Electric Sheep Company wooot

What I wrote, is an honest opinion and a feeling of mine. You dont know me or the people I know, assume all you want, you seem to be pretentious enough to believe you're right. Electric Sheep doesnt need my "Advertising", the work speaks for itself.

Its why the forums are being slowly closed due to trolls like you, Expressed opinion or fact?

Why can't people acknowledge that some people can succeed without being a Linden alt and without needing to use friends? Could people not have achieved that on their own merits?

LOL. Say hi to Z, am heading outta Dodge for a bit. Have to get my immature butt in gear for a seminar. Now what people do you THINK would be looking at this thread? C'mon girl.
Anyway, cheers!



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To whom it may concern:


NO MORE AD HOMINEMS ALLOWED ON THE FORUM AFTER THIS POST

Not what any of these posts have said. Twisting posts must be your strongest point. As I've seen you do before.

Margot, Jeff, Lewis and others have said that they've all succeeded! And I hardly think that Margot or Jefferson need any more success in rl or sl . I also would be amazed to find out that either have an avi with Linden as the surname. Lewis may need some extra help in sl, but he still is doing fine.

The posts do go on to state their opinions that cronyism exists in SL and LL, but that DESPITE ALL you can do well.

My suggestion to you is to do a comprehension test after you read a post and before you force a thread to go in circles.

I only wish I could log in an alt in RL. But, in some points you are thinking like a hobbyist rather than a big business. In big business, it's who you know that gets you in the door, and then you're own merits keep you in the door. A simple matter of networking. Does this imply that the people from Sheep are in good with the Lindens? Nope. In fact being in with the Lindens have nothing to do with whether they are getting these 'juicy' contracts or not. They are in because they do know people and have the experience to impress. That's what I've seen about big business, anyways.

On the other hand, the Sheep has the means to be more flexible in their offerings than us hobbyist. More people, better presentations, more everything. Heck, they probably have to walk the business reps through how SL works, what doesn't work and even how use their avatars. Sounds like way too much hassle to me, so the PITA rate would have to be much more than 10k USD for me.

? Twisting posts? Done before? I'm not sure that's a fair characterisation of my posting.

I made no comments on anyone else's success, need for it, nor would I. I didn't suggest I thought anyone hadn't succeeded. I'm fine with what anyone chooses to do in SL, and happy for whatever they get out of SL, on any level.

In the post I quoted, there was no reference such as the one you capitalised. I just don't know why there's a suspicion that some people are doing well because they're Linden alts etc, and that seemed to be the suspicion.

Other than that, I had an opinion, I posted some info, I don't know why this is getting personal today.

ps Lewis and I are friends, I know he's doing fine, and in our opinions on this subject we're about 50% in agreeance. We were discussing the subject as we were posting.

I pretty much agree with you, that was how I was looking at it, or trying to, from their point of view. Networking is very important, I just see that as normal, and not as cronyism as it is sometimes portrayed. A positive thing, not negative. Part of "on your own merits", because the ability to network well is a merit. Your second paragraph was the difference I was trying to explain, maybe in the other thread on the topic.

DESPITE any cronyism/rl/sl! But you have to be willing to put yourself out there. To network. To work hard. To, yes, do all the things one would do in a real life business enviroment. Do LL alts or friends help their friends. Why wouldn't they? Is it fair to the 'rest of us'. No. But hey, such is business life. I talked 3 accounts into using MY services and not one of the usuals that are always used. Was that nice? No. But this is business. Always liked that phrase, and still not sure what it means when one says it. Think it means, 'let's decide to have absolutely no scruples when it comes to money'. Not sure

There are a few, freely joinable e-commerce groups in SL that you can join. OR... make your OWN group like I've done. Like many have. MARKET your service/product. By giving classes to increase your presence, which is what I do. Or by having a website. Or use the SL magazines. The ones in SL are great for advertising. Or use other resident sites like SNAPZILLA--my alltime favorite.

Yeah. I think that the Sheep Co. and perhaps others have opportunities handed to them. BUT, this does NOT mean they are lazy or return poor quality. But, the BEST work is done by talented builders/scripters that are not in the marketing loop as yet. This is the next development I see in the SL economy. Broadening the service base.

But whether hobbyist as Anshe was and Starax was, or SL scrounger with no RL job, it DOES mean that you have to deal with this cronyism, if YOU want business, by working hard or perhaps HARDER to get that business. And, it's out there. TONS of it. You're not 'missing out 'on anything. YET. The real businesses are, again, just testing the waters. You haven't seen anything yet!

Couldn't help but get a laugh at all this. SL and RL are mirror images when it comes to this sort of thing.

Example from the cynical dictionary that is my brain:

Networking = what a hard-working, though not rich, business person does to build their success
Cronyism = how this same person now keeps a hold on it, once actually successful

much as

Weird = someone with very peculiar habits
Eccentric = the same person, with cash

How much cash do I need to become eccentric instead of weird?

Would $50L do it?

That's where it becomes a sliding scale

To the person with L$0? Yes
To the person with L$100,000? No

On a side note, maybe we can work something out where we each hold one another's cash (odd/even days, perhaps?) so we each have an opportunity to wear the "eccentric" tag....?

How did this thread turn into an Electric Sheep bashing? I just wanted a job... lol

Smart Business people know that you get more business by building relationships. FlipperPA has been building a relationship with LL for a long time...
Electric Sheep saw that and his skills in the form of SLB and said, come on board!
Smart business. Relationships.
I think there IS truth to the statement that a biz calls LL and get's RRR or ESC recommended. Why not?
If you want to be recommented...time to get to work building those relationships. People refer to people they trust, have confidence in and LIKE.
That's REAL LIFE. And since we are all real people...why shouldn't it work that way?

