azzara.com - Life & (my) second life

Why Must Amazon Keep Reminding Me It’s Stupid?

2012-01-31T09:43:00.002-05:00

Don't get me wrong; I love Amazon. I’m Amazon Prime, and Proud. But they’ve come down with a seriously intrusive case of “My TiVo Thinks I’m Gay.”

A few years ago, that became first the hip, then mainstream, way to label the problem of personalization gone awry. Since it’s more than a year old, now it must be passé. So it goes.

At least TiVo’s suggestions sit unobtrusively in the (appropriately labeled) TiVo suggestions folder. I never see them unless I seek them. What Amazon has done to me the last few weeks is as if TiVo sent me a daily email saying, “hey, we think you’re gay and here’s a gay show about gays being gay. We’re sure you’ll enjoy it.”

The Amazon problem started with my wife’s iPhone 4s. Soon, I had Siri envy (my iPhone has a year left on contract). Well, not Siri, exactly, cause we still haven’t got the hang of talking to that big brain in Cupertino in ways it responds to effectively. But I am in love with the voice-to-text translation integrated into texting, email and notes (to mention a few). Downloaded Dragon onto my iPhone, and it translates great – but not integrated with apps, so nearly useless IMHO.

But it got me to thinking about voice translation on my Mac. So I bounced over to Amazon, found the Dragon version for the Mac, and read the reviews. Wow. Non-starter. Synthesis: PC version great, Mac version, er, never mind.

You see where this is going. Since then, I get an email every couple days offering me all sorts of deals and discounts if I’ll only come back and close the deal. Today’s email subject line: “Amazon.com: One-Day Sale on Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software.” Right – one day after yesterday’s sale. Among the worst parts is that they don’t even bother to get my version right. Don’t they check my machine’s browser (Safari) or OS?

So Amazon won’t stop parading to me the fact that it’s really a simpleton, and doesn’t know me well at all. Or, it thinks I’m the stupid one, and will buy a product even after a quick perusal of its own reviews makes that purchase a non-starter. And it just won’t stop. Shouldn’t the algorithm have some sort of cut off? Wouldn’t it be smart if after a couple tries it started sending me offers for other kinds of voice recognition products? That I could respect.

But in the end, you gotta look at the whole enchilada. Amazon is my superstore, I know how to use it (even if it doesn't know how to deal with me) and I get a whole lot out of our relationship. At the end of the day, I love Amazon. I’m Amazon Prime. And Proud.

IBM Patents, er, Patenting

2011-01-05T12:44:00.002-05:00

When sophisticated members of the digerati are "astonished" by a story I guess it's worth me restarting my blog after a more-than-a-year-hiatus.

IBM has filed a patent application for its patent process. The patent is called "Intellectual Property component business model for client services" and yes you can read it by clicking on that link.

After a year in which the smartphone wars went to patent court and patent trolls went on a rampage, capped off by Paul Allen and Nathan Myrvold trying to sue everybody, what's astonishing is that we still have the ability to be astonished.

As Tom's Hardware explains, the patent contemplates software that would manifest a patent process, from development of the idea all the way down through filing to suing infringers. And Techeye.net says, "If you can't beat the trolls, patent the process that creates them.

I'm so delighted that even though I've sort of moved beyond media, I still make my living synthesizing, strategizing, and writing about technology. I love this business!

Intel's Retiring Chair's Zen Business Rules

2009-05-31T09:40:00.002-04:00

Often, because the workload is too heavy, I'll clip an article I want to read and hold off reading it because I deem it's not urgent. That's why I'm sending you this link two weeks later to "From Moore's Law to Barrett's Rules", from the May 16 WSJ (registration required). The thing that strikes me hard about it is this: When you read Craig Barrett's Rules, you discover that each one is like a Zen Koan. Here are two examples:

* "The business is bigger than the business."

* "Consensus is good--except when it isn't."

Each of Barrett's Rules (not just these two) is ambiguous, in and of itself, or in its application.

And yet at the same time each of them are powerful and, at some level, obvious.

