Q & A

Alex: Thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Erde: Just glad we could find a time and place that worked for both of us. It seems that either one or the other of us is usually asleep or off doing something.

Alex: Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s crazy. OK, to start off with, where should I be looking for stuff: on the blog? In the in-world group? On Facebook?

Erde: I try to make sure things show up in all three. Certainly, the blog-posts are automatically put into Facebook. But the blog is the place where official announcements are made.

Alex: Where are we on the schedule? What’s going on?

Erde: We are on week 6. At this point, I was hoping that we would have some building under the belt, and maybe be getting started with scripting, but we’ve done a couple of visits (and another today), and that’s introduced some particular disruptions. So, we are off schedule a bit.

Alex: What about the readings?

Erde: Well, my thought is that getting up to speed with acting in the world is the primary aim, and so that has taken priority. That said, I do want to hit on the Hemp piece, for sure, and talk a bit about branding more broadly. To that end, I’ve posted a new round-up of the schedule here on the blog. That schedule is pretty solid at this point.

Alex: OK, readings aside, we’re all a bit anxious about the final project. What’s up with that?

Erde: Sure. As noted, we will address that at the midpoint of the semester, which is officially in a week, but we’ll be getting started on it today.

The basic idea is that in groups of 1 to 10, I expect folks to be creating projects in Second Life that provide a campaign for a product or idea. That’s very broad, so I’ve sketched an outline of the process here.

Alex: So, I can work alone?! Oh, that rules! I hate other people.

Erde: Brother, I hear that. I mean you’re cool and all, and I think we work well together, but these other yahoos.

Alex: No, it’s not that, it’s just that the costs of coordinating group work outweigh the benefits sometimes. That, and I want to avoid free-riders. Anyway, really glad I can work alone. What’s the catch?

Erde: The catch? Only that no matter what the size of the group is I will have the same expectations of the final product: that it produces some measurable change in the target audience. So if we have a “group” of 1 and a group of 6, the six might have a real advantage in terms of scope. That’s especially true if a large part of the campaign involves personal interaction or an event.

Alex: Oh, so it’s like Ikea instructions: “For this step you must be two people.”

Erde: Something like that, yes. Although I think we may have lost the audience with an in-joke that only the two of us recognize from an Ikea assembly instructions page from the mid-1980s.

Alex: Oops. Now, what’s up with the blogging? I’m blogging, of course, because that’s how I roll. But I need to know what your expectations are there.

Erde: I’m thinking of it as a virtual diary and field notebook. So, I’m looking for observations about your experiences inworld, your conversations, your problems, your interactions. Like any field notebook, I expect to see overheard conversations and snapshots. And some of the participants in the seminar are good about sending me emails/IMs about interesting stuff, but not blogging it. They should blog it…

Alex: But in the syllabus, it says, and I quote “I will distribute a topic, activity, or question” each week. I’m waiting.

Erde: It says that? Oh. Well, I’ve missed a week, but at the end of each class, you’ve had something you’re supposed to be doing in prep. This week it was building the set. You should have a blog post up about what you have been doing to that end. When I don’t see a post about it, I assume the answer is “nothing”–whether or not that is the case. As you can see in the updated schedule, I’ve been more explicit in what I expect each week. If I expect you to keep up with the blogging and I’m not, our heads may asplode with hypocrisy.

As we move forward, I’ll expect daily updates on your progress toward your final project.

Alex: Daily!? OMG! NFW! YGTBK!

Erde: Are you OK? Did you just fall on your keyboard? OK, not daily, but at least once a week. Short of spying on you, which isn’t as easy as it might appear, I don’t have a good way of knowing what you are working on if you don’t report it.

Alex: I have an awesome headset; why aren’t we using it?

Erde: I’ve used voice for meetings in-world before, but the truth is both of our attempts have yielded annoyingly bad results. Some of that is being in the same room (for many of us) and getting the delay involved. We could try Skype, or one of the other options, for better sound, but that doesn’t solve the echo issues. I’ll happily go to voice for our group meetings moving forward.

Alex: Group meetings?

Erde: Yep. If you look at the schedule, starting with week 8 (10/18), you’ll be meeting in your final project groups each week. Most weeks, it will be in addition to our (foreshortened) class meetings, but some weeks it will be just those short meetings. Most of these weeks, I’ll ask to meet with each group for a few minute to see how things are going.

Alex: But isn’t that what the blogs are for?

