Introducing Judy Linden

Hi Everybody,

I wanted to introduce myself, Judy Wade, or Judy Linden inworld. I’m the new VP of Strategy and Emerging Business. Inworld I look a bit like a green sea fairy, which is what I always wanted to be when I was 6. Little did I know that I’d be able to carry out that wish in my professional life oh so many years later!

I’ve actually been working with Linden since last April, essentially on a borrowed basis from Kapor Enterprises, Mitch Kapor’s investment fund. I came on board to help with the CEO transition from Philip to Mark, and stayed on to help the company with strategic planning.

I started my career at Hambrecht & Quist as a semiconductor analyst, and then spent most of the rest of it at McKinsey & Company, working in New York, South Africa, and San Francisco, for a lot of different kinds of companies– from mines in Colombia to Internet start-ups in South Africa to technology behemoths here in the U.S. I’ve always tried to spend a chunk of my time working in the non-profit space, and have a passion for education and economic development, as well as for Cal specifically, where I spent my college years.

But I’ve never worked with or for a company with such passionate ‘customers’, such amazing opportunities, or one my dad would instantly fall in love with (as he did once he was given a tour around the rockets at the International Spaceflight Museum inworld - he’s a 77 year old wannabe physicist). I am continually amazed at the creativity of our Residents, be they consumers, enterprises, or educators, and our strategic roadmap has to focus on continuing to figure out new and better ways to enable the creativity of existing Residents and attract new people to participate in this incredible ecosystem.

So what do we mean by strategic roadmap? Sounds like a lot of consulting jargon I’m sure. At Linden it is the process we use to help us prioritize where we put our resources – to better serve existing Residents and to grow our user base in high potential markets. Some of it has resulted in big investments in what I would call the ‘must-dos’, those things we need to do no matter what – increasing technical stability, scalability and predictability, improving the overall user experience so we continually delight new and existing users, and enhancing core products such as land and e-commerce (thus the purchase of Xstreet SL and OnRez). Other parts of this roadmap are about where we invest to grow our user base, including how we can better serve and grow our international markets, how we can better serve inworld businesses and land owners, and what types of ‘killer applications’ will increase user hours and attract new users. While we conducted a formal inworld survey last May to get input on these issues, and will launch another one soon, if any of you have ideas on the above, please send in comments here.

Now that I have officially joined Linden in this new role, I will continue to work with Mark and the rest of Linden on our strategic direction, as well as being responsible specifically for potential strategic partnerships, international strategy and market growth, and education. Most importantly, I look forward to continuing to help Linden nurture and support the amazing Resident creativity and activity that is Second Life.

--
Original blog post by Judy Linden: http://blog.secondlife.com/2009/02/05/introducing-judy-linden/

Hi Judy!

Welcome. I'll put in some constructive comments later.

And I'll add some unconstructive ones, just to maintain balance.

Welcome Judy!

Strategic planning is a really important job. Good luck!

Welcome Judy - here's my priority on STRATEGY:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3007

Although LL's cooperation with the OPEN SIM movement is admirable I hope it is not distracting the company from making SL itself scalable.

OPEN SIM is a project with many contributors and will no doubt provide virtual worlds for thousands of people but they will never be as feature rich and as failsafe (relatively) as SL - as long as its OPEN SOURCE.

I don't want to be messing with some Opensim world that I cannot take my SL stuff to. That I cannot program and my creations are not as secure from copy.

Not until some IBM - SUN - MICROSFT company takes over Opensim and adds the necessary $-provided-functionality will it ever compete with SL.

Well folks at LL here is the situation - whether you like it or not LL is in a Microsoft-like-monopoly of feature-rich virtual world technology and you have to do what Microsoft did in order to give your product to the millions more who will be wanting to inhabit its virtual universe. Nobody liked it, but as long as Microsoft put out the technology that was wanted, - we (and the law) put up with it.

If LL can scale SL it will be doing it's future customers a big favor . Customers that otherwise would be floundering for years in Opensims that would do little more than frustrate the hell out of them. (as we already have gone through with SL's teething)

Nobody liked the way Microsoft put Lotus, Netscape, Wordperfect etc... out of business but at this point in time all SL might do is put the SIMS out of business!
(And maybe one day merge with - MySpace, Facebook ? ).

