Hello everyone,

I wanted to comment about changes you may be hearing about taking place with Second Life, through a "downsizing" of the staff at Linden Lab. True to form, this change has once again triggered a huge wave of "gloom and doom" on the SL education listserve, and the rumors are flying around in amazing form.

I would like to share my perspective with you, as a six year veteran of SL who has watched the development and transition of this platform and company for that long-term.

Most importantly, what is taking place at the Lab now is directly in line with the vision that Philip Rosedale described four years ago. At that time, he described how SL had been originally created as an "experiment", "thrown together" by a bunch of creative people who wanted to see if the platform was actually possible. Their original thought was that they might create an environment for themselves and perhaps a "few other people", to use as that experimental platform and "try some new things".

There was no plan for maintenance, user support, economic stability...no real business plan. It was not a "business", but an "experiment" like any other in any other lab.

The growth that occurred took them entirely by surprise. They spent two or three years trying to figure out how to turn the "experiment" into a "sustainable platform and business". These are two very different birds...and require a totally different approach to creating and sustaining. Over the past three years specifically, we have seen a number of actions taken that have been designed to turn "experiment" into "sustainable". Today's announcements is the next in that series.

The team that created SL were amazingly creative people, with great vision and technical creativity. But as you probably know, those are not the same people-skills required to maintain an entity once it is created. So many of those people have either left the lab, or have gone away as part of the series of restructures over the past two years. New people have come onboard who have brought the specific skills necessary to create a reliable business and a reliable technology. This change has gone to the very top of the ladder, as we saw the man with the original vision, Phil Rosedale, step down and be replaced with a new leader for Linden Lab. The doomsdayers see this as disaster, while those watching over time see this as an expected change. Phil is the creative, the visionary...and is not the right person for leading the company into the next phase. This change was a positive one, rather than the sign of doom. Phil has already moved into new directions where he will continue to create visions of the future, and Second Life is moving in a new direction to become more sustainable and reliable. And this is all change that was foreshadowed by Rosedale's own comments of four years back.

I don't work for Linden Lab, and my only business connection with them is that I pay them a huge pile of real dollars every year for the islands I have in-world. So please don't take my comments as somehow "defending" the Lab or Second Life.

My point is this:

These situations typically create a huge investment of energy among educators all fretting and stewing about the future and viability of Second Life for education. I would much rather encourage you to keep your energies focused on learning...on how this environment can offer us new opportunities for learning. I believe SL is going to be around for quite a while longer. But the reality is, if SL is around for a long time then we will use it to create some outstanding new learning opportunities. But if SL happens to disappear for some reason in six months, we will take what we have learned here and transfer it to whatever platform emerges to take SL's place. The only way we can lose is if we allow ourselves to take our eyes off of the learning target...and stop learning ourselves.

Virtually positive!

John/VB