katt-linden
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Linden Lab arrivals and departures
The lineup of staff at Second Life virtual environment developer/operator, Linden Lab changes on a month by month basis. There's been a bit of motion since the last high-profile hire. Judy Wade, formerly Entrepreneur-in-residence at Kapor Enterprises Inc, has been hired as the vice president of Strategy and Emerging Business. That's the same Kapor as Mitch Kapor who has a seat on the board of directors as the Lab. Eric Argel, formerly director of Information Architecture at Organic Inc San Francisco, is now director of Information Architecture at Linden Lab. That's the same Organic Inc where newly minted Linden Lab CEO, Mark Kingdon came from.
Linden Lab staff gagged? Unable to post to official blog
If you've noticed a distinct dearth of postings on the Second Life blog lately, it's with good cause. There has been hardly anything on this most visible of Linden Lab communication channels. Even a recent announcement by Katt Linden, Linden Lab's communications manager had to go sideways. A post on the Second Life wiki, and a note in the message-of-the-day to go search for it in there -- by yesterday, it was also posted to the Second Life education blog. Torley Linden in turn apparently was not able to get his Video Tip of the Week onto the official blog either, instead posting it to his personal blog, with an apology for both it and the Knowledge Base Article of the Week. 'Linden Lab,' he says, 'is undergoing changes in communication policy', but is unable to say what, when, why or how long. Time-critical announcements, innocuous routine customer-oriented tutorials and information, and changed policies regarding gambling -- all not being posted as they normally would. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
What Second Life means to me
Linden Lab is putting together (but has not yet formally announced) a Second Life promotional video to be shown at this year's Second Life Community Convention (SLCC08) in Tampa Florida, 5-7 September. Linden Lab is looking for up to ten images, and up to 250 words on the topic, with permission for use assigned to Linden Lab and SLCC. Linden Lab hasn't announced this yet, but we've been watching the development of the announcement on the Second Life wiki for the last couple of days now. We're guessing that the actual proper announcement still has to be crawled over by the PR people with microscopes before they dare show it on the official blog -- but we've got the real meat of it here. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Inside The Lab podcast on education
The latest Inside Linden Lab podcast is out from Linden Lab (although this one is called Inside The Lab instead of the usual name -- perhaps an oversight). Unfortunately, the audio quality of this podcast is quite poor and it is difficult to listen to, and some of the speech feels as if it might have been cut a bit tightly together. This time around, the topic is education. If you're at all involved in education in Second Life there's not really anything that you won't have heard before, though there's some meat here if you're interested but haven't done your research. The participants this time around are Pathfinder Linden and Claudia Linden. Katt Linden sounds a little over-scripted, but this is her first time around - Catherine sounded a little awkward too on her first cast. The MP3 is 17.43MB and is hosted on Amazon's S3 service. Get it here.
Katt Linden steps into the firing line
Linden Lab's new Communications Manager, Katt Linden, has stepped out into the public gaze, and responses are (as you might well expect) mixed. Whether any given complaint is justified or not there's plenty pent up waiting for Katt to listen to. While there have generally been multiple channels to communicate with Linden Lab, the preference for complaints has always been the channel that is perceived as most public. Griping, like justice, must apparently not only be done, but must be seen to be done. With Katt's role being in large part to gather user commentary and to distill it down for the rest of Linden Lab, well, we hope she's got a strong stomach and a steely nerve. It can get pretty rough out there on the firing line.
Linden Lab hires Resident Communications Manager
In a search lasting nearly 12 months, Linden Lab has finally hired a Communications Manager. Linden Lab originally announced the search for a Second Life Resident Communications Manager in early May 2007, but the blog posting announcing the position was silently removed some months later. You would hardly know the position had been filled, if you weren't reading closely.
