Kim Salzer Leaves Linden Lab: Former Head of Marketing Advertised Second Life's Virtual Animals, Instituted Tighter Company Communication

In recent weeks, Kim Salzer has departed Linden Lab, where she was hired as Vice President of Marketing in September 2010. Her LinkedIn profile already lists her now working for Citysearch/CityGrid Media, and her last Linden Lab position as Head of Marketing & Product at Linden Lab. After getting several reports of this departure, I confirmed it from Kim directly last weekend. She tells me that while she enjoyed working for Linden Lab, the regular commute to the company's San Francisco office from Los Angeles, where she lives, had become too difficult.

I'm sad to see her go: an alumnus of videogame giants Activision/Blizzard and Electronic Arts, I was excited to see the direction she would take with marketing Second Life. Most publicly prominent of her efforts, perhaps, was a bid to market Second Life's virtual animals, which seems to have created a potential market for new SL users (though it hasn't yet led to overall user growth.) At the last Second Life Community Convention in August, I finally got to meet Ms. Salzer, and we had an interesting chat about her future plans to brand SL -- my impression is she liked some of the ideas I mentioned in an essay about doing just that.

Alas, whatever future plans Kim had for SL's branding, they are not to be, or at least, not implemented by her. At the same time, I think Second Life is not yet a fully-formed consumer-ready product, certainly not compared to games like Guitar Hero and Call of Duty that she marketed in her game industry days, so it's quite likely any strategies she did have were stymied by SL's slow development cycle.

But while the SL community and public probably won't feel her influence on the direction of Second Life any longer, it's also likely employees of Linden Lab still will:

Numerous insiders tell me Kim was instrumental in implementing a corporate policy that tightly controls information and internal communication within Linden Lab, both between departments, and between Linden Lab staff and the community. In other words, under Kim Salzer's direction, company communication has shifted from the looser, open-ended structure associated with founders Philip Rosedale and Cory Ondrejka, and become more hierarchical and regimented -- not unlike the major game publishers where she began her career in interactive entertainment. Whether this is a good change for the sake of Second Life isn't clear to me as yet, though in that time, it's also true that development of the Second Life viewer has become more rapid, even while Linden Lab's "blue water" projects proceed apace.

In any event, Kim Salzer's departure from Linden Lab probably represents the most prominent change in the company this year. However, I'm told other major personnel changes at Linden are coming quite soon. 

Comments

[Maggie Darwin (@MaggieL)]

If more Lindens used their own product, maybe commuting wouldn't be such an issue.

[Aeonix Aeon]

Finally... she's gone. Now let's put somebody in the marketing position who actually knows what the hell they are doing, and how to handle an open ended virtual environment like SecondLife instead of a video game. Somebody who encourages open communication instead of tightly regulated.

[Ezra]

The purpose of marketing is to garner interest. Second Life has a very impressive tens of thousands sign-ups a week. For the most part, marketing's job is there. The issue of retention falls to other areas of the company that's failing Second Life.

So, not sure how new registrations have trended over the last few years, before and after her, but they're impressive right now, so I guess she did a pretty ok job.

@Maggie

Yes, very ironic that Second Life was being pitched by IBM and M Linden a couple years ago as a virtual work/meeting place for businesses and enterprise, yet Linden Lab's losing an exec right now over commute issues.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Maybe on her commute she had to cross too many sim-borders in her fake car...that would truly be the commute from hell.

[Douglas Story]

@ Ezra - this is very true: "The purpose of marketing is to garner interest. Second Life has a very impressive tens of thousands sign-ups a week. For the most part, marketing's job is there."

I work in the marketing of television programs making on-air promos. In my business we have saying, "Our job is just to get them into the tent. If they don't enjoy the circus it's not our fault."

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Sadly the tighter communications regime did not lead to more effective, directed communication - but rather to a policy of "only tell them when we have to" instead of using the resources of the community to help LL.

[Hamlet Au]

"very ironic that Second Life was being pitched by IBM and M Linden a couple years ago as a virtual work/meeting place for businesses and enterprise"

In fairness, Linden Lab walked away from that strategy by 2010, and started chasing after the consumer/gaming market -- which is partly why they hired Kim. By the time she came on, I doubt anyone at Linden seriously believed there was a huge market for SL in enterprise/distance meeting spaces outside the hardcore already doing it.

[Ezra]

@Hamlet

True, but still, the last "Second Life Work" pamphlet was updated January of this year it looks like: http://lecs-static-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/work/SL-Work-Brochure-010411.pdf

And it strongly pitches the idea of a "virtual workspace". Even if the strategy of pushing Second Life as in part a place of business changed as sudden as M exiting, its kind of proof Linden Lab wasn't practicing what they were preaching during M's years anyway if someone just quit due to the commute.