Erde: Sure, but sometimes more interactive communication is worthwhile. Otherwise we would be offering an MS in Blogs. Ha. I crack myself up.

Alex: Lolz. You crack me up too. But if that’s the case, why can’t we just meet in person. I mean, after all, most of us are already in the same room.

Erde: If you look at the schedule, you will see that I’m asking you to be there a couple of times (Week 9 & 15) to do RL presentations. I’m happy to meet with the groups in person if you prefer, especially if we are meeting during class-time.

Alex: What about this whole machinima thing. What does that have to do with our final project?

Erde: It need not have anything to do with it, although some of you have suggested it could feed into it, and that’s great. Some of you may want to do a more full-blown machinima project for the final project, and that too is great. But this is the last of the “getting to know SL” projects?

Alex: What about our scripting project? Or making clothing? Or voice-changing? Or overriding gestures? Or Gorean ethnography?

Erde: We’ll be touching on scripting, and some of the other bits as well, but not as substantial projects. For example, you will see that during week 9, we’ll be doing a little light scripting, but that will be limited to class. Of course, you may need to pick up those skills for your final project.

Alex: OK, I have more questions, but I can’t think of what they are right now.

Erde: That’s fine, just comment below.

Alex: Oh, OK. Thanks answering all these questions.

Erde: Always a pleasure to chat with someone so charming and handsome.

Alex: Why, thanks! Likewise.

Final Project Guidelines

Overview

The final project in the course is to develop a campaign around a particular product, service, brand, or idea. This may be a new product in Second Life, it may be a new product or brand available both inside and outside Second Life, or you may partner with a company or organization outside of second life who is interested in marketing themselves in-world. Because Second Life combines communication with virtual objects, the variety of paths through which you publicize this brand is fairly open. In practice, you should plan on using all the tools at your disposal. There are a wide range of possibilities: word-of-mouth marketing, promotional communications, promotional items, promotional events, games, building brand culture, contests, in world video and audio, and “crossover” events and objects that are related to both the real world and the virtual world.

Your product need not have a real-world analogue. If you prefer to create a product that is only available in the world itself, that is fine.

The success of your project is related to how it is received by non-classmembers in Second Life. From the very beginning, you should be thinking about how to recruit testers, and how to publicize your brand or project. Ultimately, my evaluation of the success of your project will be closely tied to (a) how well you meet your own objectives spelled out in your proposal, and (b) the buzz generated by your final product.

I am flexible and open to ideas that may test the boundaries of this broad aim, but be sure to talk to me early and often about the nature of such projects, to make sure you do not hit a dead end.

You should work in teams of 1-10 (note that this is a departure from the syllabus that required–at a minimum–pairs). You should make sure everyone in your group has a substantial piece of the work. Divorces are especially messy, so take time to maintain esprit de corps.

Important Dates

10/25 – Presentation of proposal

12/6 – Presentation of final project

Evaluation

As noted above, I will judge the project on a number of criteria. First, about a quarter of the grade on the project will be based on the proposal and its presentation and defense on 10/25. The degree to which this proposal is complete, realistic, and well-researched will have the greatest influence on the success of your final project, and so it is important that it is as solid as possible at this stage. A description of what is expected in that proposal follows.

When the project is complete, I will be looking to see how well you have accomplished what you set out to do in the proposal. In all, I am looking for a level of professionalism in the design work, whether that is building, preparations for an event, or other materials. Keep it simple, clean, and make sure it all works to the benefit of your brand.

I will want to see that you have tested your material against a set of outside “users” that are part of the target audience. You should plan to record these tests in some way, and make any necessary adjustments to your project.

Finally, by the end of the semester, your project should be opened to the public in Second Life. The degree to which you attract an audience, and that audience takes a favorable attitude toward your brand/idea/etc. will influence the evaluation of your work. You should have in place a plan for measuring this impact.

Proposal

The proposal is, in essence, both a planning document and a sales document. Your proposal should make the compelling case that you have an idea of how to increase the recognition of your brand, and positive affect toward it. If you have a client, this should be the plan you present to the client. Otherwise, assume that I am your client, along with your classmates. You need make me willing to trust you with the image of the brand, and provide me with assurances that you can accomplish something impressive in the short amount of time we have.

