Moon & Jon's remarks from Education/Guild/Expansion Meet

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Jon Seattle
I need a hobby
I need a hobby
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Joined: Mon May 29, 2006 6:18 am

Moon & Jon's remarks from Education/Guild/Expansion Meet

Post by Jon Seattle »

Several people had to miss tonight's open CSDF meeting on education, the Guild, and expansion. I am posting my own and Moon's remarks at that meeting. The following bill and amendment proposed by the CSDF in November are mentioned.

[url:d76i4due]http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtopic.php?t=531[/url:d76i4due]
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for more information on the CSDF, see:

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[15:08] Jon Seattle: Well, I started writing a few remarks for this meeting. And soon, unfortunately, they turned in to quite a few remarks :)
[15:08] Jon Seattle: Welcome everyone
[15:08] Jon Seattle: I am going to start with my remarks, and then I hope Moon will speak, and then we can open this up for discussion
[15:09] Jon Seattle: People have life projects, that is the things they want to do and be. In second life they have second-life life projects.
[15:09] Jon Seattle: The second life economy has two parts. One sector links to real life economies, for example land speculation and content development for RL organizations. I call this the real-world sector of the second life economy,
[15:09] Jon Seattle: The other is the internal sector which involves only the exchange between individuals and purely second-life organizations.
[15:09] Jon Seattle: It is far easier to develop an internal sector business than one in the real world sector. One reason is that internal sector businesses are usually hobby projects and so rely on substantial donations of labor from the business
[15:09] Jon Seattle: owner
[15:09] Jon Seattle: The don’t have to turn a profit in the sense of providing a real life salary the business owner.
[15:10] Jon Seattle: Real life sector organizations hesitate to do substantial business with internal sector businesses.
[15:10] Jon Seattle: There are a number of reasons but the main ones are the increased risk (the internal sector business my go out of business, fail to deliver on a contract, etc.) and the problems of accounting for tax purposes.
[15:10] Jon Seattle: However, this is very important, Internal sector business almost always help their proprietors to gain skills that are useful, often necessary, for entry into the real world sector economy.
[15:10] Jon Seattle: For many of us, the internal sector also allows us to try on professions and roles that would be much more difficult to gain access to in real life.
[15:11] Jon Seattle: For example, I would love to go to architecture school, but given the contingencies of my real life, this would be difficult. With second life I can read about real life architecture and architects and then actually practice and design and build structures here.
[15:11] Jon Seattle: Second life life projects motivate many of us to come to second life.
[15:11] Jon Seattle: In the real world there are also voluntary sector organizations that are not designed to make profits, but to provide goods and services to an entire community. Public schools are and universities are a good example.
[15:11] Jon Seattle: Is it possible, also, to have voluntary organizations that are internal to second life? The answer is yes,
[15:11] Jon Seattle: but without a structure like the CDS they are somewhat difficult to organize and manage. This is one of the important things about the CDS.
[15:11] Jon Seattle: At one level the CDS is a consumer cooperative. We are a group of people who join together to purchase server and software services from Lindon Labs.
[15:12] Jon Seattle: The CDS can be more than a consumer cooperative. It can be a framework for building voluntary organizations that work to help our citizens successful implement their own second-life projects.
[15:12] Jon Seattle: The interesting thing here is that the voluntary organizations I am talking about are also the realization of citizen’s second-life projects. There are some of us who want to create schools and art galleries and even political factions.
[15:12] Jon Seattle: We are personally motivate to invest our time and ideas into building those organizations.
[15:12] Jon Seattle: The point I made about risk and second-life internal sector businesses also apply. This is why the “government” of the CDS should not directly get involved in providing these kinds of services
[15:13] Jon Seattle: If one project (say the NFS School) bogs down we may find someone down the road who has a dream and will be successful in reinvigorating the school, even drawing the original organizers back into the project. It really depends on people.
[15:13] Jon Seattle: Some of these voluntary organizations will fail just like internal and real-life sector businesses. Expect some of them to succeed for a time and then go dormant as their organizers get drawn into other things. The CDS can remain.
[15:13] Jon Seattle: Let me shift to an example of a CDS voluntary organization which succeeded. This is the SPC, the Sim Planning Committee. This is the voluntary organization that planned for, designed, and built Colonia Nova.
[15:13] Jon Seattle: The SPC organization ignored faction lines. It invited everyone who was willing to lend a hand to do so. This is an important thing to remember for future projects.
[15:14] Jon Seattle: Projects that deliberately exclude part of our community or dis-empower some of its members are a really bad idea.
[15:14] Jon Seattle: The SPC was a school. It provided a learning opportunity for citizens who had some skills to extend those skills by participating in the planning and development an entire island.
[15:14] Jon Seattle: We had several master architects, notably the project was conceived of and led by Moon Adamant, and major work including terraforming, building the city walls, and a beautiful sector of the city was done by our EO, Sudane Erato.
[15:14] Jon Seattle: For less experienced architects, such as myself, it was an opportunity to learn under the supervision of these more capable designers.
[15:14] Jon Seattle: The fact is that I put in any hours on the project, but what I gained, the opportunity to design some larger structures and homes under the guidance of more experienced designers was incredibly valuable.
