Cody, let me say publicly that (a) it was a lot of fun talking to you and (b) I'm humbled and thrilled to be described in such a way (and I know Randy is too).
]]>
As word spread about the young master's availability, he began to receive more interest than he could possibly ever fulfill. It took all of his Zen training and long nights just to keep up with the correspondence and meetings. He was getting queries from well-established cooperatives, various governments, charitable groups, many recently formed houses, and even more people who had a grand idea around which to form a whole-new kind of dojo. This latter category was intriguing, but the most fraught with peril. There were too many people with too many ideas for the young master to sort between. So he decided to consult with his mentor. At least one more time, he would be the apprentice and ventured forth to the dojo of his youth, a half-day's journey away.
"Master, the road ahead is filled with many choices, some are well traveled roads and others are merely slight indentations in the grass that may some day become paths. How can I choose?" asked the apprentice.
The mentor replied, "Have you considered the wide roads and the state-maintained roads?"
"Yes, I know them well and have many reasons to continue on one of them, but these untrodden paths still call to me. It is as if there is a man with his hands at his mouth standing at each one shouting to follow his new path to riches and glory. How do I sort out the truth of their words?" The young master was genuinely perplexed.
"You are wise, my son, to seek council on this matter — as sweet smelling words are enticing indeed and could lead you down a path of ruin or great fortune. Recount to me now two of the recruiting stories that you have heard and I will advise you." The mentor's face relaxed and his eyes closed as he dropped into thought, which was exactly what the young master needed to calm himself sufficiently to relate the stories.
After the mentor had heard the stories, he continued meditating for several minutes before speaking again: "Former apprentice, do you recall the story and lesson of Stone Soup?"
"Yes, master. We learned it as young adepts. It is the story of a man who pretended that he had a magic stone for making the world's best soup, which he then used to convince others to contribute ingredients to the broth until a delicious brew was made. This story was about how leadership and an idea can ease people into cooperating to create great things for the good of them all." recounted the student. "I can see the similarity between the callers standing on the new paths and the man with the magic stone. Also it is clear that that the ingredients are symbolic of the skills of the potential recruits. But, I don't see how that helps me." The apprentice had many years of experience with the mentor, and knew that this challenge would get the answer he was looking for.
"The stories you told me are two different recipes for Stone Soup," the master started.
"The first caller was a man with a certain and impressive voice that said to you 'You should join my dojo! It is like none other and it is a good and easy path that will lead to great riches. Many people that you know, such as Haruko and Jin, have tested this path and others who have great reputations including Master Po and Teacher Win are going to walk upon it as well. Your reputation would be invaluable to our venture. Join us now!'"
"The second caller was a humble and uncertain man who spoke softly as he said 'You should join my dojo. It is like none other and the path, though potentially fraught with peril, could lead to riches if the right combination of people were to take to it. Your reputation is well known, and if you were to join the party, the chance of success would increase greatly. Would you consider meeting here in two days time to talk to others to discuss our goals and to see if a suitable party could be formed? Even if you don't join us, any advice you have would be invaluable." The mentor paused to see if his former student understood.
The young master said "I don't see much difference, other than the second man seems the weaker."
The mentor suppressed a sigh. Clearly this visit would not have been necessary if the young master were able to see this himself. Besides, it was good to see his student again and to be discussing such a wealth of opportunities.
He resumed, "Remember the parable of Stone Soup. The first man did not. He recited many names as if those names carried the weight of the reputations of their owners. He has forgotten the objective of the parable: The Soup. It is not the names or reputations of the people who placed the ingredients into the soup that mattered. It was that the soup needed the ingredients and the people added them anonymously, in exchange for a bowl of the broth. The first man merely suggested that important people were committed to the journey. I am quite certain that, were you to ask Haruko and Jin what names they have heard as being associated with the proposed dojo, you would find that your name was provided as a reference without your knowledge or consent."
The student clearly became agitated as the truth of his mentor's words sunk in. There was work to do before the day was done in order to repair any damage to his reputation that speaking with the first man may have caused.
