Senior Product Manager - How Might They Steer Second Life?

[Sid Nagy]

@benchthis : not afraid to fail  does not mean an invitation to be sloppy, irresponsible, lazy, throw away money lighthearted.
In my book it means creativity in finding solutions , think outside the box, open for new ideas.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

@benchthis : not afraid to fail  does not mean an invitation to be sloppy, irresponsible, lazy, throw away money lighthearted.
In my book it means creativity in finding solutions , think outside the box, open for new ideas.

Yes, creating anything you have to fail over and over...it's not easy. And kill your darlings along the way.

[Love Zhaoying]

11 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

"Meet the Love Machine."

Wha...what?

Man, the places I worked were positively boring. Puppies and love machines were never on the benefits menu.

At least it's "remote" love.

[Sid Nagy]

6 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

"Meet the Love Machine."

Wha...what?

Man, the places I worked were positively boring. Puppies and love machines were never on the benefits menu.

IMHO the love machine pushes shiny stuff, it makes it unpopular to do the boring stuff like trouble shooting, bug elimination etc.
And...... it is a great way to let staff be dishonest towards each other, wheeling and dealing behind each others back, covering asses, dumping unpopular ideas etc, all to secure ones bonus. I'm totally no fan of this concept. The management layer should IMHO judge how an employee functions in a company and the quality of their work. Nobody else.

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

@benchthis : not afraid to fail  does not mean an invitation to be sloppy, irresponsible, lazy, throw away money lighthearted.
In my book it means creativity in finding solutions , think outside the box, open for new ideas.

Yeah, I figured bench was just being cynical.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

IMHO the love machine pushes shiny stuff, it makes it unpopular to do the boring stuff like trouble shooting, bug elimination etc.
And...... it is a great way to let staff be dishonest towards each other, wheeling and dealing behind each others back, covering asses, dumping unpopular ideas etc, all to secure ones bonus. I'm totally no fan of this concept. The management layer should IMHO judge how an employee functions in a company and the quality of their work. Nobody else.

Definitely agree. It's also the sort of flowery language that used to make me skip over job ads back when I tolerated in-office employment (#freelance4life!).

You're not my family, we're not friends, I don't care about your company picnics, I don't feel obligated to answer calls at 5 in the morning - just pay me on time and we're golden.

[Luna Bliss]

Hmmm...I like this part of The Love Machine:

Step 2: Let employees decide who gets bonuses.

One year, Rosedale decided to change up how bonuses work. He gave each employee $1,000, and told them to give it to who they thought deserved it. They could give half to their boss, half to their friend—it didn't matter. The only stipulation was that the employee could keep none of it for him or herself. "Two things happen," Rosedale says. " First, a number of people who do heroic work in the trenches, they show up in the top 10—which is empowering. Second and most importantly, think about the culture impact. Management is absolved of performance review and can actually focus on leadership."

[Luna Bliss]

I like this too:

Step 3: Let employees rate you anonymously.

Few CEOs have the guts to find out what their employees really think of them. But for a company to succeed, its employees must trust and believe in the direction of the company's leadership. "Normaly a board evaluates a CEO, but if you have enough guts, give the CEO a year, then give a survey." he says. The question he asked his employees was a simple none, with only a Yes or No checkbox: Would you rather get a new CEO or keep the same one? "I'll never forget that one," he says.

[Sid Nagy]

Why is the love machine never accepted by a huge number of companies?  Makes one think.
The answer is simple: It is no success formula at all.

Philip Rosedale is a dreamer/visionary who stumbled over/created/developed a success once: Second Life.
That does not make him a guru for everything in my book.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Luna Bliss]

25 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Why is the love machine never accepted by a huge number of companies?  Makes one think.
The answer is simple: It is no success formula at all.

Philip Rosedale is a dreamer/visionary who stumbled over/created/developed a success once: Second Life.
That does not make him a guru for everything in my book.

Well I'd have to study The Love Machine more to know what I think of it -- likely I'd like and agree with some aspects while questioning whether others are effective.

One thing I do know is that corporations typically treat their employees like slaves and try to milk everything they can from them in the name of profit. So far, what I've read about The Love Machine is that they're trying to give some of the power back to the employees, and so in that regard it's a good thing!

Some people can't fathom not working without a boss beating them down from the top.  I have to admit, when I was first hired on by a company creating projects for (usually) outside corporations within 2nd life it was very strange to me -- they didn't require that I work certain hours, but instead I was just to come in and work however many hours I wanted each week. It freaked me out, really. My first thought was that they might think I didn't 'do enough' and so they'd think I didn't put in enough hours. I imagine some might feel the opposite and do as little as possible and just rake in the cash.

