Category: Opinion

The leaping-off point for this blog post is Rod Humble’s announcement about his promised round table, due to commence this week, as posted on his profile feed. To whit:

Hey folks, as I mentioned to some of you over the weekend I am going to do the next roundtable stuff in private one on one’s rather than as a free for all. That makes it more low key and doesnt turn it into something which is contentious. Thanks for all the feedback.

On the one hand, the reaction might seem understandable; the response to the news that last names won’t be making a return was massively negative which was itself pretty negatively voiced. That it wouldn’t go down well is hardly  surprising given the number of people supporting the move either via blogs, blog comments, on his own profile field, the SL forums and other forums (some of which Rod Humble himself frequents) or directly on the associated JIRA.

However, the backlash shouldn’t have been unexpected. Indeed, from the preamble in Rodvik’s post on the matter, it would seem he was aware that it was going to hurt, hence delaying the actual bad news until a good way into the post itself.

But this is no reason to suddenly shut-up shop when it comes to further discussions on SL and what might or might not happen. Yet that is precisely what has happened. When I read the profile post, I was struck by two things:

• No details as to how people might engage are present in the profile post
• Rod indicates that he has already spoken to some people on the matter over the weekend.

While the latter could simply be as a result of Rod responding to questions people fired at him on the subject of the forthcoming discussions rather than being anything deeper or more significant – taken together, and again, given the way LL has tended to operate in the past – does raise questions as to whether a “star chamber” for the discussion has already been formed, which itself could feed feelings of exclusion – and such feelings are never a good thing to present to a former audience.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

The decision to remove the discussion from more open participation is also a little sad, as it stands testimony to the old adage that the more things change; the more things remain the same. A lot has changed for the better within and around the Lab over the last 15 months. Looking back at a some suggestions I made last March, it’s interesting to see how some have indirectly been implemented, although not as I’d imagined a year ago, admittedly. We’ve seen improvements in many areas and attempts to get major technical issues under control and / or improved.

Unfortunately for the Lab, we’re a contrary lot. As such, we find it easy to overlook the positive (or even view it with a degree of fear and loathing) and continue to focus on the negative. As such, the removal of this discussion to some unspecified medium involving a select few is going to reinforce the negative attitude many feel towards LL.

When it comes to the matter of Last Names in particular, LL actually have no-one but themselves to blame, because the bottom line is, they bungled the issue from the moment Rod posted on the matter at the end of last year – a move that placed them in an impossible situation. In doing so, they once again fell victim to their own massively misplaced management of on-going communications with the user community as a whole.

Again this isn’t new nor surprising. God knows I’ve been hammering away (rather pointlessly it sometimes feels) on the subject of broader Lab / user communications that I sometimes think this blog reads like a scratched record.

And while it is true that repetition doesn’t necessarily make a point any more valid than the first time it was mentioned, the fact of the matter is that LL’s track record when it comes to what I call “corporate-level” communications pretty much speaks for itself. I’m also far from alone in this; others have also long been trumpeting the need for better, more focused communications from Linden Lab. In this, I’d take time out to point you to Ciaran Laval’s excellent piece on why, when it comes to the “shared experience” of Second Life (itself a source of recent controversy), it behoves LL well to actually lead the sharing itself.

So, rather than repeat myself yet again, I’ll attempt to put it in a forthright nutshell: Rod, Lab, get a bloody grip and for heaven’s sake start engaging with us through constructive, on-going communications through your own open channels. Like the blog. 

Carry the message; don’t hand the baton elsewhere or hide it up your collective jumpers through “closed door” discussions. At that does is put us in the FIC of things.

At the same time, please understand the scattergun approach doesn’t work – the last names situation should amply demonstrate that most effectively. In pumping out blog posts (with comments disabled), then shoving people off to the forums before making profile feed posts, all that again happened is that corporately, LL shot off yet another toe in falsely setting expectations.

Obviously, the flip side of this is that if LL attempt to listen to everyone, no matter how carefully they tread or in what format, they are going to end-up pissing-off someone. After all, as has been said often enough, ask 10 users for their views on X or Y and you’ll get ten different answers. Multiple that by just a few hundred impassioned users, and the chances are you’re going to take a right royal kicking from some quarter or other…

But again, this doesn’t necessitate slipping informal discussions behind closed doors. The risk of setting false expectations is one that can be handled by simply and clearly caveating such discussions with the fact that they are explorations of ideas, and that they don’t automatically equate to any promise on LL’s part to implement anything coming out of the discussions. This may not result in everyone being happy – but conversely, it could end up with more than a few happy faces and a renewed feeling of involvement if the outcome of such a discussion lead to LL realising that X or Y could actually be implemented and then doing so.