Before the end of the article, strangely, I was thinking about IFRS - International Financial Reporting Standards. I do a bit of thought leadership content creation for a household name professional services firm, see, so I have to think about stuff like this from time to time. There is a transition going on in US financial reporting from GAAP to IFRS, and at least in part it is a transition from "rules" to "intent", if you will. It seems like now is an apt time for that change.

Everyone is talking about how so many markets are in flux right now, and that there are "new rules that haven't been written yet." But what if that concept is totally off base - it's just as far as our poor minds are able to go, for the moment. Perhaps the truth of what's happening is that our future will have no "rules" in this sense; instead, there will only be intent, and behavior. The rest you have to figure out as you go along, as each new situation, opportunity and market emerges.

I realize at some level that Barrett is grandstanding a bit in this article as he sits on the brink of retirement (his last day was May 20). Somehow, that did not lessen the impact of it for me.

From Moore's Law to Barrett's Rules

Is business really personal?

2009-04-21T10:43:00.006-04:00

Tony Uphoff, CEO of TechWeb, has always enjoyed saying that business *is* personal. And now he's posted on the topic, and on how social networking intersects his philosophy, and you don't want to miss it. Click here to go to Tony's post.

What fascinates me about Tony's discussion of "personal" vs. "business" as it relates to "Enterprise 2.0" is the connection it made in my head to a conversation with my own client last week. We were brainstorming about how the impact of internet-based social networks will reshape business. And she pointed out that at this particular moment, it is just like the beginning of the sexual revolution decades ago, when the introduction of the birth control pill caused widespread reinvention of social norms and mores - but before any of the new rules were understood or written down.

And I thought wow, what an excellent insight - and yet it was from way out in left field, applying the most personal example possible to the reinvention of business models.

Fascinating.

Brand and Demand Survey

2009-04-03T09:33:00.003-04:00

My partners at Stein Rogan + Partners have launched a much-needed research survey into the relationship between brand and demand. I strongly encourage all of my B2B marketer friends and family to click the link below and share your knowledge - and get back more from the crowd in return. Here's the gist:

Stein Rogan + Partners Research is very excited to invite you to participate in a groundbreaking survey among top B2B marketers and agencies. The survey is designed to quantify how and to what extent brand building impacts demand creation - and vice versa.

Understanding the value of brand strength/momentum as a demand driver - and finding the right balance in terms of brand/demand initiatives and investment - are imperatives for every marketer. This survey will provide new and actionable insights in these regards.

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. All of your responses will be kept strictly confidential and will only be used for research purposes.

In exchange for your valuable time, you will receive a copy of the final survey findings as soon as they are completed. You will also be entered into a drawing for one of five $50 American Express Gift Cards. Simply complete the entire survey and enter your email address where requested.

Click this link to begin: Brand and Demand Survey

Thank you in advance for your thoughtful input.

A New Search Engine? Can anyone make sense of this?

2009-03-20T14:33:00.004-04:00

I just don't know what to make of this new search engine from Financial Times called Newssift, a new business-oriented search engine. The beta is at www.newssift.com.

I read the stories and press release and I TRIED to use the beta site but it is way too complicated to parse out. They are trying to add value to business searches, but I think they have way overthought the problem. They are forcing users to navigate through the FT's own view of what a hierarchical path of information needs might be, instead of allowing the user to define his or her own path with their search string.

But after reading that sentence, the flaw seems so absurdly obvious that it is hard for me to believe it is possible. I keep thinking I'm missing something, but so far I haven't found it. What do you guys think?

Eyestrain and your monitor

2009-03-10T11:10:00.003-04:00

I spent this past weekend completely revamping my desktop in real life, not my computer, in order to make optimal use of the new Macbook and 24-inch monitor I brought to my home office.

I was astonished to learn that a computer monitor should be a lot further away from your face than I ever thought, or than most people (including myself) ever place it. This article, Viewing Distance at Computer Workstations, explains the physiological science behind it and how distance effects eyestrain.

But the bottom line is you want the screen about 30 to 40 inches away from your eyes. It's better to place the monitor further away and make your screen fonts larger than to have the screen too close to your eyes. I've been following this logic for a few days now and I think I feel the difference!

