Tuesday, February 3, 2015

2015 OPENSIM: PROMO: BIZ: HGProject. Should your grid have a Chamber of Commerce?

OpenSim Community. 
Should your grid have a Chamber of Commerce?
A Chamber of Commerce (US and others) works to foster the interests of the local community (a city, for example)  A virtual world grid is much like a city--I like the term virtual village.  It might make sense for people in a grid to organize a community group for the purpose of promoting and growing the grid.   

What is a Chamber of Commerce?

A chamber of commerce (or board of trade) is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to work on behalf of the business community. They generally interpret this mission broadly, assuming that working in the interests of the city (say, for population growth) is also in the interests of the business community.

Do we already have anything like a Chamber of Commerce?

Some grids have grid-wide groups that may or could function like a Chamber of Commerce. Kitely has a group, Kitely Community, which meets every Sunday, led by Ilan Tochner, the CEO of Kitely.  It functions much like a Chamber of Commerce.  

 Perhaps most grids have something of this sort.   The recently formed OpenSim Community group Open SimUnited may develop into something much like a Chamber of Commerce for the Opensim community.   

Why would competitors cooperate?

The Opensim world is not a zero-sum game.  A zero-sum game has a fixed pot.  Whatever you gain is somebody's loss.  The number of people in Opensim is not fixed.  If you gain new grid members who were not in Opensim before, nobody in Opensim loses.  In fact, if you are on the hypergrid, we all gain, because some of these new people will visit other grids, buy virtual goods,  and perhaps move some of their activities to other grids.  
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Obviously, competitors will not cooperate on projects that favor a particular competitor.   But many will see an incentive to cooperate on projects that aim to increase overall business activity.  If you don't believe that, check your local Chamber of Commerce and see if you don't find competitors on the membership roll.  If cooperation among competitors is good enough for successful businesses in the old world, it ought to be good enough for people in the virtual world.
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Content creators and the Kitely Market would be clear winners from promotion of Opensim or of grids in Opensim.   The more people attracted to Opensim, the more people interested in buying goods in Opensim. 

What would a grid or Opensim Chamber of Commerce do?

  • Promote traffic on the grid or hypergrid
  • Seek to attract new people.
  • Seek to reduce barriers to entry.
  • Seek to stimulate increased activity by people in Opensim.
  • Help to build communities and communication in Opensim.
  • Develop and maintain a grid calendar.
  • Events on the Hypergrid. Selected Google calendars
  • Calendars: Entertainment in the virtual worlds
  • Manage a Grid Blog.
  • Blogging in virtual worlds. How to... Summary
  • The contents of a Grid Blog might be produced by people on the grid.
  • A Grid Blog might be linked from the grid entry page
  • It could tell about activities on the grid. 
  • A hypergrid blog and/or calendar might be divided into interests.
  • Hypergrid: Education
  • Hypergrid: Live music
  • Hypergrid: Role playing
  • Hypergrid: Machinima and videography
  • Hypergrid: Writing
  • (add more in the comments section)

Would this only work for businesses?

  • Actually it would apply to all communities that want to grow.
  • Activities that take in money would have added incentive to participate.
  • And activities that take in money might have more money to participate.

Is OpenSim United going to be an OpenSim Chamber of Commerce?

  • That is up to them.  
  • They have the incentive.  
  • They have the leadership.
  • They have the public relations and publicity.
  • I hope they will.
  • If not, maybe the HG blogging community will.
  • Or both working together.
  • llLookAt Crowdfunding Meeting

News and Notes

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Events 

Genre-Biographical Short Poetry Workshop-Tue 2/3, 7pm SLT 

This week Arabella Nemeth is guest host for another Genre workshop-Biographical. With genre poetry we write using the choice of topic and imagery, as well as the vocabulary to evoke the zeitgeist of the genre. So join us at the Short Poetry Library to learn, write and share your Biographical poems.

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Virtual Learning Series Jan/Feb Classes

In Kitely, with Firestorm, use the Firestorm Hop
hop://osgrid.kitely.com:8002/Hypergrid Academy/173/129/22
HG: Paste HG address into World map, use TP
grid.kitely.com:8002:Hypergrid Academy 

February 5  1:00pm  Introduction to Roleplaying

An introduction to basic roleplaying skills and character creation in virtual worlds.

February 12 1:00pm  Education Roundtable

A roundtable panel on education in virtual worlds. Guest panelists!
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Hypergrid

Lauren's Place

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Newcomer Help in Virtual Worlds


Education

Writers

How to handle a Hypergrid address 

From any Hypergrid-enabled grid, paste the address into the address bar of Firestorm and press enter. Or paste it into the world map search bar of any viewer, search, and click Teleport when the destination is found. If it doesn't work, don't give up. Try again in couple of minutes.  Sometimes the first try fails (probably times out).  And try again a few hours later. Some hypergrid destinations are offline part of the day. 

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Video-Machinima in virtual worlds
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