Community outreach from Second Life. Don't leave it all to Linden Lab.

Community outreach from Second Life.  Don't leave it all to Linden Lab.

You may have noticed that Linden Lab has some management limitations.  Here is a comment I picked up:

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Linden Lab Has No Apparent Business Plan | Second Tense:

 “How does Linden Lab, creators of the most popular non-game virtual world, Second Life, make their money?

Easy: land and a cut of the marketplace.

How are they going to ensure that they continue to have this revenue stream?

Easy: Stick their fingers in their ears and pretend its competitors don't exist.”

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Actually, they do have a business plan.  In fact, they have several.  I think they generally have at least three plans they are working on at all times.

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1. The plan they are abandoning (action item: develop public explanation as to how abandoning this plan represents progress).

2. The plan they are currently implementing (action item: get residents to shift their efforts from the previous plan to the current plan).

3. The plan they are working on to replace the current plan when they are ready to abandon it (action item: nothing; advanced planning is just what they would expect us to do).  

This behavior could be characterized as ADHD (Attention  Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder).

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Now for something completely different

Thinkerer saying:  Stop complaining.  Start planning.

So what do you do?  You stop going over what is wrong.  That is one of the well-known pitfalls of problem solving:

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The Deer-in-the-Headlight Model for Problem-Solving
Not your best model for problem-solving? You guessed it. But popular. 

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 I prefer to start with the resources.  The resources are where any solution is going to come from. 

The main resources: Linden Lab has built the state of the art immersive virtual environment for creative collaboration.  That counts as two resources. First:

The

Not “one of.”   Not “perhaps.” 

The

Sure, there are open source developers working on copies.  You don’t copy a second-rate product. 

But that second part of that resource is the biggie. That virtual environment for creative collaboration has attracted a large and growing number of communities. So let’s call the basic Linden Lab part e-tech.  And those growing communities: s-tech. 

See this article

http://rezzable.com/blog/thinkerer-melville/future-sl-beyond-e-tech-now-s-tech

Communities

Communities are made of people.  So building communities means attracting people who are interested in the same things as those already in the community.   So far, the Second Life communities have concentrated mainly on attracting people who are already in Second Life.  

But I think we are ready to expand our horizons.  There is a whole world out there that knows nothing about the communities in Second Life.  There are outworld people interested in the same things our inworld communities are interested in. Here are some examples of communities that I think could effectively reach out to their counterparts in the outworld and bring people into Second Life directly to that community. 

·        Sailing

·        Rail

·        Education

·        Self-help/Self-improvement

·        Music (subcommunities by genre)

These are just some communities and I mention these in particular  because I know them rather well.   

Three channels for community outreach to the general public

Facebook.  Quick, easy, free.  Many people in the community are probably already using it.  Just post a notice of your event.  Include a slurl.   If the person who clicks on it is not set up on Second Life, the system will arrange for registration and download.  Then the person will arrive at the destination in the slurl. 

Blogs.  Free.  Possibly even a revenue source if you turn on Google Ads.  Again, you can include slurls and bring newcomers directly to your place.  If you can get several members of the community to write for the blog, it will not be much work for any one person.

Web sites.  Maybe costs a little.  Mine costs about $12. USD per month for hosting.   You can probably get one from Go Daddy (godaddy.com) for $8/month.    The page I use to invite people into Second Life is this one:

How to get into Second Life without really trying

Background information on community outreach

http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-use-new-entry-path-to-bring-new.html

http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2010/09/embed-pages-from-sl-destination-guide.html

http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2010/09/hobo-helpers-open-house-for-mentors-and.html