Frankly, LL, we don't give a damn?

I had planned on going. Southwest had cheap fares from my locale and I found the host hotel was cheaper if I went through an online hotel reservation service. And then I realized it was in Tampa during hurricane season. I've had too many bad experiences in Florida during the same time of year.

I would have been interested in the business-building parts of it, but with business not building in SL right now, I began to doubt if they had the answers to the problems.

Why did everyone else not go?

It was horribly under promoted. Did LL/the sponsors send any of you a promo piece in-world? Did they send you a promotional email?

There really aren't 60,000 unique individuals in SL at peak times. I'd hate to know how many of them are bots. I also think turnover is even worse than it used to be. I've met a number of newbs with plenty of creative talent and excitement about SL who simply fade away after a month.

Even if the numbers were accurate, a lot of people just don't want the crossover. I with those who have said they wouldn't go if it were in their backyard. Just not interested.

The half of the attendance that were missing . . . . . . was trying to log in to find out when SLCC was.


Login Failed. Despite our best efforts . . . yada yada yada

Since SL is an online virtual world, I can't imagine many residents being interested in RL conventions. Those who are, are probably tekkies involved in hardware, software. programs etc. - people involved in the RL/SL interface.

Personally, I do care about LL and I think they do a pretty good job for us.

Nope, there was no email, only the splash screen thing and a hidden mention on the blog. Not even a sub-forum to discuss it. LL has promoted Burning Life more than it promoted SLCC. Now to be honest, they may have figured that it would be low attendance this year, due to the price of gas.

But reading that article made me wonder if they were gearing it more towards the companies in SL rather than the users. That would explain their choice of location. Although it defeats the purpose of calling it Second Life Community Convention, if that's the case.

Either way, you only get as much out of something as the effort you put into it.

/me concurs 100% on everything Raudf wrote. From living in Arkansas on down. Wewt! another Arkansan on SL!!

Personally I would have loved to have gone. I've seen pictures and I'm green that I couldn't afford to go. Maybe next year. Maybe they'll hold it in Dallas and I can drive.

A lot of what I had been told would agree with that. More a time to show off to companies/educators/investors. A "PR opportunity."

I have to say for me.

1. I live in the UK - too far to go
2. WE HAVE A WHOLE VIRTUAL WORLD TO HAVE THE CONFERENCE IN!!!!!!!!!!

I would have DEFFO attended one INSIDE second life - and would have probably participated if required.

To me an RL conference about SL is a bit like owning a car and pushing it down the road rather than driving it.

1. The reality of people's lives, appearances and circumstances have in general diverged so much from the BS they tell even close friends in SL, that not many are in a position to come out.

2. Con-currency is right. We should all actually join LL in sanctifying Phil as the saviour of SL.

3. RL economic conditions make travel prohibitively expensive. Also, my superviser down at the local supermarket won't give me the time off. As he says, those trolleys aren't going to collect themselves.

4. Virtual worlds are yesterday's toy, nobody cares about them anymore. Except for the small minority for whom the motto "Those who can, do. Those who can't, pretend they can in SL", is applicable.

5. SL is washed up, the new leader in virtual worlds will be: anyone with so little business acumen as to watch LL's floundering business model and say "mmm.. this time next year we could be millionaires".

6. Pie... and lots of it!

pie-boring

Not if you put zero effort into something.


Then you get at least zilch out of it.

Hell yeah we did! It sat on top of AR and rained for 3 fecking days! Sideways! And winds blew down the trees on the power lines. It sucked.

I bet that LL feels that the big inworld gatherings they host ... the birthday parties, burning life, opening of Bay City, Bureau of Public Works, etc. are their inworld conferences. Now that they have voice, their own need for RL conferences to get feedback from residents is less as well. Also, they probably agree with you that if seminars about building inworld businesses, etc., get fewer than 40 attendees, they can be done inworld.

However, in my experience any group of people who are working on something together will benefit from occasional face-to-face meetings. So, I think SLCC and the like are probably valuable for those who are engaged in inworld "working" partnerships.

I agree with Des and others -- there is nothing stopping mutual-interest groups from organizing their own RL get-togethers. For LL's sake, I hope this is what is happening, and that SLCC dwindling does not indicate a dwindling of strong interest in SL (with corresponding dwindling of resident retention).
.

Important note to the above.

The SL Birthday party was intended as a community driven event; LL sort of took it over even though it is still called a "community" event. You'll note that it is still run by residents – even if this last year LLs hand was very much in the pie. The same could be said of Burning Life, Winter Festival, and the SL Day of Remembrance. They're community made, but LL has a less-than-invisible hand in the affairs and presentations. It would see the same is true of SLCC nowadays as well, meaning there really is not a wholly by-and-for the community event. With SL5B and SLCC in particular, it seemed that LL's goal was to make the events into showcases for first life businesses and educators to see what SL is all about, with a veneer of "community" on the top.

