Linden Lab hires Resident Communications Manager
Filed under: MMO industry, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds
In a search lasting nearly 12 months, Linden Lab has finally hired a Communications Manager. Linden Lab originally announced the search for a Second Life Resident Communications Manager in early May 2007, but the blog posting announcing the position was silently removed some months later.
You would hardly know the position had been filled, if you weren't reading closely.
Robin Harper announced the arrival of Katt Linden as part of another post on Monday, but omitted to mention what role, precisely Katt would be filling. Today, the role is given the briefest of mentions at the bottom of the trademarks policy piece by Catherine Smith.
"Katt will be focusing on our Resident communication channels," said Smith, "including this blog and the forums to make sure we're using the right tools to communicate clearly and frequently with the community. She's going to need some ramp up time so please be gentle."
After so long, it is almost astonishing that there is a person filling this role. It's big news, and we wonder why there's been essentially no fanfare.
In case you're wondering what Resident means, it means users of the Second Life service of all sorts. There's quite a usage split in terms. Linden Lab always uses the word Resident (capitalized as a proper noun). Users of the service themselves generally swing between users, residents and occasionally players, with one of the terms tending to predominate depending on the groups you associate with and the places you frequent.
For Second Life users the filling of this position is probably one of the biggest deals for them in a long time. Quite aside from any policy changes, bugs, glitches and grid problems -- users have wanted someone dedicated to making sure that they are properly and clearly informed. Now that that has happened, it passed almost unmarked.
Which is somewhat ironic, really.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pavig Lok said on 5:26AM 4-02-2008
This is a brilliant move on the part of Linden Lab - any comms company (and let's face it SL is communications with pictures) needs trained communications staff to digest and simplify messages coming to and fro between the company and it's communities.
Communications staff are also well placed to frame moves by LL which, when explained by engineers and other staff, sound reactive and problematic (when in reality they're probably just being announced by folk untrained in communicating with the public.)
For such a clever move however it's taken a long time coming. Perhaps now, with a (hopefuly) more stable grid on the way, and proper public comms, they can start repairing the somewhat tarnished image of SL. It's a pity this didn't happen a lot sooner.
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Crap Mariner said on 12:03PM 4-02-2008
I'm hoping that Katt engages the community and leverages the assets that blogs with wide readership and different perspectives can bring to the table.
I guess we'll see if they scour sites for feedback when people post without cc:ing the various LL addresses, hunt down hot topics in forums to hand off to their fellow Lindens for review, etc.
But, yeah, failing to effectively communicate that there's a new Communications person... will Irony Linden be the new CEO?
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