Featured News

[#1]

Linden Lab recently welcomed a new addition to its executive ranks: Kim Salzer, who became our Vice President of Marketing, at the beginning of August. Kim (known as Kim Linden inworld) joins us from Activision Blizzard, where she was Vice President of Global Brand Management for properties like Guitar Hero and Call of Duty 2, among others. Kim brings a deep background in gaming (including experience at Electronic Arts working on massively multiplayer online games and hit sports franchises), and in online learning, and we’re excited to have her as part of the team. As an introduction to Residents, I asked Kim to tell us a bit about herself in her own words:

Q: What’s the one thing you bring from the gaming world that will be most useful to you in your position at Linden Lab?

A: Working in gaming taught me a lot about just how creative and  passionate that audience can be, and I think the same is true for the  Residents of Second Life. And SL provides so many great tools to enhance  and bring out that creativity, I’m really looking forward to helping foster that as we move into the next phase of the platform’s growth. I  want to see if we can make the range of what’s possible in Second Life  even broader.

Q: What are your goals for your new position as VP Marketing at Linden Lab?

A:  What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X  Factor” is going to be for Second Life. When I was working on games, I  always tried to choose a single idea to focus on and bring out, an X  Factor that helped people get into the game and helped them discover all  the rest of the possibilities there. If I can help bring that kind of  focus to Second Life, I’ll be happy about how I’m doing my job.

Q: What excites you most about working on a product like Second Life?

A: I’m excited about the prospect of helping to build a product that  really empowers people to express what they’re about, and that can make a real difference in their lives. I think we’ve only just started to see  what can be done here, and I can’t wait to see where we and our  Residents can take things from here.

[#2]

Hi again Kim,

I will be interested to see exactly what marketing slant will be used regarding the teens coming to what is widely known as an adult grid.

I am concerned about two things that I am sure most parents would be as well.

1.  What safeguards will be in place for the children to keep them from being exposed to "mature" and "adult" content.  How would you be able to sell a parent on this?

2. What measures will be taken to ensure that PG sim owners are not liable for any nefarious activities towards or by children involving "adult" content. If any of the future plans of LL include trying to attract businesses or educational groups then that will be a major concern.  This is not like RL where we have police keeping perverts off land that may have children on it.

You definitely have your work cut out for your marketing efforts on these two points

[#3]

A:  What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X  Factor” is going to be for Second Life 
Sindy Tsure  says: That's actually pretty easy. Just make the product work and quit messing with your customers.
Twice since I've been here LL has raised the monthly fee of their most popular product by over 50%. Sim performance at busy places has been horrible, HORRIBLE for +18 months. Service is nearly non-existent nowdays. Zindra. Forums. M.
No other company could do so much to alienate nearly all of their existing customers and still be alive and kicking.
Make stuff work, don't treat customers like dirt and SL will start to grow by huge numbers again.
There was a LL survey a few months ago that asked if we would encourage our RL friends/family/work to spend money in SL. Dig the survey results up and see for yourself that you've already got the "X factor".

Yes!

[#4]

A:  What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X  Factor” is going to be for Second Life 
That's actually pretty easy. Just make the product work and quit messing with your customers.
Twice since I've been here LL has raised the monthly fee of their most popular product by over 50%. Sim performance at busy places has been horrible, HORRIBLE for +18 months. Service is nearly non-existent nowdays. Zindra. Forums. M.
No other company could do so much to alienate nearly all of their existing customers and still be alive and kicking.
Make stuff work, don't treat customers like dirt and SL will start to grow by huge numbers again.

Exactly.

[#5]

  Welcome to Second Life Kim.   You must have a great outlook for our future coming from such a big firm as you did.   That's great news for all of us I believe.

  I don't want to add to the long list of to-do's you already seem to be getting in this thread but I think that step one is to make the grid more stable and perform better in order for you work to shine.  I just see it as what good is getting a huge increase in residents if it only bogs down the grid.  You know? 

