pathfinder, John Lester in real life, joined SL in 2005 and shared a wealth of knowledge with us in respect of community development, specialising in fields such as healthcare and education.

I heard the news from friend Eliza Janus and I contacted Pathfinder who kindly came over to see me.  I asked Pathfinder if he would like to say a few words to everyone in SL and he said “I'd like to thank everyone who has sent me kind words and thoughts recently. I am overwhelmed. means a lot to me.” He also said he would like to point everyone at his public email, which is http://bit.ly/aIwtji

The good news is that Pathfinder won’t be leaving SL, he will be coming back into the community as an SL resident, he told me “Thanks Janey.  My Pathfinder Linden account will be morphing into "Pathfinder Lester" sometime next week”  So his many fans will be pleased to hear that he is staying in touch.

Pathfinder has an impressive real life background, he was the Information Systems Director of the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and in 1993 he pioneered using the web to create online communities supporting patients dealing with neurological disorders.  The Second Life web site states “As a Research Associate in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, he also created online collaborative education environments for professors and students to advance the case-based teaching method in medical education.

John leads Linden Lab's customer market development in Education and Healthcare. He acts as a strategist and evangelist for people using Second Life in teaching, academic and healthcare research, medical education, simulation, and scientific visualization.”

So you can see the role of Pathfinder Linden will be sorely missed, however we will have Pathfinder Lester joining us very soon and I wish him well both in his real life and his second life.   I would like to thank Pathfinder for meeting me and saying a few words for his many SL friends and colleagues.