I have been trying to post on Second Life for the last week but every time I have something written, new information comes out.  As you may have seen, Linden Labs reduced its head count by about 30% last week. This is never a good sign as they either are not making money or are realizing their business plan needs a lot of work.

That is a blog post in itself but this week saw some people I respect for their insight also react negatively. First, Mitch Wagner says “I’m afraid I don’t see much of a future for Second Life” and much more in his post at ComputerWorld. Then, today, I got an email from Erica Driver from Think Balm saying she is moving on.  If you don’t know Erica, she is one very smart analyst who took a chance providing competent business analysis of the happenings of the virtual world.  I still love her “immersive Internet” terminology and generally prefer it to “virtual world”.

I guess this in’t too big of a surprise.  I voiced some of my own concerns back in December about the slow pace of change.  Lately, if you follow any SL blogs , you see a fractured community with vocal leaders trying to pull it in many directions. Some ideas are good (make it easier to use) but then fail in their implementation (have you tried the new viewer?) The idea to support more advance geometry is nice but the actual result is 10% of what is needed and took 10 times too long to do. In the mean time companies like 3DVIA are doing things like this.

So, to me, Linden Labs has hit bottom.  I’m sure management is hoping to refocus and I strongly agree that is what is needed.  However, those of us who have been around massive staff cuts know that it’s hard to get enthusiasm and energy out of the people left behind. For the remaining folks, I hope you are able to do it and I’m really routing for you despite this negative post.

In the mean time, have you seen what the OpenSim folks are doing?  I hate to lose the idea of a virtual economy but it seems clear where the enthusiasm is today.

From plmconx

I was off to my company’s conference last week.  I’ve been doing these things for many years, usually as a participant but more recently as someone that is actually working there.  My job this time was to make a couple presentations, help out on some hands-on presentations, talk with customers and squeeze in some social media (blogs, twitter, facebook) where I can.

A lot of people are still thinking social media is either:

A.      The job of marketing

B.      A waste of time or yet another task that gets in the way of your real job.

However, if you think about it, a conference is really not that different from social media.  Marketing definitely wants to use it to sell a product but attendees have other goals.  They want to connect with others like themselves, talk with folks making the presentations or manning the booths that they might not otherwise get to talk to, and find about things you just can’t learn about on the telephone or on the web.

There is also a big social aspect to most conferences. You might get together for drinks or play some golf or get together for dinner.  These might be pure fun but I’m sure most of us have good examples of some key contact we made or some important bit of information we picked up.

As you or your company thinks about social media, think of it as a conference. No one wants to go to a conference with just marketing folks.  It’s a great place to listen in and participate in the conversations your customers are having and the companies that send people to a conference are going to have a knowledge advantage over their competitors that stay home.

Society’s feeling about engineers and scientists is as cyclical as a sine wave. Sometimes our abiity to recite PI to 30 digits is respected, sometimes the government tries to shut us up (Indina PI Bill).

In 2009, the engineer is in voque again.  I mean, is there a better show on TV right now than “Big Bang Theory”?  And what is the best movie?  Star Trek of course (I hope the pendulum doesn’t start swinging back later this year when people figure out we also created Skynet).

You see others tapping into this too. Texas Instruments has some nice videos reminding us to “Thank an Engineer”. Here is one on life without an MP3 player:

And I do the the “V-Dub in the House” comercials from Volkswagen:

I’ll even give a shout out to one of my company’s competitors:

Funny stuff.

A lot of communities exists not only because of common interest but because its members can help each other out.  You might keep an eye on each other’s house in your neighborhood.  You might work together to support a school.

I like how technology has brought us to the point where we can form communities that are not location based.  I’m involveded with automotive, Second Life, CAD and professional communities on-line. Many of these people I have never met but the sense of community is just the same.

Sometimes these virtual and real life communities overlap. SWGeek is one of my friends in one of my CAD communities. He is involved with Orangewood Children’s Foundation.  It is an interesting story and you can read more about it on his blog post, “Design for the Future” .

So if you have a few bucks or some space on your own blog or just want to retweet his link above, here’s a place for you to do a good deed for the day. You certainly got to like a place that produces guys like Alex.

In case you haven’t noticed, I use an avatar (cartoon figure) for most of my pictures.  You can even go to the more serious sites like linkedin and find it. If you google “mark burhop”  under images, I don’t even think you will find me there, just my avatar.  Sometimes I get a bit of flack about this…it is hardly professional, right?

Maybe,  maybe not.  In my case, I have a message behind my avatar.  It is time to start thinking about the virtual world.  I don’t mean “Second Life”, “WoW” and other virtual environments although that is included.  I mean all things virtual… virtual product development, virtual architectural design, virtual travel, any real life things you can simulate on a computer.

For businesses, it can save you money.  The CAD industry is based around designing products in a virtual world.  You might say CAM and 3D printing are technologies for taking virtual products into the real world. Testing with a computer simulation (CAE) is much cheaper than building a real life prototype.  

You will hear most universities talk about virtual education and virtual training and I’ve been a part of a number of virtual meetings. How much will businesses save here in travel costs? It is hard to say but it could be substantial.

Even if there is a neutral cost/benefit, virtual technology is still more eco friendly.  The carbon footprint of  virtual products and virtual people are sure to be less than the volume of burnt carbon created flying and driving real me around or building real life prototypes.

One interesting side effect of using an avatar is that it is makes it harder to make judgments about people.  How old  is the person?  Are they disabled?  What color is their skin?  How much do they weigh?  Are they male or female?   In a real life meeting, these are the first things you learn about someone despite being completely unimportant to most discussions. 

Now there is a negative side. You miss out on certain social cues and body language that is so important to effective communication. Some people like to talk face to face. Since we are talking about my static image, a real life picture really isn’t going to help you much here.  The best it will do is give you a hint as to who I am before you have to find me in a croud.

So while being a white, average, middle aged male would not get ME a second look, I’d at least like to provide some token support to those that would prefer not to be judged by their initial appearance.

Ariel Atom

Most of my career, I’ve had one foot in software development and one foot in engineering. There are some differences between the two. The obvious one is manufacturing where it cost almost nothing to take your software and make a few thousand copies. Contrast this to the huge cost when manufactoring laptops, tires or ships.

On the other hand, product design is very similar in both worlds. Whether you are designing a new piece of software, a tire, a boat or a cell phone, we all have many of the same design issues to think about.  Below are some quotes from the experts that are always good to think about.

Know the user, and you are not the user” – Arnie Lund 

” If the user can’t use it, it doesn’t work” – Susan Dray

” …pay attention to what users do, not what they say” – Jakob Nielsen

” Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works” — Steve Jobs, 2003

” The joy of an early release lasts but a short time. The bitterness of an unusable system lasts for years — unknown

” Bad news travels fast. A dissatisfied shopper tells around 10 other people about the shopper’s bad experience” – Albrecht & Zembre

” ‘Intuitive’ interfaces are easier to build when designers have a deep understanding of the users” – Jared M. Spool

” Customers always know what’s wrong. They can’t always tell you what they want, but they always can tell you what’s wrong” – Carly Fiorina

” Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose” – Charles Eame

Want more quotes? Check out this web page: http://uxquotes.tumblr.com/