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CEO Reuben Steiger’s thoughts on advertising and Millions of Us’ role in the industry.

Join Alcatel-Lucent on Thursday November 15^th at 2pm (slt) for a special speaking event with Ajay Pande, Director of Content Partnerships, Convergence Business Group.The Consumer trends have begun…Are we able to deliver a converged platform with a user-driven experience? Ajay will share trends and market drivers that influence device manufactures today and in the future. Be sure to join us and don’t miss out.

Link to event location.

We were recently able to help out the hosts of Fox Business Channel’s “Money for Breakfast,” Alexis Glick and Peter Barnes, in creating their Second Life avatars, much to the glee of their fellow anchors. Check out the clip.

Early this month Adrienne Haik of Metaversatility founded the group Women Metaverse Developers. What follows is my short interview with Adri, with minor edits for clarity.

Mega Millionsofus: What is Women Metaverse Developers (WMD)?

Adrienne Haik: WMD is a support, networking, and discussion group for women working in virtual world development: programmers, marketers, project managers, producers, women who work either as individuals or with companies. Our purpose is to increase the visibility of women developers in the industry and to provide a space to discuss common experiences, issues, and challenges.

It’s a commonly studied phenomenon that there are more men working in the sciences and technologies than there are women, and we’d like to not only provide support for our own members in this environment, but also act as an example to other women and girls who may aspire to become virtual world developers.

Mega: How did you come up with the idea to form Women Metaverse Developers?

Adri: What I first started noticing was how I felt like the only female developer at most conferences I was attending, like the only woman standing up to talk. That made me consider how feeling alone and isolated tends to perpetuate a gender bias. What finally pushed me to start a group though, was hearing Metaversatility (MV) Community Manager, Haver Cole talk about how happy she was to have found female friends outside of MV who are also developers, who she shared common experiences with. That made me realize that I wasn’t the only person feeling isolated, and also that women in our industry could and ought to become more visible to each other as a group.

Mega: What sort of events, discussions, conferences, etc. are you planning to organize?

Adri: We want to organize at least monthly discussion meetings, as a primary purpose of the group is to provide networking opportunities for our members. These discussions may be topical or may be meet-and-greet style events. We’re planning an ‘unconference’ day of discussions on women’s issues in virtual worlds for early next year, which will take place entirely in Second Life. We also plan to hold face to face meet-ups adjacent to major industry conferences.

Mega: Is this group for and focused exclusively on women developers in Second Life?

Adri: No, we want to appeal to women working in all aspects of the industry, regardless of platform. Second Life is one medium for our discussions, but we also have a Facebook group and will be launching our blog soon.

Mega: How does one get involved in WMD?

Adri: Women (meaning female-identified in daily life) who work in virtual worlds development roles should contact one of the group organizers: Adrienne Haik (SL: Adri Saarinen, adri@metaversatility.com), Katherine de León (SL: Mega Millionsofus, mega@millionsofus.com), or Rebecca Small (SL: Haver Cole, rsmall@metaversatility.com) or join the Facebook group Women Metaverse Developers for more information.

(Note: While we respect immensely the work our in-world business-running colleagues do, this group is primarily focused on business and businesswomen who work mediating the boundaries between worlds.)

Mega: Thanks for your time, Adri!

Adri: Thank you.

Adrienne Haik is a co-founder of Metaversatility where she focuses on business strategy, marketing, and making sure projects run smoothly. Other development companies participating in WMD include but are not limited to: Electric Sheep Company, Linden Lab, Makena Technologies, Massively, Millions of Us, and the New Media Consortium.

In some of the more tech-oriented industries that surround the bay area, there are often cruel stereotypes used to describe the culture of its residents. “Geek,” “nerd,” and “dork,” are just some of the harsh monikers often visited upon those of us who choose to seek out work that involves heavy computer proficiency. But I take exception to these names. Just because we create experiences inside of virtual worlds does not mean we’re automatically a slave to the nerdy cultural trends. We can work in cutting edge social media spaces on the internet all day without becoming geeks.

With that said…

The new film, “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” is fracking awesome. Here’s a few pics from our little company outing last night to check it out…

Theresa andThomas excited to be going into the theater to watch the not-at-all-geektastic film chronicling the story of how the Battlestar Pegasus survived the Cylon genocide.


A bunch of people waiting to watch “Battlestar Galatica: Razor” who are probably geeks… unlike us.

Bart points out the theater sign for a film that is not necessarily nerd oriented at all.

The title screen to a gripping film that tells the story of military leader Admiral Cain and her tragic fall during the exodus from the 12 colonies… and NOT some nerdy science fiction film.

Me attempting to blend in among the geeks. Notice the clever disguise.

Hope all you Battlestar Galatica fans get a chance to check this movie out soon. In the meantime, Michael Verdi, I know you were synchronizing with us and planning to watch the movie simultaneously at 9pm central time. Please let us know how your own not-nerdy-at-all film viewing experience went.