10 Business Innovation Tips

Because I'm too lazy/overwhelmed to start an SL marketing blog....

Interesting article on Slashdot this morning on the lessons of product innovation from Blizzard (WoW) which apply to SL businesses (I left off the one that doesn't.)

http://innovation.freedomblogging.com/2008/04/04/11-innovation-lessons-from-creators-of-world-of-warcraft/

1) Rely on critics - don't expect friends or associates to give you honest criticism. Listen to what your customers have to say about your products. When a customer complains about something - pay attention. Spend time in your store and ask customers what they would like to see on the shelves.

2) Use your own products - you can't know how well they perform for your customers if you aren't using them yourself. Wear your own clothing, live in your own houses, use your own furniture.

3) Make continual improvements - learn better photoshop techniques, add scripting to your products, make your instruction notecards clearer. Never stop refining and improving.

4) Go back to the drawing board - start over if the product isn't turning out right rather than keep building over top of a flawed plan.

5) Design for different types of customers - offer variety in colors, styles, prim count.

6) The importance of failures - you can't fix mistakes you don't know about. When you do know about them, fix them ASAP.

7) Move quickly, in pieces - test out new services and products in controlled pilot groups before going right to a full roll-out.

Statistics - track your product sales, know what sells and what doesn't. Especially important in SL, keep customer lists if possible so that you can replace items eaten/damaged by SL and feel confident that you aren't being defrauded.

9) Demand excellence or you'll get mediocrity - as your skills improve with time, either pull your early products or refurbish them to meet higher standards. Don't leave things in your shop that you aren't 100% proud to have your name on.

10) Create a new type of product - just because no one has ever done it before, doesn't mean there isn't a demand.

I think the article really becomes a bit strange at this point, though. MMORPGs had existed and been in demand for years before WoW, and the sale of prepaid cards wasn't really a new idea, either.

And while we're on the topic, here's a really bizarre story from WoW-land: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbwarcraft0406sbapr06,0,6090572.story . A WoW _player_ has initiated a class action lawsuit against a gold seller, arguing that it causes economic harm to non-gold-buying/selling players by lowering the value of their subscriptions. It boggles the imagination to think what could happen if someone did the same for SL. (Although it would be unlikely to be for selling Lindens - unless they could predate the lawsuit to 2005 - it could certainly apply to the use of camp bots, for example.)

Interesting article, thanks for the link!

Those are all good points, but I have to say those would also apply in any business, Real World or Virtual. I don't see anything that's specific to virtual worlds only. Still thanks for the post.

Interesting article but its sort of null point for me if I can't even find people to give away free products too without spending more money then I have already spent.