The mentor continued, "The first recipe for Stone Soup is The Braggarts Brew. It tastes just like hot water because when everyone finds out that the founder is a liar, they all recover whatever ingredients they can to take them home and try to dry them out."
The mentor took a quick drink, but gave a quelling glance that told the apprentice to remain silent until the lesson was over.
"You called the second man weaker, but his weakness is like that of the man with the Stone from the parable. He keeps his eyes on the goal — creating the Soup or staffing his dojo. Without excellent ingredients, there will be no success; and the best way to get them is to appeal to the better nature of those who possess them. He, by listening to them, transforms the dojo into a community project — which many contribute to, even if only a little bit."
"Your skills, young master, are impressive on their own. You need not compare yourself with others, nor should you be impressed with one who would so trivially invoke the reputation of others, as if they were magic words in some charm."
"The second recipe for Stone Soup is Humble Chowder, seasoned with a healthy dash of realism. This is the tempting broth." And the mentor was finished.
The apprentice jumped up — "Master! I am so thankful! I knew that coming to you would help me see the truth. And now, I see a greater truth — you are also the man with a Stone. Please tell me what I can contribute to your Soup."
"Choose your next course wisely, and return to me with the story so that I may share it with the next class of students."
"I will!"
And with that, the young master ran as quickly as he could to catch up with the group meeting about the second man's dojo. He wasn't certain if he'd join them, but the honor of being able to contribute to its foundation would enough payment for now. When he approached the seated group, he was delighted to see several people whose reputation he respected around the fire, discussing amazing possibilities. One of them was Jin, who was shocked to learn that the first man had given his name to the young master...
]]>We are looking to change the world, and this requires money and leverage. People who have money and leverage don't just hand it over to you because they think you're a swell guy or because they're simply overcome with enchantment by the ineffable wonderfulness of your vague utopian vision. They are looking for what actual value they'd get out of the deal in return.
Chip is the Senior Technologist and Randy is the Communities Guru. We have worked together off and on for more than 20 years, as our skills compliment each other well, but sometimes we work apart for years at a time. So, if you are only interested in the technologist or the guru, that's fine with us; not everybody needs the synergy.
]]>At Xanadu I helped create the world's first distributed hypertext system.
At Lucasfilm I invented the MMOG and the avatar. (The contemporary usage of the word "avatar", meaning the graphical representation of one's online persona, is my coinage.)
At AMiX I managed the creation of the world's first online P2P marketplace.
At Electric Communities I architected the infrastructure for the first (and so far only) fully distributed and yet securely extensible virtual world platform.
At Communities.com I built the world's largest online graphical chat system.
At State Software I was a coinventor of AJAX and codiscoverer of the JSON data-interchange format.
At Yahoo! I lead the creation of platforms for reputation management and identity presentation to serve scores of disparate properties and 500+ million users.
Some of the things I have had a hand in creating have become industries unto themselves. And some of the others that haven't, will.
The second thing: I am a consummate technologist
Scalable servers for MMOs and virtual worlds.
Client-server architectures.
Secure, extensible distributed object systems.
High performance, asynchronously coupled distributed systems.
Object-capability programming languages.
Parsers, compilers, translators.
System security, cryptographic protocols, identity management.
Graphical virtual environments.
Electronic commerce. Markets and incentive engineering.
Highly reliable, mission critical systems.
Software reengineering and development process restructuring.
These are my palette.
The most important thing: none of this happens solo
While I will proudly boast of my leading roles in the above accomplishments, they were all the products of teams (some small, some quite large) of very smart and capable people working very, very hard. To deliver successfully on a vision requires not merely a big idea but the ability to bring together a group of talented people around the big idea and to lead them through the often ugly, day-to-day reality of actually making something work. This includes dealing with strong egos, emotional insecurity, ignorance, confusion, technical and financial uncertainty, and the myriad other foibles that accompany any human undertaking. This is what I do.
For more detail, please see my resumé.
]]>Professionally, I serve many roles simultaneously – Product Innovator, Community Consultant, External Evangelist, and Scout.