Its actually a bit of a shame. I think "Enterprise" may've been a mistake, the general idea of targeting the Fortune 500. That's a niche market by definition, to seek IBM, Microsoft, Amazon and so on, but "Second Life Work" very much could've been a success with the Fortune 5,000,000 of small businesses that want something a bit more immersive than Skype for their telecommuters.

Its just interesting that was her reason for quitting a company with a product -perfect- for solving issues of telecommuting, if only it worked dependably the way its always been described.

[Mark C]

Ezra, I work at one of the large enterprises you mention and I can't even begin to imagine how SL solves any of the problems of telecommuting. The whole idea was just a group-think illusion based on desperation more than anything. If there's any business problem (other than Linden Lab's revenue problem) solved by running little avatars around a virtual space it has completely escaped my attention.

[Hamlet Au]

Well said, Mark. Or to put it another way: IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon all had enterprise spaces in Second Life, put there by internal advocates of SL for work. (And Amazon's Bezos is a direct investor in Linden Lab, while IBM's top execs pushed SL as The Future for Work.) Yet somehow, ultimately even those three companies apparently didn't find it worthwhile, and all but ended their presence in SL.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Never, ever, EVER let Marketing anywhere near Community Relations. They don't get it, they don't want to get it, they just want to use it as a tightly-regulated marketing tool.

If you can get away with locking Marketing in a closet and feeding them gruel through a slot in the door, do it. But don't feed them after midnight.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

Telecommuting = Citrix and a phone. Used to be able to use IM apps like skype and yahoo IM but they turned into malware delivery platforms because of the unsecure spam app cells. But hey the real work gets done in Citrix because it secures the business enterprise.

SL is an entertainment platform. Always has been. Always will be.

[Rin Tae]

I am not sure what I should think over her leaving. Back when she started I remember many people expressing the idea that fianlly someone takes over the marketing and teaches LL how to do it. However, this has not happened. The one thing with the breadables wasn't much of a fantastic idea and the start of a new marketing era. LL still fails to advertise SL and nothing has changed during her time in the company.

I also remember posts about where she is and what she is doing not long after she joined and then vanished from view as fast as many other LLs who came in and promised how they would always be talking to users and how they will improve communication with them.

As head of marketing in a company that does not seem to have any marketing her job must have felt difficult but from all as it seem when looking from the outside, she failed at it. Of course if she managed to improve things in the company outside of what her job description seem to have implied then at least something was gained from her brief stay with LL.

[Vanadis Falconer]

Her most important contribution is a more gender-neutral marketing. The caricature of "the American girl's dream", husband, married, house and children as soon as possible disappeared.
She herself is a clear proof that the fantasy belongs to a bygone era.
She gave Second Life a more internationally viable marketing.
She seems to have understood that the USA is a relatively small market and that Europe has twice as many inhabitants as the USA and Asia have twice as many inhabitants as Europe and that it is those who are the growth markets.
-Vanadis Falconer, Sweden, Europe.

[Johnny alt]

Let's bust some silly myths/excuses.

Myth 1
SecondLife is not yet a fully-formed consumer-ready product

Myth 2
Secondlife is too difficult to use

Myth 3
Secondlife is a niche product who's target audience is clever, lonley farmers with one leg

The above myths are really just excuses, ways The Lab use to explain to themselves and others why Secondlife is not taking off.

Really ??? After 10 years development it's not yet a fully-formed consumer-ready product and too difficult to use ?

So if it's not yet ready or fully formed, why is The Lab charging 300USD per month for a sim ?

The real truth is :

Secondlife is a very well formed product with amazing potential RIGHT NOW

Secondlife is not that hard to use, it's no harder than any other current 3D game

It's not a niche product - incorrect pricing model keeps it niche

The real reason why Secondlife is not taking off Right NOW is because the product, which is virtual land is too expensive.

Current monthly tier costs are the real and only reason why the Secondlife grid isn't 10, 100, 1000 times larger than it is NOW

The sooner The Lab stop 'Myth Making' excuses and remember what the actual product they are selling is (Land) and realise that tier is way too expensive, the sooner Secondlife will realise it's true potential as the incredible mass medium it is

[bongo]

international vampire and pets banner ads...

[Hamlet Au]

"Johnny alt" (not sure why you're not using your RL or SL name, but OK): I've asked you in previous posts to show your evidence that there's a large market for land at reduced tier costs *and* that Linden Lab could make such reductions without hurting their existing revenue base. (And that's not even discussing the outcry from land barons, who pay most of Linden's tier, any deep discount would cause.) Until you can provide such evidence, I'm not sure how productive it is to keep repeating such a shaky claim.

