Yesterday was one of those very eventful Mondays. Most starting days to the week are eventful, but this included two other events that were significant. I’m going to break the standard protocol at this blog and write about a personal event.

In the afternoon yesterday I learned that one of our former district managers — a man that had been very supportive to the growth of our offline business and whom we’d vacationed with in the past — had died.

I’ll simply refer to him as DM in this post as it fits his District Manager position and out of respect. DM was the follow-up to two gentlemen that gave me the original business opportunity in 1994. District Manager’s don’t have a lot of power unless you break the company rules, the law or just become totally uncooperative — we are independent contractors — but he was my second favorite district manager to date. Ultimately, company politics would push him out of management and back into a business like we run and we sort of lost contact over the last half dozen years or so. The independent contractors clearly have a superior job to management, thus his move back to being one made good sense.

I don’t know how DM died or even what his age was but I’m guessing he was in his sixties. A memorial service is being held later this week. In some ways, I regret not keeping more communication open with DM when he moved out of management. It isn’t like we had a major falling out although we did have a couple arguments. One of them definitely got a little heated, but I believe we resolved things amicably afterwards. I hope we did.

Until this point I’d been looking forward to the first ever virtual MLB Homerun Derby simulcast. Saddened by DM’s loss, I still pressed on and visited the event on schedule. I did pause first to call an agent friend of mine. My thought was I’d check the game out for a little while and then slip away quietly.

And then there was life
I ended up staying for the entire event.

Let me just say that the event was done so well that it felt like I was attending the birth of something. Major props to the Electric Sheep Company and Major League Baseball. I wanted to post about it last night after the event but the whole day zapped me. Fellow SL resident and attendee Eric Rice nailed it in his review:

MLB hit a home run, because they didn’t do the stereotypical thing we expect big companies to do– they didn’t talk AT us, they played with us. They entertained us. They were there having fun too. They were there.

The Electric Sheep hit a home run, making sure that everything worked. Only a couple of us had a moment of difficulty. REAL TIME customer service, as it happened.

I took over 45 snapshots of the event, some of which were blogged live to my accounts at SLprofiles.com and Snapzilla. I’ll be posting all 45 pictures over the next couple days at our group VTOR blog but this post contains a sample of a few of them.

Before attending this event on Sunday I had a feeling this might prove to be the most geeky event I’d ever attended online, but it also proved that Second Life makes a viable platform. Imagine having computers at the ballpark in the suites and providing those folks an experience with others around the world? There is something very futuristic about combining virtual and real worlds. A largely untapped place that isn’t being explored elsewhere. Linden Labs could be onto something huge, much, much bigger than any game if they continue to promote this angle. If they will remains to be seen but I see some serious potential if they market as something other than a 3D world where you can make real money.

I can’t wait for the next event like last night. I wish they were streaming the All Star game tonight. I’d gladly pay at least another L$1,000 for that experience. A commercial free, TV-less experience? Oh yes, I’m there. That is fan appreciation.

I bought almost everything in the MLB shop too, so they not only got my L$1,000, but several free posts leading up to the event and at least this one afterwards.

The future
I’m still saddened we lost our friend and supporter DM, but the SL/MLB event proved to be a pickmeup. Thank you to all. Major props all around.

And to DM, assuming it is possible for him to read this somewhere, somehow, hopefully I’ll see you on the other side someday again.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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