NBC Tree Lighting -- Size Doesn't Matter

WARNING: This really is a "deep thinker" post in disguise although, a lot is left to the reader so put on your thinking cap if you dare.

I was at NBC 17 last night for the tree lighting event and before my inbox fills up with a multitude of "largest event ever in Second Life" posts - I have just one thing to say ...

Size does not matter.

Are we surprised that a highly publicized event spread out over 19 sims attracted a reported 1,000 avatars on the night of a *massive* and nearly crippling SL upgrade? No, of course not.

Several well known Second Life live performers can attract 30-40 people on any given night to a sim. And if/when Philip shows up to an event you can double that, triple it even if you dare to get stuck in lag stew. How many times have you tried to get to an event only to see the "region is full" message? You want a big event? The recipe is straightforward, and should I say "old media" does it very well. No, size does not matter.

So what does matter? Did you *feel* like you were immersed in the actual space at Rockefeller Center? Was it better than watching Al Roker on your 37 inch plasma? Was it more compelling than battling the crush of the RL crowds? Did the build impress anyone? Did you venture to the Rainbow Room (wearing your jeans AND sneakers, you anarchist) and stand in awe of the marvelous texturing, lighting and panorama? Were the free gifts of hats, mittens, scarves and skates a welcome surprise? Did you feel warm and cuddly as the tree was lit?

Or ... did you get blasted into the air - as I did twice - by some random griefer and wonder why at least push wasn't disabled on the sim?

What mattered to you?
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A Room of One's Own

I work in new product development, and the first question we ask ourselves when evaluating a new product or service concept is: "What is the consumer job to be done?" or put differently, "What unfulfilled needs does this product meet?". The answers help shape the product concept and focus and naturally, when this question was posed to me about the Second Life platform, it peaked my interest. As part of the Kuurian Expedition, I led a round table discussion with Gwyneth Llewlyn on November 20th to seek out answers to this question directly from Second Life residents.

The round table was an interesting Second Life experience for me on a number of levels - not the least of which was trying to facilitate an open discussion with 15 participants without the luxury of using body language and basic human interaction cues. All in all I found it mentally exhausting and sometimes frustrating, but a good dialogue nonetheless.

I'd like to say we covered all the bases, but keeping 15 avatars on topic is challenging even under the best of circumstances. The detailed transcripts have been posted by SignPost Marvin on his site, so I am not going to do that here, but wanted to highlight just a few of the discussion points I found interesting.

A Room of One's Own
The title of this post was inspired by a comment made by my friend DrFran Babcock - an allusion to Virginia Woolf's essay entitled A Room of One's Own. The context of use was a *home* as an expressed need. In DrFran's words:

Yes, I have a sense of home here. There is a space to which I retreat when I need to. It's not a space so much as a space to be on my own and create... Like Virginia Woolf's A room of one's own.

DrFran's point of view resonated with me. I found that after a few weeks in Second Life, I was feeling a bit lost without a home. At that time, I met my now dear friend Micala Lumiere, who not only offered me a place to live on Mill Pond, but even more important, a community of which to be a part. Mill Pond is just one of many places that offer residents a chance to be part of a community, rather than be stuck randomly somewhere on the mainland. Micala has even provided people a haven in the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, adopting the "tumbleweed hotel" model made famous by George Whitman.

There are a few people such as Anshe Chung who have wagered that having a physical home in Second Life is an overwhelming need - the booming virtual real state business seems to indicate that is the case. On the other hand, the non-physical home seems to be what is most appealing to people.

SIDE NOTE: I've tried several ways to count the number of groups within Second Life, but the search result sets are constrained to 100 - if anyone has this number I'd really be interested. Nonetheless, it seems that shortly after their rezz day, people join some kind of a group.

Safety
I had not given any thought to the notion of safety as a need that Second Life can fulfill, and this was an interesting part of the discussion, especially as the news we often hear about online communities is the lack of safety.

Safety was most often described as safety from physical harm - the result of which is a willingness to participate more fully. Second Life thrives on participation so one might assume that meeting this need would be paramount to Linden Lab from a product management perspective.

