Archive for virtualworlds

Four Types of IBM Involvement in Second Life

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on November 19, 2009 by Mo Hax

Looking up from coding some day job stuff (for IBM) I noticed this post by Prokofy Neva. No matter what you think of Prokofy I hope you will consider my response below to Prokofy’s post if you happened to read it. I almost didn’t respond at all. Obviously I have never represented IBM nor seek to now. I only want to express my personal experience with SLers who happen to work at IBM. Prokofy poses the question:

The Quiet by AM Radio. Is it all produced and paid for and insinuated by IBM?

AM is very much not the kind to respond to such speculation. So I guess I will. No, AM has gone to great pains to separate his IBM involvement from his SL experience, like so many others. AM has inspired me and others to pursue our creativity in SL, never because he was an IBMer, although I first met AM in an IBM sandbox building his first rusted train engine. I treasure his art and friendship. Without IBM I might not have known him, but my appreciation is not because of IBM.

In fact, I have met and befriended dozens, maybe hundreds, of IBMers active in SL over the last three years including Dale Innis, whose art I love. We IBMers are obviously a very diverse group in our opinions, involvement and openness of identity. I thank IBM for introducing me to Second Life but my Second Life is my own.

Prokofy’s four points bring out a desire in me to understand different groups of SL IBMers and what they may or may not represent. I already discussed perspectives in a generic sense. But this specific grouping and comparison seems fair and relevant for other large enterprises.

SLers who represent IBM

The first group are those who are paid to work with Second Life as a part of their job.  If any group has influence with Linden Labs this is the one. Some officially and publicly represent IBM, others clearly do not. IBM is a very big company so you may hear different aspects of even official IBM press from people and regional leaders. I am sometimes surprised by who ends up speaking officially for IBM. Nevertheless, unless someone clearly represents IBM by introduction or declaration, no person’s statements should be taken as IBM policy or direction. That said, IBM official policy and direction never represents all the opinions of all those who work at IBM. IBM is too big a company for that. Civil discussion of all points is encouraged internally and publicly by IBM’s forward-thinking social media guidelines.

As for the history of representation and IBM in general in Second Life, readers can learn about those who first brought Second Life into IBM in Rita King’s From Firepit to Forbidden City. This document shares the weaknesses of any enterprise chronicle but is worth understanding.

IBMers who use SLE but are not SLers

This quickly growing group comes from Second Life Enterprise. Some may become SLers, many may not. If these SLE users ever do become SLers there is currently no way to know. The line between work and play has clearly been drawn by having one avatar for SLE and another for SL, if a user wishes it. This separation and the user perspectives involved are at the heart of the SLE challenge I recently discussed.

SLers who are known to work for IBM

These blue SLers do not hide their association with IBM. Among them are visible volunteers, not paid for any activities in SL or virtual worlds though managers may approve such involvement on company time . VUC members, IBM Mentors, and other greater community members, fall into this category.  This group also includes many who may actually make money as a hobby or side-job within the Second Life economy and who may elect to make some of these creations available to IBM in one form other another.

SLers who work for IBM but don’t tell

Though impossible to count, I suspect the largest group is that of very active SLers that want nothing to do with IBM when it comes to SL. If initial 2007 public VUC membership numbers are any indication, this group could be much more than 6000 by now.

Not unlike World-of-Warcraft playing IBMers, these SLers see no reason at all to mix their SL activities and creations with anything IBM is doing. Some are very successfully tied to the SL economy and may even fear IBM IP entanglements. They’d rather stay as far away from IBM’s IP radar than deal openly with the question, when does my gaming become my company’s intellectual property. Some grow to a level where it becomes nearly impossible to keep secret that they work for IBM. Some eventually ”come out’ for one reason or another despite their level of visibility.