All Headset, All The Time

2009-02-18T16:07:00.006-05:00

I have to report total delight with my new Plantronics 590A headset (which I have been told is discontinued). I've been using it for two full weeks now - still on its first full battery charge - and with my Blackberry 8330 AND a new home office phone I bought for it that works with Bluetooth.

Everything works as advertised, but like I said in the first post on this topic, the real magic comes from having stereo sound on a regular-old-phone-call. The clarity with which I can hear and understand the other party is unmatched by any single-ear solution. So my experience has bewildered me further about why these binaural headsets aren't more popular.

Working with the included universal adapater attached to my iPod, I can listen to music and when the Blackberry rings, the headset beeps to let me know. Pressing the headset's call-answer button, er, answers the call. The iPod keeps playing (it can't pause the iPod).

The new office phone (Vtech Model LS5145) is a bit kludgey, and has no jack for a wired headset. If it didn't work with the Bluetooth headset I'd never own it. But mated with the Platronics, it is a news reporter's dream (or anyone's dream who spends hours on the phone every day). I paid a few dollars less for the phone than the Amazon price at the other end of that link, at a Best Buy RL store.

The picture above shows the whole setup on my desk - the weird-looking unergonomic Vtech, the Plantronics headset with the clear voice tube and the Blackberry. Oh, and the empty half bottle of Presecco that's been there for months to remind me to order up another!

Binaural Bluetooth headphone or headset, anyone?

2009-01-31T15:57:00.000-05:00

OK, am I the only person in the world who wants a Bluetooth stereo headset I can use for phone calls and music listening? Or a simple wired headset with a 2.5mm jack (they were common as pennies two years ago). My current one doesn’t have a mute button.

I searched for six damn hours over the course of two days. Besides Google, my search included two extended field trips. The result: Plantronics Pulsar 590A, available for about three years but apparently no one else has a fielded a similar device. It was priced at $249 on the Plantronics site but I paid $112.24 at Amazon. It is a stereo bluetooth headset and headphone (includes both profiles) that comes with a "universal adapter" (Bluetooth transmitter with a 3.5mm jack). I'm going to attempt to use it with both my desk phone (with a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter) and my Blackberry Curve 8330. If it won't pair with the BB, I can always use that universal adapter (the BB has a 3.5mm receptacle).

But the real question is, why isn't there a bunch of similar products on the market? Or if there are, why can’t I find them? I’m pretty good with a Google search.

Best story of all: At Best Buy I had a salesman point me toward a standing display of "Bluetooth" wired headsets. I kid you not. He even put air quotes around the word "Bluetooth" when he told me that you know, these are “Bluetooth,” too, they are just wired. Bluetooth doesn't mean wireless, he told me. I swear.

I had to leave immediately. I don't know what Bluetooth meant to him, and I couldn’t ask. I had to leave immediately because I could feel an entire lecture cum angry rant bubbling up inside me, fighting to get to the surface. Any retail sales guy who could look me in the eye and tell me these wired headsets are Bluetooth ... well. ... he was beyond help.

Here's the weirdest thing from the experience: the 2.5mm jack headsets that were common as pennies two years ago have all but disappeared. Best Buy had none. The first Radioshack I went to had one. And the second (bigger) Radioshack had two or three; but none that covered both ears. Since I tried out Skype last week with a binaural USB headset I don’t want to go back to one-ear headsets; but I can’t use Skype all the time because unless it’s my laptop or my cable provider messing with the traffic, the sound quality was not dependable.

Oh, in terms of full disclosure, I did find one other device that would suit my needs: The Oticon Epoq. It cost $9,000 configured with Bluetooth capability. :)

Of course, the Plantronics 590A has a big fat form factor, so if you want an ultra-lightweight device go with the Epoq for $8,887.76 more. I wasn't worried about the form factor because I was primarily looking for something to use in my home office. But because the Epoq is primarily a hearing aid, it essentially disappears into both ears. It is simultaneously an infinitely adjustable binaural hearing aid and a Bluetooth headset. It popped up first when I searched "binaural Bluetooth headset."

