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Wow, a noob without giant eagle wings?! I hope this is the first of many refreshing changes we see this year! Welcome Mr Humble!

Be sure to visit Raglan Shire soon.

Great start!  Learn the trade. A very comforting introduction Rod.

You know, Rod, the best thing about this post is that it actually looks as if you're having fun in Second Life.

That's kinda the utility function, summed over all residents, that one would like to optimize.

your first day sounds a lot like my first day in minecraft LOL i hope you will continue to immerse yourself in our world as much as you can (though i know with as much work as you have heaped on your plate that might not be much time at all) its fun in here!

hi rod!! Welcome to SL, Godspeed and hope this year is the major change which will grow SL into a larger user base

I am so psyched to see you in the world, actually LEARNING how to do stuff. This is NOTHING but good! I hope you break out your alt and get involved with some of the social groups, and learn how Residents use the platform - equally important, and frequently where LL has missed the mark. (And you didn't overdo the plants at all.) Welcome Rod!

Welcome to Second Life, Rod. Good luck!

New Resident walk, though...I can tell.

Hit a Welcome Area and get recommendations and help on a "real AO."

Welcome indeed!

welcome to SL.

If anything, I'm impressed in simply seeing you learn how the world works from the basics on up, and -- perhaps -- seeing the world through the eyes of a noob. Thank yu for that.

And, if I may, let me offer you a warm welcome on behalf of Livingtree Island, Second Life's many "Inner Kids," and the Bay City mainland community.

Welcome to SL Rod .  Alot of us are looking foreward to seeing what you can do for LL and the SL community.    We hope that with you at the helm SL will continue to improve and be more amaziing day by day.   Have fun building 

Welcome, and so nice to see these screenshots!  A picture's worth a thousand words!

Great to see you exploring, building and immersing yourself. The spirit and potential to create and express cuts through the social and business uses of SL.

Building can be therapy, inspirational and informative to others. SL is a giant 3d wiki with people in it, so grasping this spirit is important. It applies in enterprise and in the social use in equal measure.

Enjoy and expand.

epredator

So your first 3d enviroment was Lincoln Logs, mine too!

welcome and give us a call if you need any help!

Welcome Rod,

The most fun in SL is the first two years learning everything and going to classes SEARCH/EVENTS/EDUCATION . Enjoy. But even after 4 years there are things popping up I never knew.

Now its encouraging to see you rolling up your sleeves -  cos you need to get the knowledge to realize its important to know to prioritize things like interfacing SL to the Kinect for AV limb movement (instead of to the AV's limited nbr of animations). And that you understand just what that means 

We need to expedite this fast.

D.

What everyone above has already said: yeah, that. Especially Suella, but you already knew that.  We all already know you'll make the big bucks no matter what. Obviously decisions will be business decisions before willy-nilly whatever the users want decisions. I like what I've been seeing as of late. I really like that it appears you did a "Brubaker" and snuck in world on your own to get that perspective. if this is true, then I cannot describe the really good feeling about your direction I am getting.  Welcome home.

Hey Rod!

I'd just like to toss in a suggestion that as well as Twitter, you consider signing up with a Plurk account.

There's a lot of us there, using it in favor of Twitter, since it allows for a little more interaction. In fact, it's how I found out that you had arrived, and it also directed me to this blog post.

But it's such a popular platform, Second Life is even listed as one of the options under "Country" when you select where you come from. More recently, we also earned our own "Front Page" category for their new trending plurks. (User-promoted.)

You can read about it at New World Notes.

Anyway, that's my suggestion as you find your feet.

It's awesome to see you playing around and having some fun in SL.

We were all noobs once!

I hope you find getting immersed in SL fun. It would be a great change to have more in-world understanding at LL. SL is great, and a lot of fun, but there's so many obstacles and issues when it comes to immersion.It seems like LL has never had many people with videogame industry experience working on the immersion end of things.

SL's camera placement (I made my own scripted HUD to make my camera placement more like a third person videogame), SL's many scale issues, the lack of tools in creating more engaging content (like the ability to drop NPC "objects, avatars you can dress up, script, and animate to populate an environment) etcetera all seem to be major impediments to SL's continued growth into the mainstream.

Hope you get around to visiting some of the more immersive builds around SL, like Insilico and Doomed Ship. They really push what can be done in SL now, and give a glimpse at what might be possible in the future if certain improvements are made.

Huhuuuuu Rod.

 

Call me when u need help with building or just take a look on my sim ^^ (in my pics u find all times my adress) hope u have fun to see.

Welcome to the mad house Rod (and I mean that in the nicest possible way!)

I'm really looking forward to the direction you take SL in. You seem very keen. I really hope that last.

You are probably going to hear lots of varied comments, complaints (and even some occasional praise from cheery, positive souls such as myself!) about SL. I'm personally really excited with what I've seen going on with SL over the last couple of months and am looking forward to a great 2011, so don't let me down!

I'm just going to sound off one word of caution. As a man who's had lots of experience in business, I'm sure you know this already, but I'm gonna say it anyway. You'll also probably get lots of people saying "Listen to us! Communicate with us!" which is entirely right. Do listen to us and communicate with us. However - and here is my note of caution - be cautious of assuming that those who shout the loudest are the majority view. There can be a tendency with SL residents to be split between those who shout loudly here on places like the forums, and those who happily get on with life inworld. Try to get as varied an opinion as you can from all types of SL users, not just those who shout loudly here!

With that said - have a fantastic time getting to know SL and I really look forward to hearing more from you soon. Already followed you on Twitter so hopefully see you tweeting too (side note - some SL residents also dislike the idea of SL staff / users being involved in external sites like Twitter / Facebook etc, but I disagree. There is nothing wrong with making social networking work alongside SL and I love Twitter, although I'm less keen on Facebook for a variety of reasons).

Anyway - I'll stop waffling now and offer you a welcoming slice of cheddar (I have a random cheese obsession and always talk about cheese in the forums - you'll get used to it! )

ETA: You'll also probably see some shouts of "Scrap Viewer 2!" Don't. Just make it even better and do all you can to make it meet the varying needs of diverse SL users. You'll never make the perfect viewer for everyone of course, but making it flexible enough to meet most needs and most will be happy. I'm personally liking Viewer 2 more and more with each new iteration. I'm aware that, sadly, one of the key devs on the viewer development (Esbee) is about to leave, so I hope you are able to find someone as good as she was to help continue the work on Viewer 2 improvement.

Warm welcome Rod!

New Zealander living in Western Australia here. Great to know you have officially arrived and have been for some time inworld creating and learning. Great also to know that you have read through the official welcome thread as one would have hoped. It is wonderful that you say you are here to serve us. You have made a pledge of huge and heartening importance in that simple statement. These are very encouraging first steps from a new leader. It's all looking good.

Hoping this is the first of many blog posts as Twitter is one technological step I never intend never to take.

Ps. Looking forward to seeing photos of your building progress. It all started in a log cabin huh?   Well done.

Welcome to SL Rod!

I am impressed that you took the time to get immersed in so many thing so quickly, it's an excellent start and is well appreciated.  There are so many things to do in SL and there are so many different communities, you will find that there are always new things to explore.  SL is truly a global community full of endless creativity and residents who are always willing to share their knowledge with you.  So feel free to ask!  

 

Angie

AWWW Bless