Ok. Who's bashing the ESC? I know I critiqued them, but if anyone's bashing, well, that's totally uncalled for

Yeah, I was wondering about the 10k thing too when I entered the fray. Good starting posts attract me, especially ones that begin with '$'.

It's kinda funny to see the Sheep and RRR attacked here by people who assume the Lindens hand them all their big clients. You're wrong. Actually, these two companies in particular most actively seek clients and sell them on the idea of doing projects in Second Life. They invest a lot of resources in marketing IRL.

Second thread today where I'm defending other development companies. Crazy. But I just can't dig the mental image I have of ol' Forseti, dressed up as a Sheep Tiny, being tossed on a pyre.

Now, how could these luke-warm critiques ever heat up the oven to 450 degrees? No way

Hi! I originally posted about the ESC and had some pretty good posts in return. These posts here are great too. Find it very odd why anyone would call them bashing or overly harsh? It's a great discussion, most of which has been very helpful. WITH The exception of the zero content remark here and there of 'why are people bashing the ESC'. It wasn't about bashing or blaming, but about some sort of expository debate. So again, sorry if I caused dissension in the rank and file, but all the posts here were very excellent, but in the end didn't help me with my problem.

Examining this from all angles was to help my tiny company to decide on a cost for an SL investment. But, as it is, I don't think today is a great day to decide if a company would want to invest in SL. The better post starter would not have been about the SHEEP CO. going rates, but about these attacks that seem to be occurring with greater frequency. So look to see a thread of this nature and do all join in!

Ty, again!

Today's threads about Electric Sheep and rates came to my attention, and I've been trying to think how to best respond. I've been a Second Life resident for a long time and I hate to see misconceptions, although some are inevitable I am sure. ESC does a range of projects, from small, free projects for good causes to extremely large projects like helping MTV build Virtual Laguna Beach, and lots of things in between.

I guess someone (Tina?) publicly broadcasted a comment I made that a commercial project probably needs to be at least 10K in size for it to fit our business, otherwise there are other teams/people that are better to work with. As for the 10K number itself, judging that figure is meaningless unless you know how long it takes to negotiate a deal and contract (the cost of sales) and how much work is involved to do a project (across client management, planning, design, primming, texturing, scripting, external app integration, and event management). The hourly rate is more important and I am not ashamed to say that we pay our employees and contractors a respectable wage. I don't believe in disrepecting the value of people's time, and even if someone is willing to take a pittance for their work, I believe it is immoral to pay someone that way. Margot seemed to make a crack that we must be slow -- I guess it is subjective, but I would (not surprisingly) disagree with that statement!

Someone else may have said that we get most of our work through Linden Lab -- that actually is not true at all. Usually, someone researches Second Life, sees a project we did in the past, and contacts us directly.

I would love to learn about great builds and builders out there, both personally (because I want to make another Great Builds of SL book) and professionally (because ESC is always looking for great talent to work with). Feel free to drop an IM on my avatar and send me a folder (easiest if you name it your avatar name) with some landmarks to favorite places or portfolio pieces.


On a more fun note, on October 19th, Ben Folds is going to be coming into Second Life with a party on the aloft sim and then Sony BMG's new space on Media island (not yet open). If you want to get in the lottery for tickets, send an email to [email]frontdesk@virtualaloft.com[/email].

Forseti aka Giff
Electric Sheep Company

Forseti did a good job hitting some of the major misconceptions brought up in this thread, but I'd like to extend an invitiation to try and answer more questions.

SL is a very personal place for a lot of people, and there's a lot of time and emotional energy that people put into what they do here. When some people see a company like ESC doing work for RL clients, it probably seems pretty wierd and strange and probably threatening, all back-room power plays and secret handshakes and how did they get where they are anyway? Its easy to forget, or never know about, the residents behind the corporate banner, who started out just like anyone else in SL. I'm one of them.

I have a blog now through ESC where I talk about working in SL. I'd like to do a straight up Q&A session about working for ESC and in SL in general. Feel free to email me about whatever you wanna know and I'll answer it. I'll respond personally via email if you want, and post it on the blog as well with your permission.

I work in SL for ESC, but I consider myself Cory Edo, SL resident first. I'm proud of working for ESC, but I'd still be doin' my thing in SL even if I never heard of them. So, shoot me your questions and I'll do my damndest to give you the straight scoop.

*nods* Networking or the ability to is very hard work. First you have get a name going, then you have to attact customers.. then you have to get the gist of what they want.. what Forseti said.

Big companies have 10k USD to spend and they are going to find the ones that handled the contract for another company and did it well. That's also a part of networking. Cronyism isn't just in SL either. I do like your definition, Deandra. That nicely sums up some of the concept, as does weird and eccentric

Yes, your business was chatted about today in great depth. I was more interested in cost, than other things, but so many peripheral things came out of the discussion that it helped form my decision. More or less, it appears that you disagree with many of the people on the forum today. Sorry you couldn't have joined sooner. There was some point about favoritism helping your business in a substantial manner. Trust me, that has nothing to do with my decision to choose another team. It is no concern of mine how you've gotten your contracts.

I'm sure your work is excellent, but it is a bit prohibitive cost-wise. I thankyou for joining the discussion, even if a bit late. Good luck to you!