Virtual World Solutions

About 9 months ago, as a new company, we struggled to explain exactly what we do, how it makes sense, and the biggest problem of all – communicating that to a variety of audiences.

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I was working on our “deck” and my husband started brainstorming on a whiteboard in our home office.  He wrote “Virtual World Problems = Real World Problems”.  Which of course seems simple, but for countless executives that have just acclimated themselves to navigating websites, it is a steep lesson.  A mistake that has been made by even those entrenched within our own industry.  We are not websites – we are worlds.

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But that journey is another blog post.  I want to talk out of order about the second revelation.

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I had gotten so used to the above mantra and drilling that into our client’s minds, that I forgot that the solutions might be varied.  I was in Alameda over the summer working on site design for a consulting project and was repeatedly trying to solve problems with “Real World Solutions”, when it dawned on me.  Just because virtual world problems mirror real world problems, doesn’t necessarily mean that ALL the solutions must mirror as well.  I know that might sound cryptic, but I am trying to explain the lightbulb, while managing to remain unsued under one of the I can’t count anymore NDAs I have signed in the last year.

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So it is yet another one of the magical aspects of virtual worlds.  While they mirror real world problems, they offer solutions that can be real or fantastical.  Real problem – transportation – fantasy solution – being able to fly.  Real problem – congested housing  – fantasy solution – endless cloud homes.  Real problem – staffing moderators – fantasy solution – eagle-eyed eagles that can fly and live in clouds.

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Since then, if I have encountered a roadblock in solving a real world problem in a virtual world, I turn to fantasy and solve it that way.  What a virtual world.

-Amy