On a personal note …

I will confess although I gave Second Life a second look after seeing Sam in the Forbidden City and enjoying learning a lot from IBMers and other friends in the IBM Sandbox that events brought me to hide my IBM-ness for most all of 2008. For 2009 I focused on OpenSim and IBM volunteer communities like the VUC and IBM Mentors, on my own time and some on-the-clock with manager approval. Today, mostly out of personal time-constraints I’ve shifted away from IBM volunteer involvement and admit sometimes wishing I could return to the blissfully anonymous group of active SLers who happen to be IBMers. Without alting or leaving IBM I am unable to do so, neither of which is doable for me.

The bigger picture.

These realities are evidence for some interesting conclusions I first read Daniel Pink make about the world-of-work and how tools such as Second Life and social media are involved in the shifting framework of the modern work place. Even if we don’t all become free-agents, how will the ideas of the Free Agent Nation manifest themselves in the enterprise? What role will social media and Second Life play in that enterprise evolution? What will happen to big companies that choose to ignore these observable changes?

Watching some of the most talented developers, artists, and thinkers disassociate themselves from their primary employer when it comes to their real passion because of conflicting enterprise priorities is hard to watch. Unfortunately I think it will not change for many years to come, perhaps not until the ‘gaming’ generation takes a firmer hold on the enterprise. Companies that figure out how to align worker personal passion with the goals and remuneration of the enterprise will dominate the 21st century. Virtual worlds will play a big part. I have no doubt about that. But it might take a Whole New Mind for some decision-makers to consider properly.

Second Life Enterprise, The Cost of Lost Serendipity

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2009 by Mo Hax

I was recently invited to discuss some of these points about Second Life Enterprise on Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe (around minute 40:00).

How many times have you stumbled upon something great and unexpected while doing something else? Maybe you meet a  friend, Broadway star, or life-changing mentor. Maybe you find a cure for cancer no doctor would have imagined because you are an electrical engineer, like this guy. Serendipity has sparked some of the greatest global and personal innovations in history. It is one big reason technology that connects and expands is so great and why Second Life, Twitter, and Facebook-ish apps are a key part of the modern miracle. Like neurons in the brain, the more connected we are, the more our pathway is used, the stronger, healthier, and bigger we become. Though hard to measure, serendipity is vital to business. Promote serendipity with connectedness and you build personal and profession profit from the innovation that results. Discourage connectedness, like that EE guy isolating cancer cells, and you reduce serendipitous growth and profit.

However, with greater exposure also comes greater risk of negative experiences and distraction. This is what scares enterprises and others away from the main Second Life grid making many think Second Life Enterprise is just the thing they need without further thought. For some it certainly will be. So what is the answer? For starters, perhaps assume the SL main grid is fine until you discover a reason it isn’t.  But first, let’s look at the less-than-obvious problem potential customers and decision-makers might miss. This is not a hyped-trashing of SLE, only a caution about decision points perhaps overlooked.

So what about Second Life Enterprise again?

With all its obvious benefits, Second Life Enterprise presents a risk in lost user connectedness, community, and innovation when compared to a controlled main grid Second Life experience. That’s the problem in a nutshell.

Like other enterprise social media, Second Life Enterprise isolates its users separating them from the main Second Life grid experience. At first this appears to be what most decision-makers want, the control SLE gives. After all, some enterprises could not use any form of SL without SLE because of legal requirements. SLers can appreciate certain users would never consider Second Life without SLE events some companies can now do that they couldn’t before. But there is a lurking danger in assuming SLE isolation is the best default.

One specific, important example: crowdsourcing beginning Second Life skills training

Crowdsourcing is the miracle of modern wikinomics that thrives and depends on the least isolation possible and was probably first discussed by that Don Tapscott guy. It also happens to be the gold value behind your PLN, and for enterprise, the key to strategic innovation and real cost-savings. Like many, P&G blames crowdsourcing for its success:

P&G had set a goal of increasing the number of innovations acquired from outside its walls from 15 percent to 50 percent. Six years later, critical components of more than 35 percent of the company’s initiatives were generated outside P&G. As a result, Huston says, R&D productivity is up 60 percent, and the stock has returned to five-year highs. “It has changed how we define the organization,” he says. “We have 9,000 people on our R&D staff and up to 1.5 million researchers working through our external networks. The line between the two is hard to draw.”