  I did'nt mean to sound nagative there and hope that makes sence.   Again, welcome to our world Kim and hope you have a great time.

Clint

p.s.  Did you make your bear yet?  /me wants one. ^^

[#6]

Welcome Kim,

• The only appealing 'X-factor' SecondLife has so far that is viably marketable is avatar customisation and content creation.
• There are other many factors implemented ( combat simulation, vehicle control or other gaming aspects) you could help improve to make it the professional gaming experience you know from your former employers, but be aware not to promote with too much zeal before you are certain it will not come back to haunt you.
• The X-factor for gameplay and continuity can only be thrown into the big world out there, if Lindenlab can break the limitations of the regions themself ( parcel-crossings, maximal amount of avatars, scripting and lag, etc.).

And please remember that altho SecondLife is a means to express one's self in a free speech environment, most residents are never listened to or heard at all.

Best of luck.

[#7]

Hello Kim,

As a marketing seasoned marketing executive, I am sure you would be looking at the performance of the system for those that have already bought into SL as an indicator on how to attract retain new members. Don;t bother going in world. Go look at trouble ticket or case reporting system. That will tell you al you need to know about why people are leaving and no one is telling anyone else to come here. I am going to brinbg it up here because there is no one else to speak with on this. I have tickets opened that go back to June that no one has even opened to see what they are for. When I went to the online chat, the person who was charged with speaking to me hung up on me. Now, you tell me why I should recommend or invite anyone here?

[#8]

Hello Kim, and welcome to Second Life.

It would certainly be refreshing for Linden Lab to have a Marketing Manager that actually "gets it", and understands what the product is that they are promoting, and how the customers who use that product actually use it. The marketing people that they have had in the past have been too willing to focus on some single, internally-generated 'magic bullet', like "If only we could get all those FaceBook users to join SL...", or "Lets really support a select group of clothing creators", or "Let's pitch SL as a great tool for Business communications!", while utterly ignoring the realities of the environment as it stands today, or the impact on your current customers. In all honesty, this was not likely to have been their fault, so much as the fault of the clueless management they worked for, who do not really understand their own product, or how it is used by their customers. Your predecessors merely did what they were told to do. Will you have the courage of your own convictions, and the high personal ethical standards, to at least occasionally tell the boss "Sir? That is a bad idea, and this is why..."? I hope that you will.

I've been an active participant in SL for more than 5 years now. I spend an average of 20+ hours a week in-world, logged in and doing things in Second Life. Some of my time is spent socializing, but much of it is spent creating the in-world content that others purchase and enjoy, and that makes this virtual world unique. Within 4 months of joining SL, I was a content creator, making and selling clothes, and earning sufficient income in-world to completely cover all my in-world expenses, and also cash out real money every month, to spend on niceties for my family in real life. Within six months of joining SL, I was doing multi-sim content creation projects, making entire sims for my clients, from scratch. I currently design and create whole-sim and multi-sim projects for major clients like Rutgers University, and even in the current depressed economy, on average I cash out at least some small profit every single month. Less than 1% of the millions of customers that are registered for Second Life manage to cash out anything at all, let alone doing so every month, so I think I can say that I "get it" for how this virtual world works, and what the customers here want. I'm not one of the "big merchants" who cash out enough to live on as a full time job. But I think I am pretty representative of a typical 'successful' content creator and Resident in Second Life. In the real world, I have a full-time job as a systems administrator for a worldwide Corporation, with responsibilities for projects that have multi-million dollar profits, and in many cases, have multi-million dollar penalties for failing to meet customer requirements. No project I have ever worked on has ever had to pay those penalty fees for failing to meet customer expectations. So I think I can safely say that I know a bit about providing customer satisfaction, in a software services and solutions business where lots of real money is on the line.

To me, the "x-factor" of Second Life is that it is a virtual world that allows individuals to create (or to purchase and assemble) their own content and virtual experience, and not merely be limited to what the service provider makes for them. And most importantly, it is a world that has an actual micro-currency economy, where what you sell in-world can be cashed out for real money. Very few virtual worlds offer that at all.