But...by structuring their company in this way what it really did was bring in those who were really inspired....who who did the 'work' because they loved it and not because they only cared about earning money.  Enough money was paid so an employee could survive okay, and the rest was up to them.

* I believe there are some studies showing that when employees are happy they work harder and actually increase profits for the company. I take your point that it could be true if it really worked then more companies would be doing it, but it's more likely we've gotten so accustomed to structuring the workplace in these abusive ways that we don't know how to change this.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Luna Bliss

[Love Zhaoying]

18 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Why is the love machine never accepted by a huge number of companies? 

Irony: The love machine doesn't get any love.

- Love

[Persephone Emerald]

51 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

At least it's "remote" love.

Yeah, not creepy at all that way.  😁

[Love Zhaoying]

More seriously, I assume "Love machine" in the context of the job, means "we have employee recognition programs that celebrate everyone's contribution", etc.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

At least it's "remote" love.

Yeah, not creepy at all that way.  😁

..just wear your Avatar to work!

[Ayashe Ninetails]

40 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Why is the love machine never accepted by a huge number of companies?  Makes one think.
The answer is simple: It is no success formula at all.

Philip Rosedale is a dreamer/visionary who stumbled over/created/developed a success once: Second Life.
That does not make him a guru for everything in my book.

It also doesn't work in huge multinationals where a good majority of the employees are split up between a dozen or more offices - working halfway across the world and headquartered in Japan. Unless you're going to love solely on your co-workers in your own region, which doesn't seem particularly fair. Not to mention, I never even met the majority of people working in my own building. Different departments entirely. And that's just one workplace I was in. They were all like that. Company culture is so varied across different industries and whatnot, but much of it can be "who are you again?"

Anyway, as to the job posting itself, I have nothing to add. It sounds project managementy, as expected. It's nice to see they offer hybrid and/or remote options for all positions listed on there, though. Forget full-time stuck in an office, man.

[Love Zhaoying]

Answering the thread title: The manager will steer SL with..Radar Love!

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

Philip Rosedale is a dreamer/visionary who stumbled over/created/developed a success once: Second Life.
That does not make him a guru for everything in my book.

Certainly not a "Love Guru" (see: Mike Myers movie).

[Candide LeMay]

Companies without "Love Machine": several new features per year

LL with "Love Machine": several years per new feature

 

I know which one I prefer as a customer/user.

[Istelathis]

15 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Which is the way to the future though?

My own guess would be (pure speculation, and boredom at play here)

Advertisements, not likely for the desktop version but for the mobile version.  I would guess a separate currency that one will be able to purchase a limited number of items from, including outfits for Senra, a daily spin the wheel game where new residents will earn currency and/or items to outfit a more than likely instanced home that does not have a monthly tier payment.  A sprinkling of instanced rated G social areas.  I imagine mobile users will enjoy a free instanced residence, and will be able to purchase and win others.

I don't think LL is going to want to damage what they already have by making drastic changes to the platform, so essentially two pretty different experiences for different users of SL.  

They could model it after SL, but there is a reason this position is being made.  They want more consumers, and to do that they have to change the platform to accommodate a mobile audience, not to mention meet the requirements for google and apple if they want to have their app available on either of those platforms.  I wouldn't be surprised if mobile became its own virtual platform separate from SL because trying to merge the two and make a profit while doing so  is sure to be a nightmare.

Or they will do some very creative, and find a way to make it all work out where they can have the best of both worlds.  I don't think mobile is going to be reliant upon the SL way of doing things with monthly tier costs, or premium memberships, and the reason I say that is they are going to be competing with Avakin Life and the way virtual platforms work has moved on since the introduction of SL.

Alternatively, they will just be catering to the current customers, which would be nice, but I don't think very realistic.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Istelathis

[Persephone Emerald]

47 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

My own guess would be (pure speculation, and boredom at play here)

Advertisements, not likely for the desktop version but for the mobile version.  I would guess a separate currency that one will be able to purchase a limited number of items from, including outfits for Senra, a daily spin the wheel game where new residents will earn currency and/or items to outfit a more than likely instanced home that does not have a monthly tier payment.  A sprinkling of instanced rated G social areas.  I imagine mobile users will enjoy a free instanced residence, and will be able to purchase and win others.

I don't think LL is going to want to damage what they already have by making drastic changes to the platform, so essentially two pretty different experiences for different users of SL.  

