[sldev] Timing of The Hippos

Rob Lanphier robla at lindenlab.com
Thu Jun 18 18:42:17 PDT 2009


Hi everyone,

In the rush to get Snowglobe out, I've neglected to mention what's going
on with the Linden Lab Innovation Awards, aka The Hippos.  For those of
you not aware, this is what it is:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Innovation_Awards

In years past, we've presented these awards at SLCC.  SLCC is a great
event, and we've always been really appreciative of the organizers who
have made a spot for us to present these things.  However, we've found
that it's really important for there to be an in-world component for
this event, for the obvious reason that this is about community
participation in Second Life.  So, in years past, we've made it a mixed
reality event, and made sure that the nominees could be around in one
place or the other. 

This year, we find ourselves trying to get something quite ambitious off
the ground (Snowglobe) while not having the primary organizer for The
Hippo awards (Liana) working in this area anymore.  Liana really lead
the charge on this effort, so with her spending 100% of her time on
search, it's difficult to have something in place by SLCC that clears
the high bar she set.

This is a long winded way of saying "yes, we still plan to hold The
Hippos for 2009", but not by SLCC.  We haven't finalized the timing, but
we're looking for something that roughly coincides with the anniversary
of the original launch of our open source program:
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2007/01/08/embracing-the-inevitable

We plan to focus our efforts toward making the inworld experience great,
rather than leaving ourselves vulnerable to the gods of hotel wifi and
a/v madness in order to make it work.  Having something in January-ish
makes for more of a "year in review".  It also makes this one a rather
long year (sorry), but I think we'll be happier with the timing in
future years if we make this adjustment now.

Anyway, sorry to disappoint those of you who were anticipating this
happening really soon.  Today's bug sprint made it really clear we've
got a great community to work with and no shortage of potential nominees
and worthy recipients.  Thanks for everything you do, and don't hesitate
to ask me if you have questions.

Thanks,
Rob




More information about the SLDev mailing list