The original slogan "Your World - Your imagination" was most appropriate. What you can do here is limited only to your imagination. Think of the song that Gene Wilder sings in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", titled "Pure Imagination", and apply that to Second Life.

Come with me
And you'll be
In a world of
Pure imagination
Take a look
And you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin
With a spin
Traveling in
The world of my creation
What we'll see
Will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanta change the world?
There's nothing
To it

There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You'll be free
If you truly wish to be

I can think of few things that sum up the Second Life experience better than that.

You have quite a task ahead of you

• First and foremost, please, do not think of Second Life as "Just a game". It is a virtual world, with all the possibilities that a real world has, and more. Thinking that Second Life is no different than "World or Warcraft" or "Ultima Online" is as limited and incomplete a view as thinking that the city of Monte Carlo, in France, is only a Grand Prix racing venue, while ignoring the casinos, the resorts, the social life, and most particularly the local population and business economy that thrives there, even and especially when the big race is not in session. Learn how your current customers use the product. Experience it yourself, deeply. Then you will know how to market the many aspects of the product to new customers, without killing the experience for your current customers.
  
• Understand there is no "one true way" that your customers use this product. Trying to focus on any one aspect is like herding cats. We are a diverse and contrary group of individuals, each with our own goals and aspirations. Focus too much on any one cat, and the rest scatter in a thousand different directions, and you lose many of them. We are a very difficult audience to please, and no one decision you make will ever please all of us. But if you keep the diverse needs and uses of this virtual world in mind, and don't focus on any one faction, either among your current customers, or among hoped for "millions who have not yet tried Second Life", you will stand a better chance of long-term success.
  
• Unfortunately, your fellow employees, especially the upper managers that make the big decisions, seem intent on throwing rabid dogs into the herd of cats that you're trying to manage. Watching the policy decisions of the Lab for the last several years has been like watching Mel Brooks' movie "The Producers". They seem intent on making the worst possible business decisions. Why, I cannot begin to guess.  The recent misguided decision to admit 16 and 17 year old children into a virtual world that contains large amounts of XXX content, with woefully inadequate access controls, is only one of many bad policy decisions that are going to make your job much harder. Unless they ban all XXX content from Mature sims, (and in the process infuriate and drive off a large percentage of their current paying customers who own Mature land in SL and have XXX content on their land), those children will be exposed to XXX content, and both LL and the land owners will face severe legal liabilities for providing XXX content to minors.
  

[#9]

So I'm not sure if someone's mentioned this.... and it's not really Kim's responsibility, I'm sure.

But 3/4 of you are telling her to go look at the "customer service" that LL has been giving us and how it's gone from bad to worse.

...

I'll say this from a WoW point of view.  Blizzard's customer support is not much better.  However they're making small strides.

Do with LL what Blizzard had shifted toward, which was a little more transparency (more and more often we're receiving info on server closures early so we can know ahead of time, we're getting more information on new features and we're getting ANSWERS on forums involving technical problems in-game and with certain graphics issues, along with updating and prioritizing issues/fixes to be handled quickly and listening to the users.)

If you want to market to the masses that SL is a place they can come to invest, to create, and to grow in whatever way they choose -- you need to make sure that SL can deliver on that.

We create the content.  LL delivers it.

Such is the world of SL.

[#10]

A:  What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X  Factor” is going to be for Second Life 

That's actually pretty easy. Just make the product work and quit messing with your customers.

Twice since I've been here LL has raised the monthly fee of their most popular product by over 50%. Sim performance at busy places has been horrible, HORRIBLE for +18 months. Service is nearly non-existent nowdays. Zindra. Forums. M.

No other company could do so much to alienate nearly all of their existing customers and still be alive and kicking.

Make stuff work, don't treat customers like dirt and SL will start to grow by huge numbers again.

