User:Robin Linden/OH Summary 31 July 2007

Office Hours Meeting Minutes Tuesday, 31 July 2007 11:30 - 12:00N (delayed start due to grid downage) Ambleside (110, 6, 26)

Attendees: Aargle Zymurgy Alexandra Rucker Angelo Linden Brenda Archer Bunny Costello Catherine Linden Ciaran Lavel Jessica Holyoke Jurin Juran Kitty Barnett Kooky Jetaime Nijtram Poitier ReFa Lemmon Rex Cronon Saijanai Kuhn Tao Takashi Tuga Hirons Wyn Galbraith

• Tao Takashi, talking about new marketing, thinks that communication is key (can there be too much communication?); and inquires about podcasts
• Catherine says that due to the bandwidth of our small team, marketing has been PR focused. Starting to be more proactive than reactive, focusing on education & nonprofits, andts & culture, workplace innovation, and open source.
• Inworld advertsing campaigns are busy, but you often don't know someone had a presence until they're leaving
• Weather Channel Island is an example of a "big brand" doing it right
• Over the past 18 months, SL has had a huge amount of positive attention, and now the media is looking for a new story...
• Some discussion about how the L$ is at a low/land prices dropping (but both are stronger than one year ago)
• Catherine asks what would be a good way to get press requests out to residents: (nor direct response)
• Catherine asks if residents need to learn more about marketing their own businesses: no spinning ads; better search function would enable better marketing (and help new residents better find stuff); hard to find new items in search (rather than just stumbling across them;

   discussion of billboards and their impact on 

• Tasteful billboards along the road near Foyle Gully
• Suggestions of utilizing "top picks", categories, rotating top picks chosen by an editorial staff, active recording of residents fave locations, etc.; sensitivity of perception of user bias by SL; Mystitool is a tool that records favorite locations and a recent tp list;
• Next month Catherine has been at Linden for four years!

Action Items:

• Comment from Kooky Jetaime, "There's a reason that only 1.6 million accounts out of 8.3 million have logged in the past two months" Move that data off the main welcome page!
• Residents want additional clarification on which games are banned and which are okay; update the FAQ (and increase # of residents that find it usefule [11 out of 80 right after annouoncement])
• Search function needs to allow "-word" filter settings & adult content filter to be sensitive to Corp/Press sensibilities (checking "mature box" is meaningless)
• Addition of non-standard-hour office hours for non-US residents
• Catherine set up a weekly PR meeting! Many positive remarks. One objective: help inworld business succeed.
• Publish list of successful businesses, written by business owners
• Catherine to receive a list from residents with links, ideas, etc. (will publish next minutes)

Future Potential Meeting Agenda Items

• overhauling the UI