Actually, I could carry my Plantronics around, though. I never go anywhere without my backpack, which doubles as a giant purse.

The other interesting thing I learned from this research is that you can buy every adapter imaginable except for a USB-to-2.5 mm adapter that would let me use my USB headset with my desk phone. One guy made his own, but it looked like so much trouble that I didn't bother to write to him and ask him to make me one. See a picture of it here, along with the explanation for how to make it. (Again, for full disclosure, there does seem to be a discontinued Motorola adapter you can buy for 60 cents at Amazon, but the reviewers said it added buzzing that rendered it useless. That and the discontinued thing suggested to me I should go another route.)

Mutitasking Makes You Stupid

2007-11-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

But boy, is Second Life compelling. So I just logged off of a meeting at Dobbs Island in SL, and I happen to be sitting in a hotel ballroom in Chicago at American Business Media's Top Management Meeting. I didn't want to miss either meeting, so I logged in from the meeting room. The meeting in RL probably contained more important content for me at this moment in time, but the meeting in SL commanded more of my attention.

I'm not sure I understand why. About halfway through I realized the RL content was more important, but every time a new line popped into my SL chat window I had to read it. And forget what you think about multitasking, you really can't process two steams of info like these simultaneously.

Now, of course, I am compelled to write this post instead of pay attention to the very end of that RL panel! :-)

Cisco Finds Life in Second Life

2007-11-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

Today Cisco Systems is running a virtual job fair in Second Life. When asked why this morning during a panel discussion at Dobbs Island in SL, Christian Renauld, the company's chief architect for networked virtual environments, explained it this way:

"Back in the spring when we had the Channel 2.0 event with VAR Business magazine we were really overwhelmed at the quantity of our channel partners already in SL. So this was a logical fit: they are here, we are here, smart folks are here that are looking for new jobs. Win."

A White Paper Explaining SL and its immediate Value Proposition for B2B Media Companies

2007-10-30T20:28:00.000-04:00

Second Life is a new communications medium in which people meet inside a computer simulation of a 3D physical space. The simulated space can range from something whimsical, like the Greenies' "home world," to a relatively accurate representation of the real world, like the Second Life homes of Pontiac, IBM, Cisco, and Dr. Dobbs Journal (pictured at right). People appear in SL as "avatars" that they create. Avatars also range from whimsical to realistic. Second Life is in some ways just one of 50 or more virtual worlds, all of which share a common heritage evolving out of the world of video games and multiplayer online games.

But Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life, had the brilliantly insightful idea to put out into the world what amounts to a multiplayer video game platform with no game!

(That's cybercelebrity Callie Cline below, handing out signed copies of her Pontiac Solstice. She was hired by Pontiac as the world's first spokesavatar, and named No. 95 on Maxim magazine's list of the world's 100 hottest women. I kid you not.)

And so thousands of developers have set up residency in SL, inventing everything from real estate development businesses to avatar creation businesses to sex shops (every new technology has its share of sex shops). All of this is made possible by two elements of the Second Life platform (in addition to the open, unfettered nature of the platform itself):

Linden Labs created an "inworld" currency, the Linden dollar (L$), which is tied to the U.S. dollar at an exchange rate of roughly L$268 to $1. The L$ has evolved into a neat micropayment system.
Second Life residents are granted property rights to anything they create. Therefore, SL residents can sell their creations and earn real money.

Why does this matter to business media professionals? Remember my opening statement: Second Life is a new communications medium. Just as with the last big new medium to come along, the Internet, it is still too early to predict all the possibilities this new medium represents. But one possibility is already apparent to those of us who have spent real time in SL: It is a potent forum for business meetings and even medium-sized conferences. I like to tell people that, if you can imagine the value of attending a teleconference on one end of a spectrum, with the value of attending an in-person conference at the other end, then attending a meeting in Second Life gets you about 80% of the way there. And in some ways, meetings in Second Life are better than in-person meetings. Video conferencing experiences pale by comparison. Best of all, anyone can attend an SL meeting from anywhere on the globe, without leaving their desk. And as SL grows, its meeting-hosting prowess will improve.

