The Virtual Whirl: Cornered!

This week, in The Virtual Whirl, we're looking at a major business pitfall, and one which afflicts many virtual environment and MMOG developers/operators at one time or another.

Linden Lab demands respect, but it has forgotten how to command it.

It's not really the fault of any individual, but rather a cultural thing which exists or fails to exist independent of its employees. Respect is earned, and organizations that have it have evolved processes and principles that are endemic and contribute to that acquisition.

How the company does business with others, and quite crucially how it does business within itself forms the foundation on which an organization gains or loses the respect of customers and/or the general public. Those processes are the foundation for corporate culture, and far more important than any espoused values might be. Values are named, but process is what is done.

Thomas Malaby who spent a year analyzing Linden Lab as an ethnographic study – and others since – observed that while the early Linden Lab held the belief that they had little control over Second Life and that that was as it should be, the Lab frequently acted as if the opposite were true.

That dichotomy over a considerable period of time has eroded some of the Lab's cultural underpinnings, driving the corporate persona far from its own perceptions. That's a difficult position to recover from, and the longer that it persists, the harder, longer and more expensive it gets to correct.

Over time the Lab adopted the joint personalities of a disciplinarian and a wholesaler; and those remain the most dominant and identifiable features today; the impersonality of a wholesaler, coupled with the inflexibility of the disciplinarian, beyond the ability of any individual or group of employees to control.

When the Lab asks the users to "work with it", it means that they must accommodate themselves to its wishes. No hint that the Lab might accommodate itself to others ever seems to be present.

The Lab's branding images, colors and instruments convey strong tones of wealth, power and authority; quite at odds with the 'serious-yet-playful mother brand' that the staff seem to consider themselves to project.

Meanwhile customer service (primarily a third-party call center on contract) and communications seems ever more disinterested and generic. Customer issues are met with the bland approach of a wholesaler, rather than a customer-focused organization.

The Lab is positively aflame with evolutionary urges, but the lack of communication about any direction or goal for Second Life might well be indicative that it isn't really all that sure itself where the platform should be going. That leads to picking at symptoms, particularly reaching for the "low-hanging fruit" which may not, in fact, be mindful of any larger, cohesive scheme.

There's no science to shepherding, controlling or regulating a large-scale virtual environment with millions of users. Rather, it is an art – and as with most art, the most necessary thing is a clear picture of the goal. If the Lab has such a goal or a picture of one, it has not communicated it. Even if it does, it is a hard road to travel, as the Lab's personality continues to present an obstacle to growth and customer interaction.

Now you might think that I'm singling out the Lab here, or blaming them for some deficiency on their part, but I'm not. The situation is what it is: a parallel and dynamic evolution between the users of the service who comprise 99 point ninety-nine nines percent of the Second Life user experience, and the Lab who struggles to manage growth, maintain order, and evolve the platform.

The complex interactions and tensions between the Lab and its history, iterative development, and the evolving and changing views, needs and desires of users have effectively maneuvered the Lab into a corner that it was unprepared to occupy and that is simply not a good fit for it. It happens in a lot of industries, but you see it most often in the gaming industry, and in particular in MMOGs.

The lesson here seems to be that if you, the developer/operator do not manage expectations (both internal and external), and drive the platform, it will be driven for you; and eventually you may wind up somewhere you don't want to be and with no option but to go to places that you don't want to go.

Turbine, in the MMOG space, is a prime example of a business that gets this right (though I'm sure a few people would inevitably disagree with me). Their culture is focused on their goals, they deliver on those, manage expectations well and – most importantly – their culture embodies this. Bright, interested, flexible, caring and proud of what they do.

While any individual, regardless of provenance, can (as they say) "turn over a new leaf", and stake out a new persona and outlook for themselves, it's infinitely harder for an organization to do so. The personality of an organization vests at every level, from the interactions between employees to ongoing contact with customers. No sizeable organization can turn on a dime, and to efforts to genuinely reinvent organizational personality can range from traumatic to catastrophic.

It's your company culture at every level – in support of your goals and targets – that keeps you from being painted into a corner. It keeps you flexible, adaptive, communicative and commanding the respect of your customers.

In short, the whole process of iterative development (or indeed, of iterative policy-making) carries risks with it, that long-established developers are well aware of. Choices are founded in the organizational personality and culture, and each carries the risk of limiting available and achievable options to the point where you may well wind up cornered.

If your organization doesn't maintain clear longer-term views and goals, it allows and encourages your users (in turn) to iteratively push you into a position from which you cannot extricate yourself from without becoming their adversary.