So lets focus on scaling SL.

How can we ever get 2 billion avatars in one virtual universe as feature laden as SL?
How can we get 40,000 AVs to attend one SL Event? In one chatroom?

EVENTS HANDLING

Have Sim owners declare Events in advance?
Have them pay for extra hardware to be auto-switched to their sim?
Have the server go into EVENT MODE and auto-reduce draw distance, AV-Imposter distance etc..., yet still deliver the "event stadium" to all ?
Deal with impromptu events?

I just finished writing up the story of the public sandbox I have run in SL for years now, and the strategic decisions Linden Lab has made that helped destroy it.

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/24897-story-clubsides-sandbox-drawing-close.html

Hi Judy and Welcome aboard, officially. I rarely speak in the forums but I hope that this is a good opportunity to grab the attention of the lab and pull at your heart strings.

Please, please consider allowing Torley Linden a more active role again. He inspired and amused and retained thousands of your customers in a way that 'road maps' and strategic goals never could. He is, and remains the 'human face' of the lab and, my god , you need him right now! SL is nothing without fun. Read your own blog and tell me where the fun went?

Thanks for reading, please sit back a sec and consider.

Welcome aboard I guess

Don't forget those that already are customers/clients/the userbase (however you like to put it) and that are getting less and less interested in Second Life® as they are getting bored with the evolution and focus on bringing new ones in instead of stabilising the world and care for the current residents. I see friends leaving (or in plain words, not log in much or at all anymore) and less oldtimers around these days.

Just my L$ 0.02 (Doesn't look like the thoughts are worth much are they?)

I'm wary about more Mitch Kapor imports.


Mitch does not think highly of us SLers, specifically us pioneers.

Uhm. No.

hiya Judy.

Yay, more words!

Now, how about some action?

I suggest upgrading the old spec hardware used for sims. you know, the stuff that has been getting cheaper to buy for years while you guys continue to raise the monthly and dump more and more back end on the weak servers which limp along even in an empty sim with one av.

Yeah, that would be neat!

We don't need any winter fairs and burning manz and halfwit themed lands and soon to be "lindened" [broken] item selling websites and blah blah blah blah blah. We just need a platform that doesn't suck. mmk?

Please show us an investment in sim hardware. Or make the network open source so that others may run sims. Words of potential don't stop my stomach from growling.

Where does all the money go anyway? I've been here over 4 years and simulator performance had not improved. (never mind havok and mono...the things lag when empty and burn to the ground with 40+ avs).

Will we see a hardware investment before i die or does all the money go direct to phil and mitch's bank?

:0 welcome judy!! i like your vision and scope; the place needs plenty of 'fuzzy thinkers' lol to get past the technicals and get to the 'experience' of sl. if you're one of mitch's kids lol, should be good!

p.s. "We just need a platform that doesn't suck. mmk?" lol mmk... it already 'doesn't suck', it just occassionally 'putters'. ;0 two steps forward, one step back on occassion with code rewrites... it happens. ;\ still so much better than it was three years ago; at the very least they figured out enough options/tools to make the place 'boring' for griefer-types... ;0 just my humble op.

pps. lol what's wrong with torley! ;0 he's a fantastic, creative and energetic evangilist for sl. sure he can probably continue on his own without any serious lab affiliation; he's built up enough of a library by now. but don't deny the guy without spelling it out.

Hi Judy,

Is one of the primary factors of your role to make more money from residents for Linden Lab?

And thank you for recognising creativity within Second Life; it is this aspect that keeps me here as a resident, not how many financial opportunities it provides.

Hey Judy!

I'd love to see Homesteads being able to be purchased without purchasing a whole private region! Can we 'direct' that way?

Look forward to seeing you in world!

Welcome Judy,

imo: Stability of the current grid, ie. hardware compliance, sim crossings, peak hours ..should have priority atm.


.