Product Innovator
My most innovative product-related work spans a broad spectrum of platforms and applications. This multidisciplinary work has created hundreds of millions of dollars in value and spawned entire product categories. Here are some of the firsts I actively developed or led:
Platforms: Message boards, fully-distributed virtual objects, very-large-scale reputation systems, AJAX application frameworks and services, and the YOS - Yahoo! Open Strategy – under development.
Applications: Graphical MMOGs, avatars, virtual currencies, information markets, and I was lead social architect on Yahoo! 360° (for which I invented the social network feed and other often copied features), and Nexus – next generation Yahoo! Groups – under development.
I currently am listed as an inventor on five granted patents and have about ten that are pending:
Issued: Virtual objects, multiplayer gaming, avatars, and social media.
Pending: Social media, reputation systems, and mobile networking.
Community Consultant
Social media is still new to many organizations, and most first intuitions about how users will react to changes are strategically wrong. Classical product research doesn't accurately represent how people interact in these environments, leading to costly, and sometimes irrecoverable, product design errors. Product managers and user experience teams often need specialized help when creating new community/social media experiences. They need a community consultant to help them with their initial design iterations, community growth planning, and abuse mitigation design.
I've played this role for my entire career - for large companies, governments, NGOs and startups. For Linden Labs, I consulted to create a more consumer-centric interface for Second Life, and they've implemented nearly all of my recommendations. For the Skoll and the George Lucas Educational Foundations I advised on strategy for selecting the right kinds of tools for their customers. For Yahoo! I traveled around the world to educate product and engineering teams on how to construct community infrastructure for success – which means for scale and for content quality.
My community consulting sessions have been embraced enthusiastically by my clients, garnering praise such as “equivalent to a graduate level seminar” and “the best two hours of our project so far.”
Evangelist and Scout
Along with sharing social media best practices and innovation within an organization, there is a need to communicate insights and inventions to outside parties – sometimes to trade associations, affiliated entities, or to the public at large.
I have published numerous papers and articles and co-author a blog on online communities and games. My comprehensive experience with the entire social media field provides ample opportunity to speak to the public as well as to the press as a no-nonsense voice on these technologies and their best practices.
My widely recognized reputation in the field also provides me special access to emerging technologies and invitation-only conferences and meetings that have been critical to my employer's positioning as a thought-leader. For example, for Yahoo! I was instrumental in both the Flickr acquisition and the OpenID initiative.
I'm looking for a strong leadership role in a company or institution that is committed to improving the lives of people via social media. Senior Product Management/Strategy and Fellow or DE track positions are probably most interesting, but I'm considering other options as well, including short term consulting arrangements.
For a detailed employment history, extensive endorsements, and list of professional accomplishments, please see my LinkedIn résumé.
]]>It turns out that this force reduction included [me] Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar - much to our mutual surprise as we each had strong contributor/leadership roles in the company. From here it looks like they might have gone after those with larger salaries given the number of top-quality people we saw get the axe today. Given what we were working on, it was doubly confusing.
This layoff should be a recruiters dream.
Don't use farmer@yahoo-inc.com or chipm@yahoo-inc.com anymore - those don't work and aren't forwarding, as of now. I'm randy.farmer at pobox dot com, and Chip is chip at fudco dot com.
[update]My phone is back online so feel free to call or email or 
Y!IM frandallfarmer.
Apparently CNet thinks I was on the Yahoo A-List, at least as far as a MS/Y merger goes. Lets see if Microsoft thinks so too! [/update]
[update] Chip's resume link above is better now.[/update 2/13]
]]>
I'm honored and delighted announce that I have joined the RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) DIT (Department of Information Technology) IAB (Industrial Advisory Board). They have an excellent game design and development program which I'm looking forward to visiting when I'm out there for the first board meeting in April.
I'd like to thank Elizabeth Lawley for submitting my name for consideration. I hope to meet and exceed their expectations.
For my readers - have any of you been on one of these boards before? I could use a little orientation and/or advice. I think that shaping young minds is one of the most important things we can do in this life, so I'm just a little nervous about being effective in the academic environment. Please either leave a comment or send me a message at randy dot farmer at pobox dot com.