I'm trying to avoid a judgement call on this. It is no secret that SL5B was, shall we say, challenging for yours truly. Nevertheless, it is what it is.

There was no "opening of Bay City" event beyond a really cool parade organized by residents. Frankly, it would have been kinda cool to have a "ribbon cutting ceremony" and all that. The Linden Department of Public Works, likewise, is not an event but a work group that consists of residents directed by LL staff members.

I would rather see a SL6B that belongs to the community. This is what I like about the "Fringe Festival" idea. Likewise, I would love to see an SLCC that was more about the community than what I experienced two years ago.

Mari

We all know the drill, both for organizations and individuals. When the economy tightens up travel and conventions are the first to get axed. Without a very compelling educational program and top speakers across the board, it's very hard to justify the expense. I produced a large state association annual meeting in the early 90's with 4,500 attendance and we faced declining attendance each year...even with compelling content.

I wouldn't read anything into the attendance. I certainly wouldn't read anything into how LL and SL are doing relative to attendance.

Hmmm, purchase a region for $1,000 or spend a $1,000 to travel to a conference...that's a no-brainer...especially if I take the strategic view of LL and SL.

While attendance to the actual SLCC may have been down, I know that a lot of people went to Tampa but didn't resister for SLCC. I would guess that there were at least 300-400 people that went but didn't care about the SLEDcc that was the majority of the tracks.

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened though. They put zilch into it for the residents and then got less than that

Oh? Just who do you think attends BotCon?



Joke.


There IS in fact a BotCon, but it's for Transformer fans. Me numbered among them.

It was on the splash screen....the day before the event. Nice planning *rolls eyes*

Yeah, but that was for SLCC 2007........

As Dnate touched on, there were a lot of people who decided not to register for the Convention, but came to Tampa - a whole lot. There we well over 800 people there for the weekend, I'm sure.

I had a great time, and think the organizers did a bang up job.

As usual, I'm seeing a lot of "if it were here... I would have gone!" That's why we decided early on to move SLCC around - to give everyone a chance who wanted to attend to come and see what it was all about. We've also grown from the initial concept of, "Let's get people together for drinks in conjunction with State of Play III" to a much larger endeavor. It is entirely run by un-paid volunteers.

There's a little bit of truth in everything everyone has said: hurricanes, the big buzz of early 2007 is over, smaller city, the economy... I don't think you can put your finger on one reason.

Still, I love the fan-con feel much more than the "serious business" feel of a lot of other conferences I've been to, and still think it is the best party of the year.

Regards,

-Flip

So I'm guessing you aren't volunteering to be an official...

I sent my alt and 20 bots

I will pass the offer up this time However i do understand what you are saying as i used to organize events for our Judo Club and also at County level, month in month out and i remember my last event i had to arrange was a week long Judo school, with our then Olympic team, having to arrange the flights, hotels as well as all the entertainment and scheduling with a team of 8 people to run a school of over 200 for a week. It is hard work and i applaud the team that does it year in year out in the US for the convention.

I love my SL but apart from a few people that I have met from the game and my lovely now RL wife i met here i will keep my SL, SL unless it involves my RL business which we have ported into SL

I was at SLCC and I was a bit disappointed. I go to 2-3 conferences a year, and SLCC was kind of weak in comparison. I realize it is a volunteer-run operation and I applaud the organizers for the hard work they put into it, but overall there just was not much content.
I attended business track meetings, and took away absolutely nothing. Some of the sessions were not much more than introduction of panel members and then moving to open Q & A. Not a lot of hard-hitting questions in any of those either. No questions? OK, session is over. Just as well, since it started an hour late anyway. And lets not forget the malfunctioning projectors and microphones, always a sensory treat.
The education track was the biggest part of the whole thing. I did not sit in on many of the SLED sessions but it appeared that they did get the big room and the projectors that worked. I talked with a few educators, they seemed for the most part to be relatively new to SL and not particularly interested in becoming deeply immersed but rather looking for a cutting-edge training tool. And for people to build their new islands.
I was not expecting much to begin with. The real reason I went was that I live an easy, 20-minute drive from the hotel. I did get my picture taken with Phillip, which I had set as my personal goal for the event. It was nice to meet some of the names I see here in the forums.
I did not attend any of the evening festivities. I am a little older than most of the attendees, haven't been able to drink alcohol for 5 years and don't do too well at flirting any more. But I think everyone had a good time, judging by the fact that about a dozen people showed up for sunday morning breakfast.
Glad I went, but you can count me out for 2009.