To that end, we touched briefly on whether the CopyBot was a threat to people's safety - as it seems that perceived safety has a place within Second Life. The flight or fight reaction to the CopyBot most clearly indicated to me that safety is not only a need, it may be a lynchpin of the resiliency of the platform.

Do Avatars Have Needs?
This is a topic I wish I had pushed harder to explore; it is a point that intrigues me the most. At one point, a participant said:

I'm surprised by my avatar sometimes. ... It made me think about how more outgoing my avatar is than I am for example ....

This led me to wonder if there are a set of distinct needs that do not exist in the physical world, but become apparent in virtual spaces. As we assume an identity as an avatar, do we develop a new or complementary set of needs that must be met in order for our virtual existence to thrive? Do our human and avatar needs intersect?

Some participants were very clear that avatars do not have needs, I am less sure. In fact, I would argue that with the ability to extend ourselves into a new space, our needs increase accordingly.

I may hold another round table discussion on this topic alone.. once I can find that soap box.

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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Second Life

As a follow up to this post, I'll be leading a round table discussion on Monday November 20th in Second Life with the Kuurian Expedition and some special guests. We'll discuss whether Second Life fulfills some basic humans needs, and are those needs met uniquely by the Second Life experience?

We will discuss as many perspectives as we can in an hour, from the anecdotal to the academic - using Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a point of reference.

If you'd like to join us, we are meeting on Micala Lumiere's beautiful Mill Pond at 1:30 PM SL (4:30 PM EST).
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WE > ME ..or.. Don't be left out?

"We are smarter than me" is an community-based collaborative book writing project led by authors from Wharton's SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, Pearson Education and Shared Insights. From the site:

The central premise of We Are Smarter Than Me is that large groups of people ("We") can, and should, take responsibility for traditional business functions that are currently performed by companies, industries and experts ("Me").

Of course, if you read the fine print, it appears that the *true* premise of the project is ultimately crowdsourcing. I didn't see "crowdsourcing" used anywhere on the site, but I'd say the project fits well with Jeff Howe's treatise on the phenomena.

As a contributor, you forfeit rights to the publisher (i.e. the profit center) which is based on the Creative Commons licensing model. Authors retain attribution rights, and a Wall Street Journal article has a fascinating quote from MIT management professor Thomas Malone on motivating professionals to contribute.

"The question is, can we create an incentive structure so they'll put in some of their best thinking, or will this just be incidental thinking?" He says it's possible that individuals may get credits for having primary responsibility for a particular chapter. On the other hand, he says, "If you really are an expert in this area, you wouldn't want to be left out."

I can't say that as a professional I would not be motivated to contribute my critical thinking based on my fear of not being left out. My guess is that the best contribution Mr. Malone et. al. will get is a few lines of thinking, followed by .."if you'd like to see my research, buy my book". After all, academics do not live on a tenure salary alone.

I didn't have this example when the Kuurian Expedition met with Jeff and Gwyneth Llewelyn earlier this week. I'd really like to know what Jeff thinks about the incentive side of crowdsourcing - is it as simple as people just don't want to be left out?
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Medici Effect, Meet We Think

I cannot wait to read Charles Leadbeater's new book We Think, and neither should you. The full draft is available for download *and* comment here.

It's a short read at just 62 pages, certainly not as weighty as Benkler's Wealth of Networks, but it's yet another example of relevant reading made available to netizens for *free* despite intentions to publish via traditional means - these guys live their message.

There is an intriguing article entitled "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" at TIMES ONLINE, and I really like this excerpt:

Traditionally, workers can be instructed, organised in a division of labour. Participants will not be led and organised in this way: the dominant ethos of the We-Think economy is democratic and egalitarian. These vast communities of participation are led by antiheroic, slight leaders — the likes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and Linus Torvalds of Linux. Such people are the antithesis of the charismatic, harddriving chief executive in the Jack Welch mould.

These collaboratives change the way in which people come up with new ideas. Innovation and creativity were once elite activities undertaken by special people — writers, designers, architects, inventors — in special places — garrets, studies, laboratories. The ideas they dreamt up would flow down pipelines to passive consumers. Now innovation and creativity are becoming mass activities, dispersed across society. Largely self-organising collaborations can unravel the human genome, create a vast encyclopaedia and a complex computer operating system. This is innovation by the masses, not just for the masses.