There was a LL survey a few months ago that asked if we would encourage our RL friends/family/work to spend money in SL. Dig the survey results up and see for yourself that you've already got the "X factor". (edit: and I would bet good money that most customers answer "zomg, no..." to that question, but they're still in SL. Most people want SL to work and to be able to tell their friends "hey, check this out" again, instead of wondering if we're just being saps and throwing money away, month after month)

edit: ...and I meant the outsourced support. When you can get an actual Linden, they are, almost without exception, always great.

[#11]

Hi Kim!  Welcome to second life! I'm glad you're here.  Remember that nearly anything is possible here - from flying to being a mermaid. Friends and family make sl special.  Hope to see you soon as a mermaid.  - Fleur

[#12]

Hi Kim!  Welcome to second life! I'm glad you're here.  Remember that nearly anything is possible here - from flying to being a mermaid. Friends and family make sl special.  Hope to see you soon as a mermaid.  - Fleur

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[#13]

Welcome Kim

awww your background is awesome *_* I wish I could have a job history like yours one day!

[#14]

Hi..............I am Ruth Aima... wish to be your friend...And i want a job...I dont know more about Second world...   Will u please help me......

[#15]

hI......... I am, Ruth Aima... I dont know more about Second world... Can you pls help me.....

[#16]

Hi & wellcome Kim : )

I wish you all the luck & patience you need for your job. And I need to say something about the X-Factor:

maybe you will find the most different X you ever found in your life   LOL

a lot of different residents a lot of different X

see you inworld

[#17]

Welcome to SL Kim, make sure you have your crash helmet firmly strapped on, keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times and enjoy the ride.  As a long term SL resident, and having taken the time to read every post above, I'd like to add my two lindens worth here.

One. Forget attracting new business. How about making the CURRENT customer happy? Do that for us, and we will do your job for you. Simple enough.

Two. The hype about *listening to the residents* Why not actually DO that? Cause in all honesty, let me tell you what you face...99% of the time they (LL) pretend to listen, file it in the trash. do what they originally planned.. then have it blow up in their faces, then backpedaled, regroup, and try again.. still with out listening.

Just some resident noted facts in case your interested. I was on a packed sim the other day, and did a little personal research.

55 residents on the sim. Of those 55 residents, 14 had V2.whatever. 30 had emerald/phoenix. 9 had unknown viewers. Do the math.

another point of interest.. the enforced *migration of adult content* to Zindra has been an EPIC FAIL. All the business and residents that follow the rules and moved to Zindra and other privately owned Adult sims have to not only compete with each other, but the THOUSANDS of people breaking the TOS by using mature/pg land.

to make it short and sweet...pass it along.

Enforce the current TOS. Fix Search. Get some competent Lindens back in customer service, making *TICKETS* priority again. Fix what's already broken.. and we, the old & new current residents of SL, will make YOUR job as easy as pie.. by recommending SL again to everyone we encounter.

as someone said on another forum.. you can pretty it up ever how you like, but until LL fixes the issues, You are still stuck selling a mass of screw ups under the guise of *new and improved*.

Maybe that was 4 lindens worth..

Look me up in world. I, and probably most everyone who has posted above, can provide you with way more insight than pretty much one at LL will ever be able to.

Oh and for the record? They never asked, but if they had a required poll on login asking current residents.. *How do you feel about allowing TEENS into Sl* They may get a HUGE wake up call.. their effort to save the few hundred teens that play on the teen grid by moving them to the Main grid is going to cost them massively as ADULT residents take their time and money, sim payments and credit cards, and move on to someplace else. Just sayin....

~Brie

[#18]

Q: What are your goals for your new position as VP Marketing at Linden Lab?
A:   What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X   Factor” is going to be for Second Life. When I was working on games, I   always tried to choose a single idea to focus on and bring out, an X   Factor that helped people get into the game and helped them discover  all  the rest of the possibilities there. If I can help bring that kind  of  focus to Second Life, I’ll be happy about how I’m doing my job.