As it is, by making closing-off this discussion – whether as a result of a realisation that they “got it wrong” in the first place when it comes to last names or not – comes across as “evidence” that the Lab is no longer willing to engage with the user community, but rather hand down edicts from upon high.

Muddying

Certainly, it adds to the overall muddying of the waters that has been so much a problem where attempts at communication have been made. Again, with due respect to Rod Humble – who has, in many respects been more of a communicator than his predecessors – that he himself chooses so many different channels for engagement leads to confusion.

In this, there is a very thin line, admittedly; there is absolutely nothing wrong with using profile feeds, Twitter and other forums with which to broadly engage with users – as long as the content of the communication is balanced and accurately reflected back where it should be: through LL’s own blog channels. But time and again, this isn’t the case – just about anything else but the blog is used.

Again, LL don’t help themselves when they do blog – and promptly close-off comments. While no-one likes negative feedback – and sadly (dons her own tin hat and hides under the desk to continue typing) we SL users can be a pretty negative lot when it does come to giving feedback, even when it comes to what might otherwise be regarded as good news) – the truth is that shutting down channels of response simply enhances the feeling that you “don’t want to know”.

There’s a further knock-on effect to all this, because it means that where LL employees do make the effort – almost pleadingly so – for people to give the Lab a chance, their requests are met with a degree of derision that isn’t really called for.

Of course, this doesn’t mean one-to-one conversations don’t have their use. But it does come down to a matter of balance – and right now, things are decidedly lop-sided. Again, this creates issues wherein even when an individual from the Lab is speaking with the best of intentions on their part and the full weight of the Lab’s management behind them – their words are dismissed simply because (in many cases) the Lab’s performance as a corporate entity where communications is concerned has been so lax, people naturally distrust what is being said.

Which brings me to a final point in this rambling. In announcing the round table, one of the things Rod stated was that:

Conversations with many old Lindens and Residents have led me to conclude that we have lost something of the old frontier feel.  Like we were exploring the world together …

Yes, “we” and “together” – these were key to the old frontier spirit within SL. It’s somewhat ironic then, that in actually taking up the discussion Rod has, for many that might have wanted to participate, opted to remove the “we” from the equation.

Circles

When it comes to the matter of broader communications and engagement with the community as a whole LL do face something of a vicious circle of achieving engagement while facing negativity and suspicion. However, it is a circle that can only be broken by LL itself. The company needs to bring focus to its efforts to communicate and start being consistent in its approach. It needs to take the lead and – while things may initially hurt in terms of potential feedback – be front-and-centre about things and stop:

• Stuffing items away in forum threads because they aren’t deemed to be “of interest”  – it smacks of evasion. If the company has something to say that has the potential to impact the community, it should say so openly, and allow individuals to determine how it may / may not affect them
• Going out and vociferously using other channels at the expense of their direct channels (blogs)  – it dilutes the message and leads to confusion. Use other channels by all means, but use them to support your central channel, not instead of
• Determining that things need to be closed-off simply because what is being said isn’t what you want to hear  – it blurs issues and raises suspicions. Stand by what you’ve said and accept the fact that you’re not going to please all the people all the time and that criticism isn’t something to be afraid of

Obviously, any change in approach on the part of the Lab – were it to happen – isn’t immediately going to be met with cheers and flag-waving. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried; given enough time and a more focused, structured and pro-active approach to communications and engagement will yield more benefits than problems.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve had the opportunity to re-visit LL’s recent call to bloggers through commenting on a couple of fellow blogger’s posts on the subject – namely Mariis’ Explorations and Nalates Urriah. Mariis and I are pretty much on the same page on things – as our exchange demonstrates; Nalates admits herself perplexed as to the derisive reaction of some bloggers (and I count myself among them), and I’ve attempted to provide explanation which actually formed the basis of what I’m about to say here.

These exchanges have been part of a wider cogitation on the matter, and as such, I’d like to put a further alternative idea to Linden Lab on the matter of working with the blogging community. I’ll leave it to TPTB at LL (assuming they’re still reading this blog!) to decide on the usefulness / applicability of the idea. In putting it forward, I’ll also state that I’ve little doubt the broad thrust of what I’m outlining here may well have been stated elsewhere and well ahead of me – so I apologise to those that have raised it first if I’m repeating things.