They could model it after SL, but there is a reason this position is being made.  They want more consumers, and to do that they have to change the platform to accommodate a mobile audience, not to mention meet the requirements for google and apple if they want to have their app available on either of those platforms.  I wouldn't be surprised if mobile became its own virtual platform separate from SL because trying to merge the two and make a profit while doing so  is sure to be a nightmare.

Or they will do some very creative, and find a way to make it all work out where they can have the best of both worlds.  I don't think mobile is going to be reliant upon the SL way of doing things with monthly tier costs, or premium memberships, and the reason I say that is they are going to be competing with Avakin Life and the way virtual platforms work has moved on since the introduction of SL.

Alternatively, they will just be catering to the current customers, which would be nice, but I don't think very realistic.

Interesting ideas. 

I don't think LL will want to have too many different options for the mobile experience vs. the PC experience, but the limited screen space and graphics ability of mobile might necessitate some. They may want to use ideas from IMVU or other virtual platforms that use mobile successfully, but I don't think they''ll want to lose the economic base they already have with SL and the linden dollar currency. 

One option might be simple, 512m (or smaller?) skyboxes for mobile users, similar to the homes users have in IMVU. These could be simple rooms where users rez in and can invite a friend over, but without the exterior textures and landscaping of Linden Homes. (There is room to the south of current Bellisseria, but skybox only regions could go anywhere on the grid.)  Not having to render exterior spaces, textures, or many other avatars could be a big plus for faster rendering on a mobile device.

[benchthis]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

6 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

@benchthis : not afraid to fail  does not mean an invitation to be sloppy, irresponsible, lazy, throw away money lighthearted.
In my book it means creativity in finding solutions , think outside the box, open for new ideas.

Yeah, I figured bench was just being cynical.

For example this new person may want to inquire how much EEP was to develope and why it is that EEP is not being used in Bellisseria. Would think fantasy may have EEP options for lighting but noo. So that's a waste is it not? Sure people who were likely involved with creating that product for the betterment of the world is selling them on the marketplace and options.

I think 1000$ severance pay would be fair. 

[Bree Giffen]

"may occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds"

What are they looking for? Bodybuilders? 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, benchthis said:

So that's a waste is it not?

Nope. New "Features" are part of the evolution of a product, can't force them on users if they are optional! Plus, EEP may have (if I understand the threads) contributed to the evolution of other features - even some that are "yet to come". 

[Love Zhaoying]

22 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

"may occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds"

What are they looking for? Bodybuilders? 

It's for when they have to deliver a "whole lot of Love". (See: Led Zeppelin song.)

[Flea Yatsenko]

LL has done an amazing job of attracting great content creators and keeping them. Meta could only dream of having some of the content creators LL has in the metaverse. Look how many stores have been around for 10+ years. That's ridiculously good for a content creation platform. I mean to get random creators from all over the internet to to produce all sorts of content, and to continue to produce content, is honestly amazing.

The place where LL hasn't done well is attracting content consumers. There are empty sims everywhere, major lack of people in tons of places. SL's biggest problem is lack of people to consume content and just spend time in world. Mainly because the barrier of entry is too high from a hardware and software perspective. It has a learning curve, you need a good enough computer to run it. The end result is a bunch of power users who would rather create content than make stuff and use SL as a social platform.

But I think a lot of what LL creates for SL is focused on content creators. They need someone to come in and start pushing ideas for people to use the content. Social features, almost like Bumble-type stuff. They need an outside perspective to get SL to start attracting more people who want to use SL, not make stuff for SL. And that includes people who just want to make their own sims or in world places, not even mesh, textures, scripts, etc.

I really hope this listing is a sign they realize they aren't ever going to grow if their business model is to get people to pay for sims and land that will be shut down because they weren't socially successful. It just has turn over at this point. Someone builds a sim, they have tons of content to pick and choose from, they build something really neat, no one really shows up, they realize it's not worth the money, then a new one shows up and the process repeats. The end result is just people replacing people and no real growth happening. Unfortunately this is a really easy problem to diagnose and not easy to fix. I think the idea is to have the mobile client try and fill that role. And I wouldn't be surprised if LL was realizing their limitation here. They have some great talent there but they are more like game engine designers than they are game creators.

The mobile viewer is amazing for this and I hope it ends up on Windows, Linux, and Mac too. That said there's a lot of competition in that space. SL can do very well though, you can find practically anything for SL. Other platforms not so much. I really hope they are planning on putting the mobile viewer into an entirely different team's hands and try and target a completely different market while they continue to keep the SL viewer and the power user features going. I am optimistic that's the plan. At least I sure hope. As long as I've been in SL it's just been spinning wheels with places opening, closing, creator leaves, cycle repeats.