Loneliness can dog you when starting a business. There's no one quite so isolated as an entrepreneur with an unique vision, going it alone, surveying their empire (of one) and trying to exercise their first mover advantage or leverage their USP. All the language points to the unalienable fact, you're in it by yourself, baby. Alone, solo, all by yourself. The buck stops with you.
This is weird because business itself is a collaborative form of endeavour. Collaborative bordering on the social. The driveshaft of a successful business is turned by the engine of its people pulling and pushing in unison. So why then is it that entrepreneurship is such a lonely path? Perhaps this is why entrepreneurs are serial social networkers, whether it be in business networks and groups in real life or on the digital networks, there's no one more gregarious as a business owner. We love to indiscreetly swap back office stories in darkened bars; to gather and discuss the esoteica of cash accounting, PR do-s and don't-s and strategic vs tactical thought in hotel convention rooms. Networking events are like business speed dating. Breathless entertainment for the cashflow starved owner operator.
Running a business in Second Life is no exception but the dangers of isolation are perhaps even more stark when your colleague could quite literally be physically located 8,000 miles away on a different continent, awake on a coffee mainline in the wee hours of some early morning, somewhere you're not.
Business Exchange is an attempt to bring the social aspect of business networks into Second Life. It's by no means an original initiative. From the very first show and tells back in the days of the Beta grid, creators and innovators have gathered to share ideas and knowledge in a social context. Second Life is a world which is ideally suited for this purpose, with social networking tools enshrined in its fabric, in much the same way that sight and sound are enshrined in our view of the physical world.
Business Exchange will be a place to come and discuss and share. We're running a programme of events here already, from show and tells to seminars about IP Law, virtual economics and the nitty gritty of the SL creator permissions model.
As we grow, we hope that you, our network of business people, will help shape us in a way that will become directly useful to the business community of Second Life.
Our firm belief is that business should be fun. The Guild and Dynamis, who initiated Business Exchange, are both companies whose corporate DNA enshrines this belief. Like a shark, business needs to keep moving or die. But like a monkey, we like to have fun while moving forward too.
Hopefully Business Exchange can help us do that.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saturday, September 22, 2007
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