The idea is this: rather than seek to solicit blog posts on an exclusive basis, LL should perhaps consider looking to reprint suitable blog articles within their own web space. This may well be slightly more labour-intensive for them (although given by their own admission they do have staff routinely perusing and reading blogs, so the overhead shouldn’t be that big an issue) – but there would be significant benefits, in particular:

• They show that they are willing to work on a more collaborative basis with the community
• They are free to cherry-pick that articles they wish to reproduce in their pages without let or hindrance, and free from controversial “public” submission guidelines
• The official blogs stand to get fresh content
• They don’t directly impact on indvidual bloggers’ freedom to cover SL or their ability to enjoy the drect benefit of having their own words appearing on their own pages.

Such an approach stands to generate a lot of goodwill from the blogging community. For a start, who would not feel somewhat flattered upon the receipt of an e-mail from LL requesting permission to reprint an article that has taken time and effort to put together? The e-mail needn’t be too hard to put together either; I’d suggest something like: “Dear X, we recently read your blog article on Y and found it to be both informative and entertaining. We would like to reproduce it in under the Guest Blogger section of our website. You will of course receive full credit for the work, together with a link to your own website. If you are happy for us to include your article in our pages, please reply to this e-mail within Z days, together with a 3-sentence biography relating to yourself. We will, of course, inform you when we do reprint the article”. Or words to that effect. I think it fair to say that such an e-mail would give a person quite a feeling of recognition / involvement.

It would also give LL the freedom to reproduce articles they like and which fit their overall requirements. Any concerns relating to wording, etc., could be taken care of through the use of a disclaimer printed ahead of the article, vis: “The views and opinions in the following piece are those of the named author. They do not represent the views or opinion of Linden Research Inc., its employees or agents.”  (or again, something similar). Granted, it’s not 100% watertight, but given LL are retaining a free hand in selecting the items they might wish to reproduce, one suspects contentious or deliberately controversial articles are not going to be among their likely candidates for reprinting.

And on the matter of exclusivity itself: would LL really be losing out to any great degree in foregoing the requirement? I actually don’t think so. I rather suspect (and with respect to all) that, with the exception of a handful of high-profile blogs, LL has a much broader potential readership in the form of the entire SL community bouncing in and out of their website via individual Dashboards than the majority of bloggers enjoy on an individual basis. As such, LL aren’t likely to miss out that much because some have read the article ahead of it appearing in the official website.

All-in-all, and subject to my not having missed something in the equation, this would seem to be a win / win situation for all concerned. Linden Lab get to freshen-up their own blogs and are seen to be positively connecting with the community; bloggers get to keep on doing what they do best without diverting their attention away from directly nurturing their own blogs, whilst also having the freedom to turn out posts that might well be suited to being picked-up by the Lab.

Recently, LL put out a call for bloggers (I’m linking to my own post, as that contains the full text of the original LL forum post – and I get tired of forum stuff vanishing down a plug hole and invalidating links over time).

The call was met with widespread derision, not just in these pages, but across other blogs as well, and frequently very humourously.

Yet there is a serious side to this – and in part, it is something I should hold up my hand to and say mea culpa to some degree.

There is an ongoing malaise at Linden Lab. It started several years ago (some might say with the arrival of Catherine Smith and grew steadily through the tenure of her various successors (all women, to my shame), wherein constructive and an open communication with the SL community has increasingly become anathema to the company as a whole. In fairness to Kim Salzer, who departed in November last year, things haven’t improved at all since she left the company – so one assume any unwillingness to constructively engage with users at a corporate is an illness that lies deep in the roots of the company.

Certainly, as Tateru has noted, it is one of the things that has become decidedly worse since Rod Humble took over the reins.

When seen against this background, the recent call to bloggers becomes a little less funny and a little more indicative of a company that seemingly is at a complete loss as to how to communicate about its primary (currently only) product and / or its brand. Don’t get me wrong – many in LL do take time out to communicate publicly, through User Groups and the like (Oz, Charlar, Oskar, Runitai, et al), and Rodvik himself does still take plunges into Twitter as well as posting to his SL Feed – and all of their efforts are appreciated greatly, as is the fact that LL staff have personally taken time out to contact me directly and provide feedback, pointers and other assistance (again, thanks to Rodvik, Charlar, Pete and Viale).

But none of this forms a part of an overall communications strategy. There is no cohesiveness in the approach. The result is that the SL blog in particular languishes to the point of irrelevancy – as demonstrated by the fact that out of 5 blog categories, three carry “front page news” nigh-on a year old or more (Land & Business (which even carries a post relating to Jack Linden – and he’s been gone from that Lab more than a year!), Tips & Tricks, Tools & Technology), while the 4th (“Inworld”) is only “up-to-date” large due to the “Flickr Pic of the Day”.

