New Projects and cleanup

Well I deleted a few of the posts on here so it doesn't end up being a mile long. Only took off ones that didn't say a lot, or what was in them was pretty much repeated in other posts anyway.

I have a few things on the go now, Burning Life (http://burninglife.secondlife.com/), that one I have almost finished, just need to polish it up a bit. I have called it "Out of the Darkness", and it has a revamped version of my mental health build I did for SLB6.

Of course I stupidly put up my hand to be a volunteer guide etc at BL09 so may have to rethink that one....

I am also trying very hard to get on with my Feast build for thr SL/RL crossover, but I am finding it a bit hard to stay focused. Main thing I am currently trying to finish is the terraced shops, but of course at this stage I have had no takers to fill them anyway (anyone reading this SL shop space rent free, just pay 15% of any sales, no sales no cost, ideal for those who have never been able to aford rent).

Other things I am trying to get done with the Feast thing are:
* Design and get printed, the postcards to hand out at the RL opening event.
* Contact inworld groups that are appropriate to the occasion so they can have information there, and take part to swell numbers so more is happening of interest (this one is most important, but many groups are not sdvertising of any sort, so that makes things a bit difficult).
* Finish other little 'fruity' buildings so that the whole area is in theme and looks more interesting.
* Get or make little items to sell or give away, in the fruit or rainbow themes, especially apparel since this is to encourage new people in who will likely have very little.
* Try and think of ideas and people, for workshops so that again there is interesting and helpful stuff going on.
* Updating the Feast blog, so it has a starting out getting into SL section for people to guide and help them.

A few words come to mind at this time..."Opps I did it again.." I get into these little highs and take on the world, then I slam back down on earth and get overwhelmed but the enormity of what I have taken on, and what I now have ahead of me. Ah well such is the nature of the beast. Of course if people have something they can do to help out, by all means contact me.

Ok better get back to work lol, so much to do and not a lot of time.

How goes it?

Well the Diversity hunt may be small, but it has had a steady stream of hunters going through, and most seem VERY happy. It has taken a few a moment or two to understand the concept of the paths, but once they got that, they loved the idea.

Many hunters and shop owners have asked me when I am doing the next hunt... NEXT hunt? Geeze you people must really think I am insane (I will freely admit to being a little nuts, but insane is taking it a bit far). There is no way I could have done this hunt without some very nice, generous, and tolerent shop owners. Some processes in this hunt have been a little complex, and having to change LM's to skip tardy shops and later add them back in is a tad bothersome, but everyone did it with grace and I thankyou all for that.

So really, do I plan to do another hunt?? Hmmm, there are lots of hunts coming up already, everywhere I see halloween hunts (some of those have even started already), and of course christmas hunts are being advertised now or are are well in the works. So do people need another hunt on their calendars? No really, I am seriously asking that question.
I am one of those people that is never really short of ideas (just don't always have the resources, know how, or confidence to carry them out), so have plenty ideas for innovative stuff (and no not saying here to have the ideas nicked lol), but has the time of the Hunt wanned? Is there so many people are sick of them and they are no longer effective?

In november I have my Virtual Fruit event that is a crossover between SL and RL. It is for Feast (www.feast.org.au) which is a festival for gay/lesbian/queer folk in Adelaide, Australia, and will hopefully attract new people to SL. I am happy to have a small gridwide hunt, or even more ideally little outlets around my area for people to promote themselves. I am talking rent free as such for those having outlets, but preferably 10 or 15% of any sales made (I have upped my tier for a while during this time to make for a better event, and would love, not expect, to cover some of that cost), temporary outlets could stay until after christmas to grab a few holiday sales as well. This is also ideal for individuals that have never been able to afford a shop to see if there is interest in their goods.

So anyway, be part of november proceedings or something to start the new year would be my suggestions for people, like the idea stick up your hand (ok put it down, you look silly doing that in front of your computer, just send me a message instead).

Huntress

It's off and running

Well the Diversity hunt finally seems to be running fairly smoothly, it has been interesting to say the least.
I have a little list of things to remember if I ever do this again, I tried to think of most stuff, but there is always going to be something that just could not be planned for.
In this hunt what wasn't planned? Lets see, one poor shop owner (and now friend) had the rental land she was on go to a new owner who was immediately putting in a combat zone, with 3 hours then to move, I am amazed at her organisational abilities. Another poor vendor had a rl accident which meant it was too uncomfortable to even sit at a computer (I do hope they are healing ok).
I did expect some places to be a little tardy in setting up and/or setting up not quite right. However I didn't think there would be too many not set up at all, especially anyone with quite a few entries and apparent interest.

