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First, I recommend you to read marketing lady at Linden Labs (creator of Second Life). Sounds cool. In short: - Virtual office and (not vs.) bricks-and-mortar office (work-life balance)
- People increasing their productivity and engagement (!) in work meetings (effectiveness of work)
- Fun at work (rabbits and shiny fairies at meetings, small fights with swords on key topic of presentation)
Sounds like a paradise for office-boxed 50 work hours per week white old male. Few things are still holding us back from this. And they are very powerful ones. This is what I have got reading feedbacks on article and played on SL an odd hour. Key barriers for SL business practice: - People inertia - there are 1 billion of them to be educated, and now it is like driving a car (I spend an hour to find out how to sit on the chair! - I was teached to build avionics for rocketry, huh..;
one more reason is that there were other people I spend 30 minutes chasing after..) - Your character is not your second skin; this is very important for long-term fellas. I have got to helicopter after a disco and did not figure out how to turn that dancing off. I was dancing in the helicopter absolutely miserable and helpless. The disco "uploads" the dancing script "into you" (your character, of course), so after cryptic message and 'ok' you start doing very interesting pa's. I have no idea what they can put into your office-character on the disco. And I am very paranoic when disco propose me to run '$%%$&^%* Disco v.1.0' scipt to enter.
- Technology limitations - SL client could be better. It is ok, but not really intuitive, and not really "second skin" - far from that. I did not experienced any bugz, but again - usability guys should work on that stuff. One trainer complained - I lliked SL space etc, but to get trainees there It will take forever to to train them use the SL client. Very true.
Barrier number one - only time can do anything about that. And that is good - this is our rare natural break to stop rushing into everyhting what "looks good". I like this barrier. Second and third ones - I think Linden Lab is at the beginning so called "long tail" effect (when most people use one service because most people use it, and vice verca - examples: Google, Apple iPods and iPhones) In that situation, company should do several very bold steps to stay ahead (and win Apple-like bananza and loyalty) The keys to ride on top of "long tail" : - focus and speed to bring what people really need (even subconciously)
- simplicity for "joe the plumber"
- technology excellence (this is hard if you are running like a horse on first two bullets)
You can find any company (see Apple 2000 - ..) adopt this strategy and win in case "long tail" effect on horizon. Linden - do it or be eaten by Microsoft ;-) Best regards,
Andrew Drozdov |