People who have never experienced SL (especially if they are of the baby boomer generation) scoff at the idea that a cartoon world can be used for a serious business purpose. The explanation for why it works has to do with arcane details of brain function that I don't pretend to understand, but which I distill to this: because you know that sitting behind each avatar in the meeting is an actual person who is (at least mostly) paying attention, your brain imbues the setting with an appropriate seriousness of purpose. To distill this to essence: You actually sense the presence of others in an SL meeting. It's like magic.

THE SECOND LIFE LAND RUSH
The combination of fun, games, opportunity, and serious business intent creates so many different motivations to enter Second Life that there has been a land rush, captured by the press in the form of hype. But here are some actual adoption statistics that may come as a surprise. These stats are as of Oct. 28 end-of-day (midnight Second Life Time [SLT], where SLT = Pacific time):

There were 31,387 new signups during the previous 24-hour period, bringing SL to 10,490,916 total signups.
There was peak concurrency (i.e., the number of residents logged in simultaneously) of 56,181 at 2:25PM SLT (a new record!), and a minimum concurrency of 29,033 at 11:50PM. Median concurrency for the day was 43,077.
In the last 60 days, 1,412,534 residents logged into SL at least once.

The number of SL residents has spiked a bit in recent weeks due to two television events: CBS's CSI: New York did an episode on Oct. 24 titled "Down The Rabbit Hole" in which the CSI team chases an assassin into Second Life; and the following evening NBC's The Office did an episode involving Second Life. The CSI folks have concocted an elaborate plan to lure viewers into SL, detailed at their Web site.

Closer to the home of business media, Jeff Barr is a Web Services Evangelist for Amazon whose job is to go around the world speaking at conferences and to corporations about Amazon's Web infrastructure services. He's discovered that the profile of SL residents closely matches his target customer. Jeff told me he is trying like hell to curtail his travel and do more speaking in SL, so he can spend more time with his family. His coworkers laugh at him because they think he's playing games, but he is an effective evangelist, reaching customers all over the world, without having to leave his desk. There are many Jeff Barrs in SL, and more arriving every day.

HOW CAN SL MEETINGS POSSIBLY BE BETTER THAN REAL LIFE?
The image below was captured during an SL panel session when IBM and Linden Labs discussed their joint effort to create portability and interoperability standards among the different virtual worlds. The session was conducted entirely in text chat (other sessions have been done in voice, voice with slides, or video). Regardless of whether the panelists/presenters use voice, video, or text, audience members are free to contribute thoughts and questions in the text window at any time during the session. Panelists see these comments in real time and can choose to respond or ignore them; they can effectively incorporate these thoughts and questions into an integrated whole with the rest of their content. The characteristics of SL support this kind of interaction because, in SL, it is non-intrusive; but the real-world equivalent (shouting a question from the audience) would not be tolerated during an in-person event.
In addition, note the tabs along the bottom of the text chat window. Each tab opens onto a different conversation. Although you can't make out the blurred text, there is the main tab housing the public discussion in this space; then comes a tab wherein I was IM'ing questions to Ziggy Figaro, the panel moderator (another accepted form of interaction); in another I was asking technical advice of the island's operations manager and hostess, Rissa Maidstone; in another, having a personal discussion with a colleague; and finally, the last tab is for a group to which I belong, members of which were in attendance and having a private group-wide side conversation.

The same factors that make SL a great meetings forum also make SL a great place to foster community. But don't make the mistake of viewing SL as a "3D Web"; while the Web is all about human interaction with automated systems (think eBay, Amazon, Google), Second Life is all about human interaction with other humans. Second Life represents the emergence of a brand new communications paradigm. But what's new and important about Second Life is its synchronous communications directly among live human beings, not the asynchronous communications of email or the automated human-machine interaction of Amazon and Google.

WHAT SHOULD A BUSINESS MEDIA COMPANY DO?
The answer to this question will vary by market segment, as follows: the more technically savvy your audience, the more quickly you must move to develop a place in Second Life for that audience to form a community around your brand. Otherwise, as history has shown through the rise of the Internet, someone else will do it for you. Many companies were blindsided by the sudden rise of the Internet. Don't let it happen again. I don’t refer only to audiences for technical subjects, but rather an audience for any subject that happens to be comfortable with the use of computer technology and networking. This includes most any audience under 35.