Of course, as I’ve pointed out myself, when discussing the likes of marketing (and here’s where I hold up my hand in admission), the finest resource LL have at its disposal is the user community when it comes to formulating a potential message to send to the world at large. So am I not being a little two-faced when promoting the idea of using the community, and then rounding on LL when they try to do so?

Well, no, I’m not. I absolutely have no problem with the Lab turning to the community for assistance – providing it is willing to play fair. Machinima is an excellent marketing tool, and it is probably fair to say that the best machinimatographers for SL are involved in SL – so as long as LL recognises this and offers suitable remuneration (a cash prize competition, for example), then why not seek to leverage the expertise in order to promote the platform.

The same rule applies to blogging about SL – and frankly, LL should be employing someone to take the time to blog about the platform on an ongoing basis. They don’t need to be an expert in all things server, viewer and what have you (in fact, better that they’re not). But simply paying someone to do the rounds, talk to the various project teams, gain quotes, publish articles on what is going on in-house, what is coming down the road, what is being done to fix X, Y or Z, and so on, as well as getting out and about as time allows within SL to produce articles, would enormously benefit LL in terms of how the company is perceived by its users.

It’s not, after all, rocket science (or “rocket engineering”, as my father always insists on correcting that quote). It is simple. Common. Sense.

Obviously, keeping abreast of the wider community is somewhat harder – there is much that is going on around the grid and much that can be easily missed. So again, actually making use of the community, getting people to engage with the company is not that unreasonable – providing that effort is met with suitable reward – say, through commissioned pieces.

Communications are a hoary old chestnut with me – there are times when I feel that I’m banging on about it every other week. But the fact is that LL seem to have comprehensively lost the plot here when it come to speaking with a corporate (rather than individual) voice to the community as a whole, and to the wider marketplace. And that is hurting them, and it is hurting SL (might it not also speak to why, despite routinely high user sign-up rates, actual user retention isn’t growing as steadily as one might expect?).

If the problem is going to be solved, it’s not going to be through dangling blog enticements in front of people (or indeed, locking-off the forum post carrying the enticement and deleting replies simply because people are having fun at your expense). It’s about being outward and professional and having a plan.

It’s actually hard to believe there is not someone at LL who is capable of carrying out the kind of role I’ve described above.

And if there isn’t, well, Rod – I’m willing to relocate to San Francisco for the right price and incentives, and you know where to find me: details are on file with you :).

Updated 8th Feb: I’ve added the full text of the job advert forum post, lest the mists of time swallow it whole.

I almost missed this one – thank you, Chestnut Rau!

Yesterday, LL put out a call to bloggers, inviting them to submit articles for publication on the SL website. It reads in part full:

Are you a passionate Second Life resident who loves to write about your Second Life experience?  If so, you might want to submit your blog posts to us and they could end up being featured in the Second Life Community blogs.

As the movers, shakers, and experts on everything Second Life, we’d like to invite you to submit your original blog articles to us at blog-call@lindenlab.com with the Subject Line: Guest Blog Submission.  Selected submissions will be posted to the Blog section of the Community as a featured guest post!

Here are some popular Second Life topics to consider: Fashion, Home Decor, Mesh, Relationships, Spirituality, Education and Music.

The blog call is on!  Read the guidelines, then submit your posts to blog-call@lindenlab.com

Well, yes I am passionate and I do write a lot about SL – some might say at times, obsessively so. I do take pride in the fact that this blog is read by those within Battery Street as well as those outside. I’m far from alone in being a blogger that has this privilege, but it is worth mentioning because the very fact that LL does take time out to read external blogs is a sign that they are attempting to keep a finger on the pulse of things across the broader community, and that’s a good thing.

However….

As Chestnut points out, what is being asked for here is pretty much involvement in LL’s marketing and promotional efforts both within the community, and to the wider world as a whole.

OK, then; that’s fair enough. So what are the pay rates? Will they be per article, with a word ceiling, or per word? How about offering commission rates based on required monthly subject matter?

No, I’m not being facetious here. It’s not unreasonable for bloggers to be paid for their time and effort; rather the reverse – it’s actually common practice. Indeed, you’ve paid for at least one writer in the past yourselves, LL (take a bow, Hamlet! 🙂 ). I’m also not alone in feeling this – as a glance through the comments on Chestnut’s post and following the LL forum post demonstrate. Fair is fair, after all.

So, LL, I’ll gladly write for you – and within your guidelines (after all, your blog, your rules). I’ll even Op-Ed (if you’d dare go in that direction 😉 ). But let’s be reasonable here – what’s in it for me? I’m taking time-out to give you copy – how much are you willing to pay for said time, effort and IP?

With thanks to Chestnut Rau