A Rouge Analysis

Last week I had the opportunity to take part in the opening of Codebastard Redgrave’s new sim, Rouge. It was an enormous success with over 750 guests, and you can see my gossip-laden pictures here. But before, during and after the event I wondered how Codie actually succeeded so well. An examination of what took place could be instructive for any business wishing to stage a successful event.

In any complex undertaking, success comes when many dimensions are covered. You can’t expect everything to go right if you correctly execute only a single aspect. Codie, always an energetic personality, saw no boundaries and used a business-flavored version of the Powell Doctrine:

when a nation is engaging in war, every resource and tool should be used to achieve decisive force against the enemy

That’s right – many techniques were employed to achieve her objective: a successful launch. What were the specific techniques? I can’t say I know all of it, but here’s a list of things I observed:

• One of the best, if not the best sim builder: Eshi Otawara. By engaging Eshi, Codie not only landed a top-notch builder, but also the reputation of the builder. Eshi’s work always attracts attention, regardless of what she’s building. For the weeks surrounding the opening, attention to Eshi also meant attention to Rouge.
• A truly unique design for the sim. For those of you who somehow haven’t yet seen or heard of it, the sim is designed as a gigantic version of Codie herself! You can stroll up her legs, and, um, where ever...
• Party time and date sufficient to cover all planetary time zones. Most avatars now seem to originate from time zones other than North America, a fact often forgotten by many who host events. Codie carefully selected a broad weekend time slot that enabled everyone to have a fair chance of attending. Of course, it required her to be around for a massive number of hours, but that’s the price of success.
• Announcements. One of the most basic promotion techniques, announcements flew in every direction before the opening. Codie used her own blog, of course, but also through here extensive network of friends announcements or mentions appeared on many blogs.
• Generous invitations to her SL group. Invitations to the CodeRed group were offered, especially before the event and anyone who wished an invitation probably received one. Announcements went out to the group members on an increasing frequency as the date and time of the event came closer. If you were a member, there was no way you could have missed the information.
• Press Conference. The evening before the event, Codie held a press conference where invited media and bloggers had an exclusive preview of the sim and were able to ask questions of not only Codie but also the builder, Eshi.
• Incomparable DJs. The long duration required multiple DJ shifts. Codie arranged for many preeminent DJs to appear during the event.
• Quality Free Gifts. Gadgets detected guests and provided items randomly. If you weren’t lucky with the random gifts, there were several name-brand gifts for the taking directly.
• Leveraging social networks. Like many of us, Codie belongs to the vast social cloud of blogging, tweeting, flickring and most recently plurking. Codie has a habit of telling everyone what she’s up to, and the Rouge meme spread thickly through the SL social sphere. By the way, Codie happens to be one of the most active SL Plurkers (#2 as of this writing, with Gabby Panacek #1 and yours truly at #5).
• Blog Post-Event-Buzz. After the spectacular event, many blogs (including this one) posted reports, pictures and commentary. Codie rounded them up and posted an extensive list of pointers to all of them.
• Anticipation. The most important and final item was how the entire operation unfolded. It began weeks away when Codie announced on Plurk that she was obtaining a sim. We then saw every stage of development mentioned: The sim was transferred. The sim was named. A designer was hired. DJs. Ideas for the build. More ideas. Contributions. Building. Questions. More building. Scheduling. Invitations. Frantic activity. As a mere observer, I read the bulletins and gradually began to feel like I was somehow part of the action. I wanted to know what happens next, since the bulletins became a kind of story with an unknown ending. Finally, when the sim actually opened it was totally obvious that I should go. That’s how everyone felt, because we were with Codie every step of the way.

Is there a better way to open a sim? Perhaps, but I couldn’t tell you. Maybe Codie can. Well done, my friend!