Eating with the Competition
Tonight I had a very Second Life sort of evening.¬† Sibley Verbeck, CEO of the Electric Sheep Company, and I met up for dinner in Sausalito at the appropriately named and eminently delicious, Avatar’s.¬† There, over”Marindian” food, we spent a couple of the most enjoyable hours I can remember recently, catching up, comparing notes, swapping war stories and speculating about what the next year might bring.
The reason I mention this is that the truth is that our companies are fierce competitors.¬† As I drove home, a phrase was rattling around in my head, “May You Have Great Competitors”.¬† What this means, I think, is that your “competitors” should not be adversarial, but aspirational.¬† They should push you, spur you to greatness and inspire you.¬† And ideally, they should also but trusted resources and close friends.
Sibley and the Sheep fit that description and my worlds, both real and virtual, are richer and more enjoyable because of them.
January 7th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Hey Reub. Sounds like a fun time!
Question to pose to you: Do you truly feel “fierce” is the word to consider your competition with eSheep? Perhaps you and eSheep are competing on the same contracts, but my personal experience is that there are so many companies begging to get into SL that we see folks like eSheep, Millions of Us, Aimee Weber, and so on to be more of “friendly” competitors. I’ve been saying it for a year now, like the early developer meetings - there’s a lot of pie for all of us to have and still be full. (Actually, my analogy was about a gold mine, but, same difference, I think.)
January 7th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Hiro,
I’m not sure whether “fierce” is the perfect word or not. The fact is that we do compete, day in and day out, and competition can be a very intense (and healthy thing). My whole point is that we ARE friends despite the competition (or perhaps because of it). Was that not clear?
You’ve been emphatic for ages that the goldmine is full of pie and I agree. But if you ever are tired of pie, let’s have a meal together at Avatar’s in Sausalito.
R
January 7th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
I dunno, maybe I just take this as second nature; the majority of the dev companies do it. You were there during the first developer meetings, and you certainly advocated a level of communication and friendly competition then.
Maybe it’s that I get to see the sheepers more since we’re both East Coast. Oh, snap, it’s an East-Coast West-Coast thing! *flashes the “SL-East” sign* Erm, hmmm, maybe not.
Oh! I know. Here’s the truth - you and Sib must have come up with some awesome theories and plans for the Metaverse that you can’t share, and you want to share some of the feeling of that excitement in your blog. Heheheh. Yyyyeah, that’s it. You’ve got super-secret world-domination plans, a la your supposed tongue-in-cheek comments on Giff’s blog.
http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/giff/?p=223#comment-1670
I’m on to you, man! You can’t fool me!
*chuckles*
January 8th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Sausalito Smackdown: Millions of Sheep?…
by Pat the Rat While Reuben Steiger, who runs Millions of Us, one of the Big Three players in the metaverse-industrial complex, tried to make light of it in a recent blog post, Pat the Rat hears that the recent…
January 13th, 2007 at 5:21 am
I don’t think my partner Hiro will be out in SF in the immediate future but I more then likely will be towward the end of the month. iI the offer is open, I would love to join you for dinner at the aptly named Avatar. Seems we are also competling daily and I welcome my most intense competition as my friends. What say you Rueben are you open to dinner ?
Drew Stein ( boliver oddfellow)
CEO-Executive Producer
Infinite Vision Media
January 24th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Nice Post.
That was well said. Always appreciate your indepth views. Keep up the great work!
John
January 28th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Hi,
I found your blog via google by accident and have to admit that youve a really interesting blog
Just saved your feed in my reader, have a nice day
January 1st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I really enjoyed getting to read an article about fierce competition where the mood was one of mutual respect and not blood-letting. I think that lets you save your best thinking for how to compete in the marketplace, instead of wasting cycles on thinking about how to damage a competitor. Thanks for this post.