[15:15] Jon Seattle: If I were not so busy with the CSDF I could turn those skills into an internal sector business or cooperative and even attract real-world sector clients.
[15:15] Jon Seattle: Well, if I gained from constructing CN, so did the CDS. It would have cost several times as much to develop Colonia Nova with a commercial builder and the results would be nowhere as personal or as nice.
[15:15] Jon Seattle: As a result of the Colonia Nova project the CDS has gained human capital. It has more skilled architects who can turn around and build more wonderful structures and develop more sims.
[15:16] Jon Seattle: It it worth our investing in our own citizens rather than hiring outside professionals to do our work.
[15:16] Jon Seattle: Imagine what we can do if we can develop a new sim island for a fraction of the cost of a commercial developer and our skills for carrying out these projects increase every time we do it.
[15:16] Jon Seattle: Remember that this also applies to the people who do budgeting and financing, work out covenants, and plan events.
[15:16] Jon Seattle: Imagine also, if our citizens use these skills to start businesses both in the internal sector but also eventually in the real-world sector. Those citizens will bring income and enrich the CDS economy. Isn't this better than sending all our money in the outside economy?
[15:16] Jon Seattle: I started by saying people have life projects, and here they have second-life projects. The fact is, by following and building on the SPC model we can help people realize their own life project goals while also building a great CDS.
[15:17] Jon Seattle: Now I want to focus a bit on the process of building a new sim. First with the end of the guild we lack the organization to carry the process forward. We need to reconstitute the SPC as the new guild so as to be able to continue the development process.
[15:17] Jon Seattle: We have a proposal for doing this.
[15:17] Jon Seattle: Second, before we start on the next sim we need to have at least a rough regional plan our larger continent. Sudane and Moon have both been working on a master plan for the CDS. We need to complete this work.
[15:17] Jon Seattle: Planning ahead allows you to work terrain issues when you connect the islands. It lets you deal with issues of elevation, water ways, and roads to connect the sims. It also lets you hold spaces on the grid for expansion.
[15:18] Jon Seattle: Planning ahead also lets you work with other large land owners to buy islands as a discount. Islands typically are much cheeper when they are bought in volume.
[15:18] Jon Seattle: The process of actually creating a new sim is very very labor intensive. In the case of Colonia Nova there was a detailed plan before we even considered buying this island. Moon did a wonderful scale model that was shown the NFS.
[15:18] Jon Seattle: When you buy an island the clock starts ticking. Lindon Labs collects its monthly fee no matter what.
[15:18] Jon Seattle: An unfinished island is one that is not collecting the revenue to pay that fee. So you need to know what you are doing and have organized the work so you can complete it quickly.
[15:18] Jon Seattle: The CSDF is proposing to create the new guild we have proposed, open up the process of creating a master plan, and then when we have the master plan move ahead to plan and then build a new sim.
[15:19] Jon Seattle: While we build the next sim we will very intentionally shape the process so that we train and educate people in the skills needed to plan and build new sims. The CDS will be better off with citizens who have the skills to do this.
[15:19] Jon Seattle: Why not hire external companies to build sims for us? It would cost somewhere between four to eight times as much for each sim island we develop. The cost will limit our potential for development.
[15:19] Jon Seattle: Even more important, making the CDS a place where there are opportunities for learning will attract more involved citizens.
[15:19] Jon Seattle: Move to island X and you get a plot of land, move to the CDS you will become part of a real community and we will help you develop your skills and pursue your own goals.
[15:20] Jon Seattle: That is the end of my remarks. :)
[15:21] Moon Adamant: i have nothing prepared :P
[15:21] Jon Seattle: Thank you!
[15:21] Moon Adamant: so bear up with me, please :)
[15:21] Moon Adamant: yesterday, i was asked by a friend, who is an architecture professor in UCLA
[15:22] Moon Adamant: to write a few comments on community development in SL
[15:22] Moon Adamant: my immediate comment was 'territory'
[15:23] Moon Adamant: it is a fact that the CDS draws upon its territory
[15:23] Moon Adamant: we have public spaces to meet, and we meet there - this strengthens the human relationships to a point in which our community does indeed resemble a RL village, with people chatting and growing
[15:24] Moon Adamant: friendships and common projects
[15:24] Moon Adamant: another fact is that this relation is biunivocal, we as a community also shape the territory
[15:24] Moon Adamant: we need a territory that suits our needs as community
[15:24] Moon Adamant: and that brings us to the planning
[15:25] Moon Adamant: the CDS community is equal to none other in SL
[15:25] Moon Adamant: we better than anyone know our needs
[15:25] Moon Adamant: so i do agree with Jon when he says that our expansion shall be always fueled by ourselves
[15:25] Moon Adamant: instead of contracted outside
[15:26] Moon Adamant: to do that, we need to expand our skills, so that the sum of all of us is larger than the parts
[15:27] Moon Adamant: CN is a good example of what we can achieve with a good planning and process
[15:27] Moon Adamant: we the CSDF propose that this way be applied in a continued manner
[15:27] Moon Adamant: that we create a pool of resources - and at the same time we enrich each person in the pool
[15:28] Moon Adamant: if all of our traders are fostered into achieving the maximal skills, they profit and the community profits
[15:29] Moon Adamant: so there is also a biunivocal relation between each of us and the community
[15:29] Moon Adamant: we have proposed legislation to make this process permanent and
[15:29] Moon Adamant: a core to our community
[15:29] Moon Adamant: we believe that through Jon's bill concerning the New Guild, we meet in a better way the spirit of founders
[15:30] Moon Adamant: and prepare the future
[15:30] Moon Adamant: :)

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