[Pep]

Thanks for confirming what my mate Rudolph Ukka pointed out about a month ago ( http://pserendipitydaniels.blogspot.com/2011/10/corporate-hysterionics.html#comment-form ) and got his ass banned for doing so.

Now maybe you can get a comment from Marc Viale Linden on his plans for converting the forums into advertising space.

Pep (is available for comment at all times.)

[Orca Flotta]

I guess the real problem with SL - if there is any problem at all, which I highly doubt - is that LL doesn't realize what kind of product they are selling. This definition is long overdue. Not for us, we customers know more or less exactly what we are doing and what we are using SL for.
No, I think the confusion exists inside the lab itself.

Let me define it for you labbers:

LL is a server hosting company.
Simple as that, easy as that.
LL's procuct is server space (land).

We users now that. And most of us, at least the paying customers, don't need kindergarten ideas like games in game, premium sandboxes (we have our own land which we can use for building) and other perks and specials. I don't even know why LL is wasting any energy and time in the development of such nonsense.

So Johnny Alt is correct when he claims that reduced tier fees would be the most important, if not the only, really successful marketing strategy. Besides that of course they must give us a technically much better grid, get rid of borked sim crossings, get rid of lag, stop patching up bad code but do it right in the first place.

To make it short: be happy for every spin doctor like Kim leaving the company and hire a bunch of hardworking coders and networkers instead.

[Orca Flotta]

Tssk, stupid me always forgets something ...

Here's a novel idea: Boss Linden, make it madatory for every LL employee to spend at least 1 h/day in SL. This will hopefully help your ppl to get a better feeling for their own product. Don't just have them sitting around in Linden village and chat but give them small tasks, tasks every resident does daily (for recreational values I might add).
Give them some money and tell them to buy a vehicle and ride along Linden roads and/or waterways and airways.

Send them out to explore the grid. Tell them not to TP all the time but try a simcrossing from time to time.

Tell them to go shopping in highly frequented areas. Let them see how it is when you go on eternal walks or walk in the same place for minutes without moving a meter.

Let them suffer and experience all the stuff your customers are complaining about. Maybe then you really "get" your product and what it could be like if "those Lindens" would do a better job.

Thanks very much for your friendly faked attention.

[foneco zuzu]

Orca, You got it all right;)

[Moni Duettmann]

I really would be much more comfortable, if you'd challenge the term "consumer" a bit more than you do, Wagner, and eventually remember the term "emancipation", when it comes to pondering over strategies for Second Life. Why must everything be "consumer-friendly"? Can there at least be one or two things in the internet that still be of a more experimental nature? I.e. freedom of where it will go instead of where a corporation wants us to go? Especially when people are willing to pay for it as it is?

[foneco zuzu]

Ham said He used it as a social webchat mainly.
What i fear is if the Lab only uses Sl as that as well!
They are missing so much and will never realize the fact that high tiers are an issue, but hardware problems will be the main reason to fear Sl death!
As long as we can be in world we will pay, but as soon as We can't, and the more it passes the more users are complaining (See the Jira's, that should be the 1st concern of a company between its clients!!!)
And as im seeing a bit of improvement over that, i hope that really instead of marking they will hire true programmers cause that's where the problems need to be sorted and solved to ensure that the ones that join can use Sl as it deserves, NOT AS A WEB CHAT, BUT ALSO AS ONE PLUS ALL ANY CAN WISH OR DREAM!

[Alisha]

" Until you can provide such evidence, I'm not sure how productive it is to keep repeating such a shaky claim."

The evidence is there. When openspace sims price dropped to 75 a month LL sold 10s of thousands. We all know they messed that up, but it illustrated the demand and price point very well.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I don't think there's any serious question that LL has priced itself out of the virtual land market. I've said before that tier for a full sim should not exceed $30/month, and I'm sticking by that.

That price point may put the land barons out of business, but... good riddance. We can't afford to support flippers and speculators. Quality landlords that know how to do aesthetic builds, customer service, and other value adds will weather the shakeout.

Time to pop the bubble.

Some revenue lost will be recovered through increased volume, hopefully with robust instancing tech to balance server loads.

The bulk will probably come from transaction fees. They're not popular, but they're a much more reliable revenue stream in an active virtual economy.

We might even be able to win back some of the business and education users that LL screwed over. And while I personally couldn't give two rats' tails about business, colleges and universities can give us some of the best creative, experimental and innovative applications of the tech, if they're encouraged to do so.

It IS a lab. Just remember that the residents are the researchers... not the rats.