I call this the new Renaissance - the ultimate rise of the creative class - perhaps I should get to work on my own book soon.
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Kuurian Expedition to Explore "What need does Second Life fulfill?"

The subject of my last post has proven to be an intriguing and engaging topic. Nearly everyone I talked to in Second Life had a passionate perspective, and thanks to everyone that sent emails and comments.

The conversations have my head spinning, and the topic is so energized I've decided to host a round table discussion next week on the topic as part of the SL Kuurian Expedition. I'll post details and logistics as soon as they are finalized.

I'd like the conversation to cover everything from the anecdotal to the academic - as I am particularly interested in discussing the Second Life experience as it relates to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you have a particular perspective you'd like to address, please IM me in world, drop me an email or leave a comment.
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What is it about Second Life that people *need*?

Please note that I am not yet answering the title question in this post, but I am setting the stage for a dialogue.

I was right in the middle of my typical introduction to Second Life session yesterday, fielding what has become the normal Q&A session.

Q: "Do people pay *actual* dollars for *fake* goods?"
A: "Yes and no. People pay virtual currency, derived from actual US currency, for digital goods and services - most of which are tailored for the virtual world."

Q: "Do people actually *make* money playing this game?"
A: "Yes and no. Yes, a few thousand people run profitable businesses but unlike WoW, Second Life is not a game."

Q: "Are crimes committed. Can someone kill you?"
A:" Yes and no. There are rules outlined in the Community Standards and Terms of Service ....."

You get the idea. This usually goes on for twenty to thirty minutes, and most of the questions clarify or reinforce points I have made in the initial presentation about the economy, how many people are in Second Life, what people do, how they communicate, etc.

This day, as we were moving along the ultimate phase shift from scoff, to skepticism and disbelief, to interested but not impressed, and some to "a ha", I heard this question.

Q: "What is it about Second Life that people *need*?"
A: "Um ..."

Of course I started with my visionary statements about the new Renaissance and rise of the creative class (more on this some other time) and "this is the future of the Internet/web 3D, go read Avi's 7 part series on the topic" followed by a more familiar reference: "it's analogous to MySpace on steroids", but even they knew I had failed to answer the question. And so began my restless night.

By now you've probably guessed that I had hoped to craft this entire post in the "second person" meaning, Grace writes the whole thing and I - in the first person - merely observe. After all, Grace is embedded within Second Life, but on this issue her perspective is somewhat limited. She can head off this morning and start asking a few people in world that question, and in the mean time I am going to hit the books because I have a feeling that Grace and I will have to work on this one together.

If you already have this figured out, please leave me a comment or drop me an email.
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Virtual Worlds, Mixed Reality Make HOTLIST

The folks over at Innovation Lab have published their HOTLIST 2006 which "comprises the prevailing tendencies permeating research, product development and service design within the field of information technology."

You can find the hotlist detailed posting here, but I spent some time thinking about how many of these are, can and will be applied within Second Life.

1. Customermade

When customers and users "infiltrate" the product-development work of companies or organisations and begin to design and create their own products and services.

This could be a hot topic for debate within Second Life, but on the surface, I'd say that the underlying premise of Second Life defines Customermade. I am sure some would argue to the contrary. What do you think?

2. Geo-Awareness

The filling station knows you're on your way, and – via the navigating system in your car or your mobile – it will send you an offer on the petrol, and at the same time it will advertise the dish of the day in the station's cafeteria.

This is a tough one, arguably depending upon some real life location based needs. Although, one could easily conceive of a SLURL based integration for a services model, something like a AAA for Second Life.

3. Thing Connection

Thing Connection is the keystone of the 4A concept – Anytime connection, Anywhere connection, Anything connection – by Anyone. Otherwise known as ”An internet of things” – in other words: when things communicate with each other.

Largely missing from Second Life is easy and transparent communication vehicle through the virtual membrane. Some attempts are underway, but this is still largely uptapped.

4. Virtual Worlds - I think we can skip this one.

5. Web Applications The Next Generation

The Web, and not the PC, constitutes the new centre of the universe. This entails a shift from software to web-based applications where the overt and the social will come to play an increasingly substantial part.

