Most obvious thing in the world: I get a lot of questions about what I'm doing at work! Okay, okay, I'm a heavy blogger, so that's conducive with me sharing more. I earlier thought I'd outline some of my projects on my Public Wiki page, but communication has gotta fit the medium, and since it's happening a very chronological, spontaneous fashion, I shallth blog. I can always condense more important bits later, do a FAQ, whateva. I know peeps who're truely interested will come to look and keep up — that's positive friction, baby!

All work-related posts here are appropriately tagged and placed in the "Work" category.

First, is there a term for this? You speak to several people separately, each claiming a thorny problem (e.g., landbots, griefing, changing last names) has an easy solution. They talk very boldly, but when you put them in the same room (in Second Life, this is easy) and ask them to agree, they can't. Similar case with many emails I get claiming miracle cures for problems that've plagued the Grid for ages; good intentions perhaps, but poor followthrough. There's a lot of noise there, and it necessitates being terse: if we're to scrutinize the quality of info we've got coming in, with the limited amount of time and resources we have, we'd better zoom in on the most valuable points and don't dick around. Bug reports should have solid repros, not just "I NEED HELP!" because we know and sympathize, but nothing new doesn't help. I've run into just about every possible variation, and very little raises my eyebrows now, so fresh insights are what's most valuable to me.

Be your own human spam filter and get to the good stuff. It's why I'm so relaxedly relentless about my inworld travels: if I were to stop moving, I'd be a lazyass. You don't want that.

^ Office hour this morn, thanx each and everyone who came to that and the later 2 PM one, which made me really hope we get the watchlist working on the Public Issue Tracker. It chafes me, and I asked Rob Linden some weeks about this, because: internally, we use a fundamentally-similar JIRA system, where we can subscribe to issues and watch them for changes. That is a killer thing I wanted to have on the Feature Voting Tool, which is really lolling on the desert floor with its eyes glazed and tongue out. Alas, there's a bug with the email autopopulation — WEB-58 — so it doesn't work now. But because we get so many requests from Resis to inform them of when issues are fixed, having a personalized system where you decide what you want to be notified of is best. Like, I know folks who don't give a damn (or understand) how important it is to fix that annoying gap in the horizon, but from a marketing and glamour photography perspective, it really means a lot. Or annoying building bugs not ranking highly with some scripters, and so on.

Next, you should know in addition to being on the Community Team led by Robin Linden, I "represent the customer" in a development group called Studio Blacklight, headed by Don Linden. Since Linden Lab is growing so much, there are several dev studios, each one with a specific area of focus, each consisting of a core team of engineers, and P*Managers (The "*" could be Program +Project + Product) to channel info from within and outside the company. So yes, that means my title may be shifting from "Community Developer of Communications" to "Product Manager"-something, but I do love that word, "community". You may've seen Bridie Linden inworld; she's new and on our team to P*Manage, so give her a friendly greeting! Blacklight concentrates on critical Resident pain points, like content loss. And we all HATE lost inventory. We're also working on things like better grid metrics so we can track teleport failures (and we all HATE failed TPs!), virtual memory bloat crapping simulator performance, and shorter-term items like making "Mute" buttons more consistent across inventory item types —

yeah, seriously, have you ever wondered why if someone gives you clothes, you see a "Mute" button on the blue dialog box, but there's none when you get spammed notecards? So that looks like a big win for little effort, aka "low-hanging fruit" (a term I first picked up from Andrew Linden).

So here, I anticipate bringing up those and other sorts of things I'm directly involved in. Obligatory disclaimer that this ain't a support channel, so I can't help you here — you'll want the official Linden Lab Support page — but I'd be more than happy to reply to the eclectic and glaring oversights. =)

I also plan to go through my email, which went from a wading pool in my early days to the torrential flood of the present, to voice how I think + feel about popular, hot issues. I can't reply personally to all the 'mail I get due to lack of time (which I used to laugh about as a child — not so anymore!), so I'll pick off sweet points to address here. Especially ones relating to the aforementioned and the usability side, which is something I'm involved in with Benjamin Linden and others — the Resident eXperience continues to be a top priority to me. When we're scaling and working extensively on stability (as we are now), the aesthetics and day-to-day functionality don't get so much attention, but they can't be forgotten either, because cumulatively, those sorts of bugs, even small ones, add up to what I term "ambient suffering" — you exist in a plague of annoyances so long that your mind starts to warp that this is how it's always gonna be. But really, that's losing hope. And THAT BLOWS. Look upwards!

For example, did you notice that after soooo long, we finally have a clear indicator of how to partner in our profiles? Before, it was just a blank slot, but Karl Linden added a "?" tooltip with a website link. So while partnerships aren't yet entirely done inworld (they require email confirmation), this fills in a big gaping hole. And to those who go "Who cares?", I do — I remember the outcries, plural, on the Official Linden Blog. I talked with so many people who are in love and upset they couldn't be partnered. I never wanna underestimate the human element in this. And again, when I see those generic "Who cares?", it reeks of apathy and selfishness, because I'm a person who seeks others' needs first, who transcends all the social circles and huddled niches in Second Life — I'm not just interested in a single group or even a few, but looking how it all these trees make up the forest of Second Life, the diverse ecosystem, and also sharpsight for better bridges between 'em. I hang out with furries (I'm one!), I get bug repros from Goreans (can't claim to be one but I want a Priest-King av, heck ya!), and find my way through all manner of demographics. And still, I wish I hung out in Welcome Areas/Infohubs (synonyms) as much as I did. Yet I can't, because there is much work to do. In a job like mine, you can't be myopic about who you get your info from — as long as it's useful, and preferably, delivered nicely, you can run with it.

HERE, RELAX WITH SOME NICE SUNSET + TRANSPARENT SHINY:

Ahhhhhhhh.

Also, I'm known for hitting on what often gets missed: a lot of the "big stories" get well-covered by SL's many bloggers. But there are a lot of other lovely stories not having lights shown on them, and that directly relates to my vocation. For example, I have an active interest in improving visual quality inworld (that ties into the daily experience!), which is why I'm supportive of increasing your snapshot knowledge. You can find me hanging out on the Flickr Second Life group, and regularly commenting across the SLogosphere with pointers to my Video Tutorials (aye, it's why I made 'em!) and being attentive to great ideas.

You don't kick a baby in the head for not learning how to walk on Day 4; same with me and Second Life. Grid issues are like a baby puking or crapping all over diapers, but again, you don't slap your child — that's abuse. And I'm not so much referring to Second Life as a L$-earning business (we all know dat, redundant!), but the humanity that comes with this job, and how "being professional" also means being a nice person. There's a reason why the phrase is "happy customer", after all. But at the same time, with the oft-cited "growing pains", it's not so much the big leaps forward by themselves that excite me, as it is all the steps it took to get there. Seeing fixes and features move from rough sketch, to more fleshed-out outline, to coded implementation, to being on the Live Grid after it's been quality-assured, is gregariously exhilarating. And to understand more of the background behind it, like why it was suggested in the first place, and the historical context that was already discussed, places a human face on how things come to be, which can't be shared in a straightforward release notes. There's adjoining cultural aspects to it too, which is why SL is already rife with in-jokes which you totally won't get if you're not a Resident. And if you are, I say thanxies for being with us, with me. *waves and smiles* It's already been quite a ride! And if you've never been in Second Life all this sounds mildly and/or wildly interesting to you, I hope my passion helps energize you to come and join us!