Sadly with the few vendors that were not ready, it caused a few broken links in the various chains, so those keen hunters that turned up right on midnight freaked me right out lol, and of course they did not get the best experience. Have sent those that were in my greater an apology, and a small gift, so hopefully they return and enjoy things now that the bugs have been ironed out. (why do that?, just makes good business sense for all the shops involved)

The buzz with the hunt has been intriguing, Shops have suddenly appeared out of the woodwork wanting to be in the hunt, a small but steady and keen stream of hunters has been turning up and in most of the stores actually browsing and buying, not just doing a quick grab and go. (yay some shop owners are actually getting some money for their efforts)

I regret having to get some shop vendors to mess around changing landmarks so often etc, and I know the hunters are confused at the numbering system (like I had actually planned one of those lol), but thankfully there are some very tolerant and lovely people involved in all this, so I just hope at the end of it everyone thinks it was worthwhile.

Huntress (usually the one popping about with the weird hair - I just gotta be me)

Shops in Hunt

Ok, I have started putting the shops into there own blog so that this one doesn't end up being way too long (hate scrolling forever through a blog)

http://diversityhunt.blogspot.com/

So if you want to know who is in the hunt head here, still more to add, and more pics to take so keep checking it :)

Fellow shop owners, please encourage friends to sign up still as the more the merrier at this stage (be fantastic to get around a hundred), so far I have managed to get a couple to join simply by wandering into some of the shops I have come across in my travels that I think look great :)

So if you end up in a shop that has that special something, don't be shy, drop them a note :)

Shop Application

Are you a little different?

Do you create and dabble in a bit of everything?

Or are you just sick of all those hunts for the big shops and fashion designers that you just don’t seen to fit into?

Well here is the hunt for you!

DIVERSITY
Because we are all different, and that is what makes life interesting.

While this will be a grid wide hunt, it will not be a big one so that the hunters get bored or give up before getting to all the shops. Start date is 08/08/09 and end date is 09/09/09 (when we may just have to have a big party).

Another key difference is that this hunt will be tailored to the hunters so that they can go for the sort of items that they want. This also means they are going to the shops they will want, so instead of throwing freebies at people who are never going to use them, you are really showcasing your work to people a lot more likely to buy from, and return to your shop.

So how does all this work?

This hunt has a number of paths, and the hunters can do any number of them including all of them if they are really keen. The start location will have the next location for all of the paths, and for those shops that fit in and want to be on more than one path, they will be cross over points, should a hunter decide they want to go down a different path just for the heck of it.
The end point of each path will have the original note with the various path starting points, again so that hunters can follow another road if they don’t want the experience to be over yet.

There is no cost to join, but a donation of just $10L would be greatly appreciated to help cover upload costs for graphics etc and general time and effort put in by all those working behind the scenes.

At this stage we are looking at 5 paths, but this will be subject to change depending on how many applications are received for each one (big ones split, little ones added in to another).
RED:
Women’s fashion - clothes, hats, jewellery, basically anything you normally wear on an avatar
BLUE:
Men’s, unisex, or general humanoid stuff (lots of Neko, furries etc out there) - Fashion and accessories not specifically for women and could even include shoulder pets, wings, tails, etc
PURPLE:
Furniture - all your normal household stuff, buildings, including such things as gazebos (possible cross-over point with plant/garden stuff)
GREEN:
Plants/landscape - Obviously plants (could cross-over with textures), fountains, outdoor furniture and bridges (cross-over with furniture)
ORANGE:
Mystery – Textures, Art, and anything we can't categorize elsewhere or just want to put here for fun anyway, very good for shops that sell a little of everything

For those people wishing to be in more that one path, you need to have an object that fits the theme of each path(eg Gazebo fits landscaping and furniture, Unisex clothes can also be on women’s fashion), or have more than one object.

To sign up you simply need to put the following in a note card and return it to Huntress Catteneo:

Avatar name:

Date:

Store name:

Store type:

Path/s you wish to be in:

Store landmark:

Store SLURL:

Preferred contact method (IM, notecard, email):

You will need to either join a group, or supply an email address so that messages affecting everyone can easily reach you. You are also expected to be able to respond to any issues in a timely fashion (maximum 48 hrs). Issues that have arisen in past groups are:
Object not being set to give or buy
Item not placed within object
Object’s colour or size altered to the point that many do not recognise it is the thing they are looking for
Object hidden too well so hunters get frustrated and leaving the hunt
If clues or hints are set up, then sometimes people forget to update them when an object is moved

We all make mistakes now and then, that part is fine, but if the mistake cannot be fixed quickly, that is not fine. Problems at one shop affect every shop that follows it in the path.