Here is a business plan - give us a working product, lower the tier 10% on island and mainland alike, and cancel the upcoming Homestead price increase. We, in turn, will stop leaving SL and continue paying the huge amounts of money we've been paying just for spots of light on our monitors.

Many of us are very technically knowledgeble. We know what a server blade in a data center costs. And we know why all the data previously available has suddenly disappeared. You've made your fortune - now it's time to lower some prices so we can remain your customers. Otherwise the exodus you've seen thus far will only get worse. And don't think that the corporations or new citizens will have the money or the interest to pay the amounts we have; everyone with an interest in SL and a fat wallet is already here and you are driving us all away.

Pre-Nyoko in SL history.

Before Torley was a Linden history.

Hello Judy and welcome to SL. Thank you for your "words". They join all the other "words" that the new Lindens have been giving us lately. Seems like we've had quite a few over the last few months. Lindens, and "words". Though the Lindens are usually different, the "words" all sort of blend together and sound the same. Blah blah blah promises, blah blah future, blah blah whatever.

Strategy?

* We are Customers, not residents
* Stability
* Existing customers are At Least as important as New Customers (unless you're running a ponzi)


That's all I can say, really. The rest has already been said in the several-thousand other passionate posts in this 'further conversation' area.

-Atashi

/me rolls eyes ;0 okay that clears everything up don't it?

Welcome Judy! I hope you know what you've gotten yourself into here.

To me, and this has been a stickler for a while, a main point to consider is a push for the end of anonymous accounts. Anyone with throw-away email addresses can create as many alt accounts as they want - resulting in endless uncontrollable griefing and inflated numbers that do not reflect the true userbase of SL.

Griefing almost always targets newbies, who's first-hour experience is often spoiled by residents who fill areas like HIP, Ivory Tower and infohubs with pornographic imagery, racial slurs and offensive content. If LL is serious about improving the retention rate of new residents, this is something that MUST be seriously considered.

Please, please consider the ramifications of the current policy for creation of these accounts, and ask that EVERY avatar created be backed with a valid form of payment info, whether used for payments or not. This way residents are no longer anonymous, everyone gets to have a couple of alts as well as a primary avatar if they wish, and those who grief can be met with repercussions that affect them account-wide, not on a throw-away avatar by throw-away avatar basis.

Very best of luck to you in your new post, and welcome to the grid.

Since you want to go there.

I think there is something to be said about people who self-diagnose themselves with a mental disorder like say...autism, without ever getting an official diagnosis from a qualified specialist -also known as- psychiatrist. And then to run around telling everyone you are autistic and milking sympathy without ever being diagnosed by a psychiatrist is just reprehensible in my book.

You want to claim a mental disorder/illness/disease - then go to proper specialist/doctor, not a website.

Hello Judy.

This aspect is something I've been giving a lot of thought to lately. As you may or may not know, Once upon a time SL wasn't that stable, and since Project Open Letter's acknowledgement by Linden Lab, many in SL are very pleased to see that trend reversed, as am I. SL is now more stable than it has probably ever been in it's history, and for that I thank everyone involved.

However, Residents are beginning to get a little restless for new features, innovative tools, and dare we say progress on developing the capabilities necessary for advancing the quality of in-world content and their utility to the end users.

By all means continue to improve on the fronts of stability, scalability and predictability, there is plenty of progress still to be made on that front. But don't neglect the innovation side of things. I hope to see the fruits of your labors in the coming months. Thanks

Completely selfishly, I admit, I'd like to see SL able to run on computers that are at least a year or two old without having them blow their circuits. Especially in today's economy, running out to buy a new graphics card is pretty darn low on most priority lists...

Setting that aside, hello Judy, and I'd like to tell you something that really helped my name-brand recognition of IMVU take off.

IMVU?

Yeh.

See, I thought of them as just another SL wannabe. When I thought of them. Which wasn't often.

Then I was standing at the checkout counter, and there were these gift cards, where you could get IMVU money and IMVU gift accounts next to the cards for iTunes and Waldenbooks and the Outback Steakhouse.

So now I think of them as just another SL wannabe with some real direction. I mean, damn, I SO wanted to see Linden Dollar cards sitting there next to them. But no...

Rats.