FURTHER READING:

Killer Apps and Virtual Worlds: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/16876

Playing Tricks on the Mind: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/19373

The Second Life Insider: http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/

SunCorp GM Says SL Trumps Video Conferencing: http://www.searchcio.com.au/topics/article.asp?DocID=6100929&SiteID=19

Callie Cline's SL Fashion Notes: http://slfashionnotices.wordpress.com/2007/05/31/callie-c-cline/

Neuromancer, by William Gibson (the original, and the great granddaddy, of cyber novels)

Idoru, by William Gibson (the most thoughtful and esoteric of virtual reality novels

Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

Second Life Sign Up Tutorial (By me, available by contacting me at mike@azzara.com)

(Click this for a pdf of this white paper. It's prettier!)

Direct Brain Control of Second Life Avatars!!!

2007-10-14T11:03:00.000-04:00

This blew me away. It's a small step for a man, if you see what I mean.

This first link goes to the best blog post I found (from a site called Pink Tentacle) describing details of research that was conducted at a Japanese university, and published previously in Japanese. This second link goes to the Japanese-language page on which the university published its research. I don't read Japanese, but the two links (labeled Windows and Macintosh in English) above the photo on the page take you to a video demonstration of a guy controlling an avatar in SL with electrodes strapped to his head and his hands in his lap.

Assuming the video isn't rigged, it's a fascinating portent of possibilities to come! How rapidly can research like this become useful from a product/production point of view?

Phoning a Second Life avatar is a call to Germany!

2007-10-08T11:33:00.000-04:00

OK, the last entry in my Vodaphone InsideOut trilogy is that I learned that while calling OUT from Second Life to the real world is free (for now), calling INSIDE is the same as a call to Germany, and is going to be charged that way by your U.S. cellular provider.

The reason is that Vodaphone assigns a virtual number to your handset inside SL, in order to protect your identity, they say. They chose a block of numbers from Germany (+49) to use as the virtual numbers. So if you dial up an avatar in SL, you get charged (by your provider, not Vodaphone) for making a call to Germany. (Here's a link to the page where they explain these costs.)

Vodaphone says it may charge L$300 (300 Linden dollars) per minute for calls made from inside SL out to an RL phone, once the free beta trial ends on Nov. 30. I guess they haven't made up their minds for sure yet.

Calls from Second Life to Real Life not working in USA

2007-10-08T10:51:00.000-04:00

I was so taken by the concept of Vodaphone InsideOut that I raced to their island, got the free HUD, and began the set up. But text messaging isn't working to the USA (or China), and that means that anyone with a USA (or Chinese) cell phone cannot activate their service, either. This is because the activation process sends a text (SMS) message to your mobile phone and you have to reply to that message to confirm and establish your service. It's a darn shame.

I tried to activate anyway, but so far have received no text message from Vodaphone. The company's web site says their working to resolve the problem. Here's the Web home page for Vodaphone InsideOut. And here's the SLURL to take you directly to Vodaphone InsideOut island (use only if you already have an SL account).

You can't see the activation page, which carries the message about the USA and China having technical difficulties, until you link to it from your HUD from within SL. That's because each activation page is, of course, unique to each user; the SL HUD tells the service your SL name. HUD, in case you don't know, stands for heads-up display; it's jargon that SL inherited from RL.

Who's not living in the real world?

2007-10-07T17:05:00.001-04:00

I don't know why the old Blondie song came to mind when I thought about what to call this post, but even if you're NOT living in the real world you can now phone up someone who is.

Vodaphone has announced a beta product in Second Life. It's a mobile phone service that allows an avatar to phone out of SL to anyone in the real world. How cool is that? I can't wait for Yazzara Robbiani to make his first call to some unsuspecting Earth dweller. You can read more about it here but trust me, all the official news articles I've read about this have written it up so confusingly that you may as well just stick with me.