As of 2/4/8 the IAB link still needs updating...
Congratulations Ron! As soon as it comes out I'll finally have a reason to upgrade my home machine.
Can't wait.
]]>
As a proud member of Areae.net's board of advisors, I'm proud to announce that their coming out party was today. Their product is named Metaplace, and they debuted at TechCrunch40.
[Please leave any comments there...]
Meet the Beastmaster Okefarflung of Argent Dawn.
Accomplished this before my son, for once. Now I'm twinking him! :-)
I guess it is possible for a casual player to hit the World of Warcraft level cap, eventually.
This was only possible with the support of my guild-mates in Force Recon, who tell me that this is a more than respectable showing in terms of a short amount of game-time to reach this level, especially the first time.
That double-XP bonus for us casual gamers really works. I can tell you for sure that I would have quit long ago if it weren't there.
I am amazed how quickly I've come to miss the XP bar. Skinner boxes, indeed.
]]>It looks like they got one of those scary government letters indicating that L$ are a little too close to good-old American greenbacks, as Linden Lab has just banned gambling machines in Second Life.
We all saw it coming - admit it. What's next? Hmm?
What do you think will happen if the Linden Exchange is closed for good?
Randy
]]>By hook, or by crook, customers will always find a way to connect with each other.
As with all worlds, this is now demonstratively true in Worlds of Warcraft, where a new text-filter on broadcast chat messages was recently installed to supposedly prevent gold farmers from spamming users about their websites.
It worked for a few days, until yesterday, The Day it Rained Gnomes.
Watch the video and duck...
I often have a conversation with online community/product managers telling them that text-filters are a symptom of deeper problems in your product and are not a solution. They usually don't belive me - but now I have the video.
(For the comments section: How many design flaws/weaknesses are involved in the chain of events that lead to the word raining gnomes? Here's a hint about where to start counting...)
My first impression of Second Life was formed when it was still under development, when Phillip came to visit Chip and me at our third little startup: State Software. Technically, it was pretty amazing. They'd finally created an extensible, programmable world with physics built right in. On the social side the model was that everyone would live and build on one of a few large continents. We cautioned that this would be fraught with peril. Even before the first beta testers arrived, they'd been warned that their biggest problems were going to be property encroachment, bad neighbors, and script-griefing. Alpha World had demonstrated that many of the neighborhoods would be something between garbage dumps, billboard farms, and smutty slums next to some amazingly creative and wonderful stuff. Much of the predicted chaos happened during beta, but the full force wasn't felt until broader release, especially when anyone could join instantly and for free.
I happened to be unemployed during late alpha and early beta, and had been so intrigued by Second Life that I decided to run some experiments, pushing the limits of what how I thought future users would abuse the system, specifically property rights and scripting capabilities. As I've written elsewhere, regular beta testers normally don't push the limits as much as we'd like them to because they fear losing their status as testers by being ejected.
Having co-created several of the progenitors of this type of system, I knew where to look for cracks. I had no fear of being ejected for taking the servers down. On the contrary, it was an explicit goal. Better now, during testing, than later with paying customers.
Probably the most legendary of my experiments was the Invisible Teleporting Grenade of Death. Nothing special compared to the offensive and defensive objects in Second Life today, but it caused quite a stir during beta because it was the first known deployment of a user-created Weapon of Mass Destruction in a 3D virtual world.
Note: This wasn't the first programmable world I'd done massive damage to: Years earlier, after a certain Wizard on LambdaMOO decided to show-off and summon all the food in his world to our room for a food-fight, I was inspired to write a script that would summon all instances of any class into the room with me. I tried on it Class:Paper, and it worked perfectly , first try. It was at that moment I realized I had no way to put the paper back where it belonged! I quickly wrote a script that stuffed the paper into the pockets of their owners and reported this flaw to another Wizard. She was not happy.