Further rules, suggestions and updates with be available at http://huntressden.blogspot.com/
Got a question? Comment? Please contact Huntress Catteneo.

Ok, we kind of all got busy with various projects (SL birthday, setting up new shops, etc) but I think things are quieting down again for most of us.
Our original start day is a bit too soon now, so I am proposing 08/08/09 until 09/09/09 (I just really like the look of that date lol). No doubt many will be starting on the begining of the month so we should catch the ones that finish anything else quick or are bored with it. I will be putting together the advertising poster shortly with notecard to go in it for shops to apply and hunters to get info that will hopefully excite them.

Considering our theme is diversity, I would really love people to have something a bit 'different' as their giveaway, how you interpret that is up to you lol, but as long as you have something to give away that is all that is really important.

Being able to post

Ok looks like for anyone else to post, not sure if that includes 'comments', I would need to add you or have you all as contacts. Not sure how to do that at this stage since this is my first blog page, so if anyone esle knows, by all means add me as your contact while I work it out.

Ok so we need to set up an application and advertising programme, so we can get shops on board and hunters interested.
Before we can do that we have to sort out a few details and look like we are actually organised (of course give me a list of shops that will participate and I will be amazingly organised overnight lol).

Ok if we are going with the paths idea which all of us seem happy with, we need to define what sort of items are in each path, and how many paths there are.

Fashion is very common, loads of girls love free dresses, guys get sick of doing hunts of that nature though and are looking for stuff more aimed at them.
Furniture is another thing a lot like going for, and I would say buildings could go nicely into that path as well.
So what else do people love to hunt for around sl in Midnight Mania boards and Lucky chairs...
Textures
Plants, or garden/landscape in general
Artwork/decorations

There are lots of others things like animations, scripts, sounds, vechicals etc, but not many shops that have only those sort of things generally particpate in hunts, and I doubt we would get enough for them to be their own path. We could however make a sort of magical mystery path that has anything in it that does not fit elsewhere, or for those shops that have a bit of everything and can be one of the 'cross-over' points.

Ok so lets see what all that means -
Womens fashion - clothes, hats, jewellery, basically anything you normally wear on an avatar

Mens, unisex, or general humanoid stuff (lots of furries etc out there) - Fashion etc not specifically for women and could include shoulder pets, wings, tails, etc

Furniture - all your normal household stuff, buildings, including such things as gazebos (possible cross-over point with plant/garden stuff)

Plants/landscape - Obviously plants (could cross-over with textures), fountains, outdoor furniture and bridges(cross-over with furniture)

Textures - I would probably add art etc in with this one

Mystery - anything we can't catergorize elsewhere or just want to put here for fun anyway, very good for shops that sell a little of everything

Ok, that makes 6, could probably chop to 4 or 5 by say combining plants and furniture, and textures into mystery, so just have to decide how many we go with.
For the application/poster etc process things like colours of the paths don't need to be defined yet, just the outline of how the hunt would work.

Just had an annoying thought with all the new stuff, we may have to think about the mature and PG thing :( Quick thought is still have all in together, but have either mature in second half and at that point in the hunt they get the option to continue on but knowing it will be to places marked as mature, or when one comes up in the order the note with next location has two location, mature one and one to hop past it/them to the next pg one.
Hate having to think about this stuff, but if I don't it is bound to come up.

Idea to make our hunt different

Since we are a diverse collection of people and types of shop, why not give the hunters some choices?
Just after Fashion? Follow the purple path.
Want to furnish your home? Follow the red path.
Want male or unisex items? Follow the blue path.
You get the idea.

I envisage it working a bit like a group of separate little hunts which run concurrently and also 'cross over' at a number of points. Cross over points would be shops that are on more than one path, so hunters who have finished, or have had enough of the path they are on, have the opportunity to change direction without necessarily going back to the main start point. It is also a way for shop owners to hit their target audience, rather than having a bunch of girls who don't have a home coming in and getting furniture they don't really want and not producing on-sales, because all they want is hair and dresses.

This is just an idea of course, and this particular idea will only work with a larger number of shops partaking in the event. Just thought I would see if anyone actually likes the idea :)