The service is called Inside Out and it will be free until Nov. 30 (none of the reports I saw said what the subsequent cost would be). Apparently there are Inside Out vending machines in SL as we speak that dispense free phones that enable the service.

Inside Out also lets you call other avatars, but you can do that already without a handset. People outside SL will be able to phone up avatars, and you'll be able to send and receive text messages as your avatar too. But the reports I read weren't clear about whether the text message function works "Inside Out" of SL, so to speak, or how in fact it does work.

Vodaphone's Inside Out service really puts the exclamation point on the fascinating interaction between RL and SL that makes it all really OL (one life) that I started writing about in the Rissa Maidstone post.

And let's close with the immortal words of Blondie:
Every day you've got to wake up
And disappear behind your makeup,
Hey, I'm livin' in a magazine,
Page to page in my teenage dream,
Cause I'm not livin' in the real world.
No I'm not livin' in the real world No more.
No more. No more!

How Second Life (virtual worlds) effect your identity, Part 2

2007-10-03T12:45:00.000-04:00

Rissa Maidstone, sort of the chief operating officer of Dobbs Island in SL, was the host and topic of a fascinating discussion at the island's Amphitheater last Tuesday (9/25). Rissa, a true Earth mother, is the subject of a book to be published next month by photojournalist Rita King, titled "Portraits of Rissa Maidstone." I'll post the link when it's available.

Clearly, Rissa is beautiful. Otherwise, who would want to publish a coffee table book of her pictures? But there's no end to the number of gorgeous, sexy avatars in Second Life, so her beauty isn't what sets Rissa apart, what makes people want to spend time with her, want to photograph her and publish books about her.

SETTING RISSA APART
Rissa is special because through the medium of Second Life – in other words, a handicapped text chat interface – she projects extraordinarily human qualities of warmth, intellect, helpfulness, and humor. Well, I guess SL is more than text chat – I'm thinking now of the time I was stumbling around Dobbs Island in the dark showing it to my 16-year-old triplets, who were looking over my shoulder. I bumped into Rissa while she was working, preparing for some upcoming client presentation. No sooner had she heard my kids were watching than she whipped a dragon out of her inventory and offered me a ride. "Oh my God Dad, you have the coolest friends!" Tony (the middle child) said, as we flapped along high above the landscape. (Rissa's blog is on the Dobbs Life 2.0 Web site.)

Rissa will help anyone with anything; I couldn't have survived in SL without her help, which continued unabated even after I left the employ of CMP, the company that pays her to bring her special brand of magic to their SL endeavors. But she's no pushover – her weapons arsenal makes short work of any griefers (SL terrorists) who show up at Dobbs Island. Her "unofficial" title is DDI Security Officer. Rissa was the second avatar I met in Second Life. Lindying with her on the Dobbs beach to the tune of "In The Mood" is something I will never forget (in RL I couldn't Lindy, not even at gunpoint).

THE IDENTITY DISCUSSION
Notice I haven't mentioned Kim Smith, the human life force behind Rissa Maidstone. That's because I didn't even know her name for months after I met Rissa, and I still think of Rissa only as Rissa, and I'm barely aware of a human named Kim and I'm always a little surprised and weirded out when someone mentions this Kim person I've never met (though I wonder how that makes Kim feel!).

But the fascinating part of last Tuesday's discussion centered around the interaction between Kim and Rissa – the humanity that Kim brings to Rissa and the life lessons that Rissa has brought to Kim. What follows are excerpts from the text chat interview between Kim-Rissa and Rita King, whose SL avatar name is Eureka Dejavu. It's verbatim, but I have distilled it so you don't have to put up with the choppiness and chaos of SL text chat. A bit of background you should know is that an IBMer named Grady Booch commissioned Rita to take one photograph of Rissa for a book he was writing about Second Life, and that commission took on a life of its own to become the forthcoming book.

Eureka Dejavu: The concept of identity and self is the theme of the book. [It's about] building a life across worlds, and capturing the fleeting process of turning one's life into art. I believe we create ourselves as much as circumstance does.

