Well that was a meeting full of surprises as well a meeting full of no surprises. There was news of a promotion, news that Linden Lab are looking to replace Blondin but the most shocking development was the sight of Censor and Censoribility, Amanda Linden and Lexie Linden, chairing the Zindra User Group Meeting.
“Pics or it didn’t happen” I hear you say, well here you go:
So what exactly happened at this meeting? Well Lexie and Amanda both mentioned being excited, but the big news, Amanda has been promoted:
Amanda Linden: “so, about me….I’ve been at Linden Lab for 2.5 years and i’m now the Sr. Director of Marketing Communications/Community Relations (was Blondin’s boss). Lexie is also on my team and will help from time to time.”
Amanda also informed us that a replacement for Blondin is being sought and that person will eventually take over these meetings:
Amanda Linden: “however, we’re now down a team member and I’ll do my best to give you everything that you need, but we are hiring for a replacement for BLondin who would eventaully replace me, although i will probably continue to stay involved.”
Lexie offered support but to be fair to both Lexie and Amanda I’m not sure they know what they are letting themselves in for. There were kind words for Blondin from both the community and Lindens, with people admitting he will be missed.
My first reaction to seeing Lexie and Amanda chairing the meeting was “WTF!” I mean these are the ladies who are involved with the absurd word filter on the forum that means my cock-a-hoop tavern on my roleplaying sim is known as the **bleep**-a-hoop tavern! However it’s probably unfair to blame just Amanda and Lexie as this silliness extends into the marketplace too.
The Zindra user group meetings can often feel like groundhog day, someone complains about another group, that person gets annoyed, the other person asks what the rules are for the way this group is run, but beneath all that, the people there do seem to want to work to keep the adult community going in Second Life, they ask for the same thing though, visibility and that’s going to be hard to achieve.
Zindra isn’t, as some would have you believe, empty, some places there seem to be thriving, I don’t spend that much time there and I only have a small parcel there, one which I need to do some work on, but they should be trying to work with the art people to put mature art into the art sphere, adult art isn’t going anywhere other than adult land.
What Amanda will bring to this group I don’t know exactly, she does talk and it might be interesting to see how Amanda gets on with some of the stronger personalities at these meetings but for now the signs are good, at least Linden Lab haven’t left these meetings to rot and by having a senior director heading up the meetings for the time being, it means someone with some authority is taking the bull by the horns, we’ll see what happens from here.