[#19]

Among many astute observations that is the most sensible comment on this blog. Hope you're paying attention there Kim.

[#20]

I am paying attention, and your comments are all very helpful.  I hear you loud and clear on customer service, among other things.  And please know I am not out to make this a "game".  I, and my fellow colleagues, definitely have our work cut out for us.  Thanks for all the great insights.

[#21]

Kim Linden wrote:

I am paying attention, and your comments are all very helpful.  I hear you loud and clear on customer service, among other things.  And please know I am not out to make this a "game".  I, and my fellow colleagues, definitely have our work cut out for us.  Thanks for all the great insights.

I'm glad someone is listening...I've counted somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 threads in the forums in the last two weeks asking about the lack of customer service / slow ticket response times.   Me and others are waiting for a month or more just to have someone to even look at our support tickets. We used to be able to get live chat and get help, now they say, "File a support ticket".  We used to be able to call concierge support (those of us who own 1/2 or more of a region) and get help...now they take your information and tell you, "File a support ticket."  So we file our support tickets and they sit there unanswered for a month, maybe two.  My own Support ticket has been sitting with not even so much as a support rep looking at it.  I've been waiting since August 15, 2010, others have waited much longer.  If I get my land issue resolved within six weeks I'll count myself lucky.  So much for special concierge support.

I really hope that customer satisfaction and retention is going to be focused on.  I had to take management classes when I got into management in the restaurant I worked at...one thing the classes stressed was keeping the existing customers happy  and retaining them before trying to get even more customers.  Customer satifaction is a huge part of customer retention with any business.  A customer who feels valued and knows that if there is a problem it can be resolved quickly is more likely to remain a customer and not go elsewhere.

I had to memorize L.E.A.D.S. and make sure all my staff knew what it meant...maybe Linden Lab should incorporate it as well into their customer service training.

Listen

Empathize

Appologize

Do what it take to resolve the customers problem.

Stand by your promise

[#22]

  I commented once already and forgot to mention customer service.   It totally slipped my mind.   But like everybody else has said too, CS is in a poor state.   I'd say the worst since I started in 2007.   It's very frustrating to start live chat only to see a big CLOSED sign. 

  And to second what sombody else also said, to actually get somebody on live chat only for them to tell you to file a ticket.   And I am talking about things that were able to be resolved right away in the past. 

  I do a few side jobs/projects in RL and when I purchase things, one of the deciding factors is how well the CS is.   Cost is secondary in most cases.   Right now the bottom two company's are Lex%rk and Linden Labs.

  Kim, you may have already realized that us residents are very forward in our complaints. haha.   I am guilty as well here but your "Welcome Kim" thread turned into a "To-Do" list. haha.

[#23]

Oh yeah, I was a beta tester for the sims online... great idea... and can people that have been around since 2005 and before get founder objects? I miss my simmy's and other founder rewards

Welcome Kim

[#24]

I fear that you are too late.  At the sciFi convention I attended this weekend, I met several people who had island chains as recently as a year ago.  The islands are gone -- some sold but most abandoned.  The folks said that LL's changing the TOS at the drop of a hat and trying to beat the enjoyment out of SL at every turn finally drove them to write off the money and leave.

You had a unique product that allowed adults to play "Let's pretend" without consequences.  There was NO reason you had to destroy that in order to experiment with other application ideas.  But what is done, is done.  And good luck to you in getting back the fun and more importantly, our trust.  Without trust in your company, neither large businesses nor individual users are going to pay big money for your product.  And that more than anything else is the problem with SL today.

[#25]

Congratulations Kim!  I do have one question though.  Is SL going to abandon all marketing to RL corporations to set up marketing and training sims?

[#26]

BTW, LL...deleting posts just because we don't like your decisions isn't "Listening" either.  Its censorship in its WORST form.

Welcome Kim and good luck,  You're going to need it.