During the Second Life beta test, its initial culture was starting to emerge. In my experience, worlds like this one attract early adopters of a somewhat democratic-libertarian bent - "Lets just all get along" and "Leave Real Life rules behind" often reflect the mentality of the most vocal users. But, something unusual happened this time - another virtualworld, called World War II Online, was failing and its 1940's role-playing refugees migrated to Second Life, en masse. Since it provided for personal combat (hit points), death (teleport you home), and you could build just about anything, including weapons, it seemed like an ideal fit. Quickly they'd built up WWII cultural and military items, including Nazi uniforms, gear and propaganda, including flags and posters with Swastikas and the like. Eventually they took over the only remaining full-combat enabled simulator [patch of land], named Jessie, and made it their home.
This ticked off many members of the existing community, who detested all of the pro-Nazi imagery. The WWII online-ers said they just wanted to be left alone to play their war games. Both sides were sniping at each other, both literally and with virtual weapons. Eventually there was a huge wall constructed separating Jessie from its neighbors. It didn't help.
I'd built and run too many worlds and had seen this kind of thing end badly so many times that I just stayed out of it. Honestly, this was the kind of thing I'd warned about from the beginning and I just wanted to see what would happen.
Until the day I'd completed my latest experiment.
I'd been working with the object spawning directives in the scripting language. I'd also discovered that I could make an object very small (less than an inch in diameter), and very transparent (virtually invisible). It struck on me that I could make a weapon of mass destruction and do it very cheaply. It worked like this: a tiny invisible floating grenade that would explode into dozens of invisible tiny fragments flying outward spherically at maximum velocity and doing maximum damage and then immediately teleport itself to another random location in the simulator. It would be undetectable, unstoppable, and lethal: The perfect killing machine. It could only be stopped by me shouting the keyword: STOP!
Small-scale tests on my land were successful. It fired up to 100 rounds per minute. But, where could I test this at full scale? There was only one answer - Jessie - the only Sim with an active population and the fatality flag on. As a special guest beta tester I had 30 minutes early access to the servers, so I dropped six of these little gems in Jessie just before opening time, they wouldn't have a chance to catch me. Back then, each object spawn cost $L10, so my balance indicator started fluctuating wildly as the invisible fragments spawn, flew, and eventually hit something or someone.
I flew to the simulators with the most users and tried to chat naturally, but it was difficult, knowing the chaos that was going on in Jessie when people arrived: Log in, poke around awhile then seem to randomly die, get teleported home, which is also in Jessie, wait a short moment, repeat!
After about a half hour, people around me were starting to say "Wow! Someone is slaughtering those WWII guys in Jessie!" "That place is in a panic!" "That guy's my hero!" "Lets go see!" The grenades were working. Besides making my point about the scripting language, I'd created one of the first legendary events of the world. That was exciting.
But, only then did I realize I'd chosen sides in a fight that I didn't really care about. I wasn't really sure what to do at that moment, when I got an Instant Message from one of the Lindens: "Did you release an auto cannon in Jessie?" I had to be a smartass and answer: "No. I released six. I'll go and deactivate them now."
I flew to the edge of Jessie and shouted the keyword. My balance meter stopped jumping around and stabilized, the attack was over. It had been well over an hour since opening, and I was certain that I had the highest kill rate in Second Life history. But now I had a problem. I had no way to extract them (and I wasn't about to enter Jessie at that moment anyway - I was certainly Kill On Sight at that point, assuming they knew the name of the bomber.
It turned out that my grenades were too small and invisible. Though they were now inert I couldn't find them to remove them. In effect, they were a dormant virus in Jessie. So, I filed a bug report: "Unable to select small, invisible objects." The in next day or two there was a patch to the client to "show transparency" so that it would be possible for me to see them, select them, and delete them - which I promptly did. But the legend remains.
In the end, very little was done to mitigate the design of WMDs like mine, and I was told that to "fix" the problem would put serious limits on the creativity of future users. So be it. But, given the history of the service since then, with so many sim-failures based on malicious and accidental infinite spawning scripts, I'm not so sure that ignoring this problem was the best choice. I hope it is not too late.
]]>