Funky Contracting

A while ago I wrote an article describing a rather embarrassing contracting situation in which I had failed miserably to make proper contracting arrangements before starting on some custom work. I was sleepy and wasn't paying attention! Sorry! I learned my lesson, and told everyone about my mistake so they could learn too.

Today I've been reading about a similar situation involving one of Peter Stindberg's clients. Evidently Peter followed the prescribed contracting procedure:

• Negotiate with the customer before work commences
  
• Agree on the specific work to be undertaken
  
• Agree on the exact amounts and timing of payments for that work
  
• Complete the work
  
• Execute the payments
  

Peter even went further by breaking the work down in phases, so that the client had an opportunity to review, change or even stop the work process in an agreed upon manner.

One interesting aspect of Peter's approach is the breakdown of payments:

• An initial payment to begin the engagement before anything is delivered. This ensures that Peter will start work and also ensures that the client is in fact serious about the job.
  
• Separate payments upon delivery of each completed work phase.
  

Alas, in spite of Peter's excellent contracting practices, the client did not pay as agreed. And that's the problem. No matter how you do it, there is always the possibility of non-payment (or non-delivery from the vendor). Both sides take a risk. Peter's technique of breaking down the work into phases accomplishes something very useful: reducing the risk faced by both parties. Since non-payment will happen only once in the sequence, the maximum amount that can be lost is minimized to a single phase.

But even after reducing the loss, what course of action is left for the victim? Simple: tell everyone about it on the blogosphere! There's nothing better for reputation management.

Moral of the story: be wary when dealing with clients.

Thinking of Gina

My friend Peter Stindberg, translator extraordinary, contacted me last week with an unusual situation. He had been affected by the all-too-often transitory nature of relationships in Second Life; his friend Gina Glimmer was no longer able to continue in our virtual world. 

This happens from time to time, sometimes when the avatar's owner passes on in real life. Often memorials are built, sometimes small and personal, at other times large and public, especially for those who were well known.

Peter has taken a different approach. There's no memorial. Instead he has made all of Gina's artwork (her former SL business) available to everyone at no charge in an effort to remember her. Peter hopes that people "maybe think of her when watching them". The artwork is available in her OnRez gallery or in-world at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Experience%20Italy%20W/179/30/29.

I never had the opportunity of meeting Gina, but after reading Peter's posts and looking at her artwork, I wish I had met her. 

Peter, it's working.

Stindberg Speaks

A very quick post today: I stumbled into a very interesting post by SLEntrepreneur, who interviewed my pal, SL translator extraordinary Peter Stindberg. Peter discusses various aspects of his translation business, which I believe will be of interest to Second Effects readers... at least the business types, anyway.

Fences, Spheres and a Gas Burner

There are three unusual new items at Electric Pixels this week, and they are of a type I've never made before. I've created a new category at the store called, "Gadgets". These are definitely not particle effects you would ever want to wear, but they may come in handy in certain situations.

The first gadget is one of the most complex items I've built so far. It's a Gas Burner! You can place these on your virtual stovetop to make it look and operate just like the real thing. Flickering blue-white flames come from the emitter at a touch. Touch again and you go through all the settings: Off, Low, Medium and High. Just don't burn yourself! The box contains a set of four, suitable for most kitchen installations.

The second two products are really construction tools. Let's say you are setting up a site where you have a sensor in place to detect avatars at a distance of 26m, for example. While it's easy to place your sensor, where exactly does the 26m detection range lie? Now you can easily find the range with these two new particle products:

• Particle Fence: It looks like a simple cylinder, but when you touch it, a series of highly-visible fence boards appear in a circle around the emitter. By default the radius is 10m, but with a simple chat command you can change it to any distance from 1m to 96m. Definitely not for use on the dance floor!
  
• Particle Sphere: A two-dimensional fence is not what you need? Three Dimensional required? Well, the Particle Sphere performs precisely the same operation as the Particle Fence, but in a sphere instead of a 2D circle. No fence boards, it uses little dots instead as seen in the picture.

Both Particle Fence and Particle Sphere have large emitters so that you can easily find and click on them from a distance, and both also have an automatic shut off to avoid having them pollute your space with particles.

Amazingly, all three of these products were inspired (well, suggested might be a better word) by my blogging friend Peter Stindberg. Thanks muchly, Peter! The best ideas for new products are always found by talking to others who need them.