At a minimum, your proposal should include:

A clear description of what you hope to accomplish through the project. For example, if you are selling a new energy drink, Blue Bill, you might want to increase name recognition of the product among young drinkers of similar products, and associate it with mellow coolness and confidence.

Who is your audience? What are they like? Are you talking about a psychographic in Second Life, or the people behind the avatars?

An outline of the tools used to communicate your message. For example, you might want to create a Blue Bill can in-world that, when held, causes avatars to glow a bit blue, and walk in a much cooler way. You might skin a motorcycle with the Blue Bill logo, and have Tom Waits do an in-world concert for Blue Bill. At the event, you would have a Blue Bill stage, with free Blue Bill leather jackets (blue, of course) as prizes for those who create the best Blue Bill dance moves. Do not over-promise at this stage–If Tom Waits isn’t going to show, don’t promise him. You might want to do a “conservative” plan, and leave room for more exciting features.

You should provide some form of benchmarking. What are your competitors doing? It turns out Red Bull is participating in an extreme sports Drop Zone, which meshes well with their intended image. Assuming you are targeting a similar demo, would your approach draw well? Are there others who have done scripted cans? Dance contests? How have these worked.

There should be a rough schedule with weekly milestones. You need not go over the top with a PERK chart or anything–unless you think it is appropriate. Simply providing a set of milestones that need to be completed each week, and a rough indication of who will be responsible for these, is enough.

A project is not finished until you have tested how an audience might react to it. Present a plan for how you will test it. How will you recruit subjects? What will the protocol be? Will you walk people through your stage, let them try out your scripted can, and then do a focus group? If so, you need to remember to work the recruitment into your schedule, as well as the development of a more complete set of questions for the focus group.

Of course, the entire project is publicity-driven, but how will you let the greater public know about what you have done. If you build it, they will not come. There are some obvious things here, like listing it in the classifieds or in the event directory. But you need to think about who can drive attention your way, and how you will influence those people to get you the traffic (of people, of mentions, etc.) that you need. This might not be exclusive to Second Life–a widely viewed video on YouTube, for example, may draw people to your brand.

Finally, how will you measure your impact. You do not (necessarily) need to mount a survey and send avatars out with clip-boards, but you should have some metric in mind for success. For example, you might want at least 100 avatars to be carrying your can by the end of the first week. Or, you might be happy with a mention in some of the online news outlets. In other words: how do you know if your project has succeeded.

The proposal itself should run no longer than about 1400 words (about as long as this blog post). Shorter is fine. It should show up on the project-leader’s blog. If appropriate, make good use of images, hyperlinks, and SLURLs.

You should prepare a 15-minute presentation of your proposal. It should not be extemporaneous–you should have a clear set of points you are attempting to deliver. You are welcome to use visuals. Please do not have bullets on those slides. Think about keeping words to a minimum, and using them to emphasize your ideas, rather than distract from them. Present like Steve, not Bill.

Questions

Ask lots of questions, either below, in person or elsewhere!

Machinima Assignment

This is a multi-part assignment. The end product should be a short (< 2 minutes) short film of your choice, shot in second life. The topic may be fiction (a short skit), or non fiction (a news report, etc.). It must make use of a customized set, and must be made available on YouTube–or the sharing site of your choice.

Part 1 – Sets & Script

Due by midnight on Saturday, October 7 (to give you some class time to do some final work on it).

While multiple scenes may be shot elsewhere in SL, at least one of these scenes should be shot “on set,” on a set that you have designed especially for the purposes of this activity. You should set aside some space (and the land we meet on is fine for this), to create the place you will be interacting. Like any set, it only needs to look good from the angle you will be shooting. Think of this not as building a real edifice, but creating something that, when shot from the various angles you will be using, will look appropriate. For example, a news set might include somewhere for the avatars to sit, a desk, and a backdrop, but it need only look good from the angle of the camera.

You are welcome to spend up to $L1000 on materials for the set, but you can’t subcontract on this one. The work should be your own. (In other words, you can buy chairs, videos, textures, etc., but must assemble them yourselves.)

Before we meet on Thursday (October 4), you should post a progress report with each participant indicating what you have done so far. No free riders, please… everyone should contribute to the project. If you have mid-build snapshots, all the better.

By the Saturday deadline, each person should update on progress, and the team leaders (Mogue & Naimya) should post snapshots of the final set (and a SLurl, if it’s not on my land). The group leader should also post the final version of the script, which should include brief descriptions of the shots, as well as what any actors / voiceover will say.