Depending on how well Linden labs does with Customerade, largely untapped capabilities for the platform may be uncovered. Notice that NING (referenced in the detailed post) is a service I use here on this blog - it is powering the Second Life photos block in the sidebar.

6. Digitial Product Placement

Digital and virtual advertisement pillars. The digital billboard of the future will be blank space – to be filled in with messages directed at specific target groups. Thus, a major sports event attracting different viewer groups will, simultaneously, be showing ads for the local bakers as well as for an international online bank – and on two different TV stations.

Let them eat soup from the green screen. Can this be the root of the immersionist versus augmentationist debate? Perhaps not, but centainly a central theme in the burgeoning Second Life space.

7. Web Video - YouTube? I'm bored with this one, let's move on.

8. Mixed Reality

The fusion of digital, virtual and physical products is near. The remote control of tomorrow will juggle the programmes; and, at the smallest flick of your wrist, your new telephone will scroll through the menu – and then it can also be used in a virtual game of table tennis .

Some say that active SL Residents have moved too far out of the real world and into Second Life, what if you moved more of Second Life *into* the real world? Ingenious second lifers have already started to investigate haptics technology to extend your Second Life experience. What if you could interact with the world of Second Life in an entirely new way?

9. Expanded Search

Search engines are becoming more than just a match of words and numbers in a colossal database. More "intelligent", meaningful and automatic searches are starting to gain foothold.

For me, this is the largest black hole in the Second Life galaxy. I really like the second411 HUD, but a robust and innovative search model (note, not just engine) will be absolutely required if the world continues to grow.

10. Humanitarian Technology

Profit-generating technologies and humanitarian aid in one! Too good to be true? Probably - but it's nevertheless reality. A perspicacious neo-philanthropy is immanent.

Once you catch your breath, consider the *good* that is being accomplished within Second Life - Dreams Shockproof, Brigadoon, and Support for Healing, to name a few. But clearly, this are mssing the *profit* part of the equation. If you have a good example of profit, philantropy, and Second Life in the same sentence, let me know. While not as much of a black hole as Search, this is still a fertile field.
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Philip Linden Shares the Virtual Mission

I *thought* I was going to start my own N-part series on the the potential harmonious union of Second Life immersionists/augmentationists today, but Philip Rosedale's post on the Linden Lab blog entitled "The Mission of Linden Lab" caught my attention and admittedly held it for more than a few minutes.

After a few reads, I've decided that Philip's mission statement is actually a very good introduction to the discourse, and tomorrow I will likely use some of the quotes from it as a jumping off point, such as this:

Given this prelude, my best definition of our mission is that we are working to create an online world having the exceptional property that it advances the capabilities of the many people that use it, and by doing so affects and transforms them in a positive way.

The underpinnings of the SL model, i.e. the world is created and owned by the residents, suggest that SL Residents must play an EQUAL PART in this mission. After reading the comments, I'm not sure we all share that perspective.
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Lessons in Communication

I think Senator John Kerry lost a few hours of sleep this week as he fumbled through a classic political communications mine field. After all, with the US economy pretending to be healthy and gas prices dropping, there is a singular focus on the war in Iraq so you'd think that *any* reference to US troops and the war in *any* context would be treated cautiously by both parties but Kerry wasn't cautious enough.

Although Senator Kerry was "misinterpreted", emotions are high as we spiral toward the next election, and it is in times of heightened awareness that most communication is botched. Once the first mine is tripped, the subsequent explanations, recounting and eventual apologies are explosive and unfortunately distract from the real problems at hand.

Consider Kerry's woes in the context of the recent Linden Lab announcement about the pending cost increase of private estates, followed by the admission by CEO Philip Rosedale that the information was discussed with *select* individuals before the general announcement and subsequent land store closure, ultimately followed by an announced 15 day delay of the new pricing model. These events, the resultant SL community upheaval, and even the decision by long time Second Life resident Hiro Queso to shut down his rental business resonates with me as a similar communications break down with unspoken underpinnings. It may also be detracting from a*real* issue brewing with Second Life overall ... can immersionists and augmentationists peacefully and even *gasp* productively coexist?

That will be the subject of my next post.
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