Rissa Maidstone: Rita asked me to put together a list of ideas for themes for the photoshoot. I had to spend some time thinking about things like "What IS Rissa?" What have I created here? Is she part of me in my 1L? Or is she a fantasy? I thought about that for a long time. Rissa is my inner child, my parent, and my adult, all mixed into one. So, the persona she represents truly is me... and more, in a way.

Eureka Dejavu: Has your real life changed as a result?

Rissa Maidstone: Yes my 1L has changed a great deal. I'm becoming a better person in regard to my listening skills, which I value a great deal. In business, if you don't "listen" to your clients, your peers and associates, your success rate tends to be rather low. The other thing that's happened that correlates directly to 1L and into 2L is that, for the last 19 years I've spent my time as a business development or marketing director for engineering and architectural firms. Great industry, but...19 years?

I took a big gamble switching careers and coming to Second Life. I was *not* in the high tech industry, although I'd been intertwined in one way or another – you sort of have to be if you're a marketer or business development person. When I came here, I had no clue what this was all about. I've been a gamer since I was a kid – Zelda ultimately hooked me and it progressed from there. In RL, I had a 2-hour plus commute on a daily basis. It took time away from my personal time, left me no time to be myself, nor to indulge in many of the things I missed out on in my effort to climb the career ladder. And the stress was amazing. You had an 8 a.m. meeting with your officers . . . traffic was bad, raining, you were still 30 minutes out from the City and you *knew* you were going to be late, again. Despite having left 90 minutes ago to travel 17 miles. That's gone now, and I'm loving it.

One of the neat things about SL is that you *can* use your imagination for a much lesser cost than in 1L and try a number of different ideas, before you select. In Second Life, with this ability to "create" a persona, I find that I am able to take time to think before I speak (most of the time) and it's teaching me to keep my mouth shut when normally I'd blurt out exactly what's on my mind.

I also started a fairly strenuous exercise program to get myself as fit as Rissa is. Mind you, I'm not going to achieve that for probably another six months or so, but she's very inspirational. I have time to get myself physically fit again, I've an inspiration in looking at Rissa, my ideas and creativity are once again being fully challenged and darn, if it doesn't work, we delete it, right?

Eureka Dejavu: To me that's one of the most intriguing aspects of virtual worlds, they are training grounds for developing authenticity in our lives. Philip Rosedale [CEO of SL's creators, Linden Labs] told me once that he gets letters from people who have done the same thing; because once you realize that it's possible to create your reality in a virtual world, it seems apparent that the physical world is also an art project. As are our lives.

How Second Life (virtual worlds) effect your identity, Part 1

2007-09-27T17:40:00.000-04:00

"Avatars develop their own personality," John Jainschigg, chief editor of Dr. Dobbs Portal on the Web and chief architect of Dobbs Island in Second Life, told me. "There's something about the team of human and avatar that kicks off the human reflex to create a new personality."

Jainschigg got me into SL to attend Dobbs' first Life 2.0 Summit conference, and his avatar, John Zhaoying (pronounced "J-ying" with a kind of soft "J" sound), was the first "person" Yazzara Robbiani (that's me in SL) met. This conversation took place in May, while we were discussing how to build a business around Second Life, or virtual worlds in general, for my former employer, CMP Technology.

Wow. I HAD noticed that my experience of Zhaoying was kind of different from my experience of Jainschigg, but I had assumed that was because of the cartoon nature and out-of-body-ness of SL. How is Zhaoying different from Jainschigg, I asked. "He's funnier, and more unafraid," Jainschigg said.

And he's right! I think it comes in part from a limitation inworld, which is that not only could you communicate (at that time) only in text, but you had to use a terrible one-line text editor with an incredibly soul-crushing time lag. In RL, Jainschigg is incredibly eloquent, and can discuss deep and abstract concepts while tossing around the largest vocabulary of anyone I know. But he doesn't try to be funny (like I always do). In SL, he simply COULDN'T be himself, at least not in terms of self-expression, without driving himself insane. It turns out Zhaoying's expression is no less useful or insightful, but it is sure as hell simpler and more fun.

But will the experience change Jainschigg? Does what happens in Second Life stay in Second Life, or does it effect who we are in the real world?