Part 2 – Video

Deadline: Thursday, October 11, by class time.

Shoot your video, capturing it to a movie file. (A quick screencast showing how to accomplish this will follow shortly, along with links to more resources.) Edit this in your editor of choice, and post to your video sharing site of choice (e.g., YouTube).

I’m looking for something that is engaging, and makes good use of the SL environment. I don’t expect it to be perfect. If you are ambitious, I hope you will consider using gestures to provide speech-like behavior on your avatars, but this is absolutely optional. You can make for a compelling machinima with out it. Story matters as much as execution, so make sure that in your short film, you are telling a story that makes sense. Make use of titles or voiceover, if you like, to make sure that it keeps the viewer interested, surprises her, and affects the way she thinks or feels.

Alternative Blogging & Class Meeting?

If you would prefer to, you may attend and write about one of the sessions at the free Dr. Dobb’s Life 2.0 conference. They are doing a boot camp right now (as I speak) focussed mainly on scripting, and there are some really interesting talks (including some discussion of the Open Grid) over the next few days.

How do folks feel about meeting there to attend the talk during our class time this Thursday. There are two talks being given:

NOON – 1:00 PM SLT	EOLUS McMillan – EOLUS island is the most advanced experiment in SL-to-RL integration yet, comprising a 3D user interface to environmental control, ERP, v-commerce and other applications. Hear its chief architect describe the technologies and techniques, and join us later at 3:30 PM for a guided tour of EOLUS Island.
METAVERSE METRICS AND ANALYTICS
1:00 – 2:00 PM SLT	Hackshaven Harford (MayaRealities) – As head of NOAA’s metaverse efforts, and prime mover behind a cross-disciplinary cooperative of government science and educational organizations in Second Life, Hackshaven Harford is a sophisticated consumer of metrics data. Now, as principal of MayaRealities, he’s a metrics service provider as well.
2:00 – 2:30 PM SLT	Jay Clarke, IBM – One of the chief architects of IBM CodeStation shares some of what he’s learned about creating developer communities in the metaverse.
TOURS (meet in amphitheatre)
2:30 – 3:30 PM SLT	TOUR: IBM – We’ll visit CodeStation and other developer resources across the IBM archipelago

I’m sure if we are a little late to the first one, it’ll be OK. Not sure the last one is necessarily as much of interest, but it might be…

What do you think? If we do this, we’d put off our discussion on demographics until the following week…

UPDATE: OK, looks like the consensus is to attend (with some dissenters). Let’s meet at 3:30 at the usual spot, we’ll talk a little about your experiences with building and some other odds & ends, then we’ll head over for the NOAA talk and the IBM talk, then regroup to debrief a bit. -A

Week 4 Assignment: Demographics and Chairs

1. READ Castranova and SL chapters.

2. BLOG about who is on SL and what you think they want. Chat with some users and try to figure it out.

3. BUILD a piece of furniture, of your choice. Does not have to be beautiful. Something sit-able would be good. Blog about the process, and bring the item for show-and-tell on Thursday.

Week 3 Assignment: SL Business Tourguide

The text for the class provides some suggestions for places to visit. Let’s develop our own set, but with a slightly different purpose. Let’s take a look at exemplars of good branding “locations” in Second Life. Last class we visited one: a spot meant to promote the “Transformers” movie–but this is just one of many examples. Use in-world and out-of-world search to find companies who have turned to SL to market the image of their Real World products and services. (That is, we aren’t looking for companies that sell only or primarily in Second Life.)

Tour some of these possibilities, and pick one that you think has created the best experience for image management. Tell us what you think they are doing that works well, and how those best practices could be generalized to be put into effect for other branding efforts. By the end, we should collectively have a group of exemplars, and a collective set of advice for a company wanting to set up an experience in SL.

You should provide the following in your blog post (by Tuesday!):

1. The location you visited. In

2. At least one picture of the spot taken in-world.

3. A brief summary of your experience touring the location.

4. An indication of what makes this your top pick.

5. What lessons can be learned from this and applied to other branding efforts in SL.

Andy noted that the pictures you take in-world are saved on your computer as BMPs. If you have Photoshop, or another piece of photo editing software, translating these into a web format (PNG, GIF) is not difficult. You can also use flickr, I believe. There are a lot of utilities you can download for free that will do this for you, and there are many (e.g., Zamar).

Any questions? Post them below.