Often crowdsourcing is used when internal resources are not enough to meet the need, which is very frequently the case for educational, non-profits and small enterprises. Many enterprises struggle just to get their people on board in Second Life, proficient enough to at least use voice properly, move around, communicate, and do some profile and avatar customization (the very point of a 3d experience).

Ballerinas, car dealers, retired techies, and Aussie grandmas

Enterprises might not think of putting them on their payrolls but they represent real money for them. Permit a story about my personal introduction to Second Life. I have found many share similar experiences—those that found value and stayed in Second Life, I should say. [I suggest some reasons why some may have been lost in Eight Perspectives on Second Life Enterprise].

Far and away the best help I got getting started in Second Life was from just such a mish-mash of wonderful people I serendipitously met sitting under my favorite tree at IBM HQ in SL while I did my day job in other windows. Most of them were not IBMers.

MoUnderIBMTree

I owe IBM for opening my mind to Second Life legitimacy. I owe these people, who asked for nothing but friendship in return, for doing the real work of getting me started right and finding value. Shortly after their help, I found a programmer user group and was on my way down the immersion curve [a concept about which I will eventually write]. Eventually I discovered New Citizens Incorporated (NCI) where further amazing learning resources were available for free.

Here’s the point. The enterprise that employed me at the time isn’t important. Those serendipitous connections I made got me going enough to find value and help others. Just the time alone to assist me getting started, if such were available from my employer, would have been worth well over $200. That doesn’t even include all the skills and just-in-time training made available to me through Second Life main grid that directly improved my contribution to the company.

Yes, there was a period of distraction, amazement, and exploration not unlike those who experienced the world-wide-web in the 90s may have experienced, but that very epiphany of seeing what was truly possible from many different angles was key to making me an adopter, the very goal most enterprises seek.

It is just logical

Second Life main grid provides a much better chance of reaching the goal of enterprise user adoption when compared to Second Life Enterprise, which can actually discourage adoption in some.

Here it is in left-brain terms:

  • New users that become adopters stick around and create value
  • New users become adopters when they have positive experiences
  • New users have positive experiences when they discover things of personal and professional value to them
  • New users leave when they have negative experiences
  • The greater the scope and variety of possible experience the greater the opportunity for positive and negative experiences
  • Negative experiences can be avoided two-ways, 1) insulate new users from any negative experience (as judged by some) or 2) guide new users and help them learn to avoid them
  • SL provides the greatest scope and variety of experience, much more than the best SLE deployment could hope for
  • Therefore, SL provides the most return on investment if new users are properly introduced to the main grid

Every enterprise is different. Some do not allow access to the internet let alone access to Second Life. Many likely understand how important it is to introduce their users to both the main grid and their private enterprise grid. Some, however, for whatever reason may never introduce their users to the main grid let alone coordinate efforts to get them started there properly as well.

Those enterprises looking to join the modern age of wikinomics where trust, relationships, and collaboration with those inside and outside of their organizations provide the fabric, the ‘operating system’ (to borrow from Pink) of successful business will take a closer look at every specific reason they think they cannot accomplish the same goals with the Second Life main grid instead of a costly Second Life Enterprise option. They will assume their beautiful garden doesn’t need walls until they find a specific, real reason parts of it do.

The Nebraska Dilemma (Second Life Behind the Firewall)

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on October 29, 2009 by Mo Hax

[Dusan has a much more interesting thread going on this topic. Emotions are running high on this one for everyone and for good reason, this is history in the making for the 3d Internet. Make sure you give them a read, and try to keep civil.]

Here is the longer-than-planned comment I left on the Second Life blog post about Nebraska’s release, the behind-the-firewall option coming from Linden Labs. I replied specifically to a joking comment from Brenda Connolly:

Is that Nebraska ..like in “Steve Nebraska”?

It is nice to see the Corporates will be behind a wall. It can keep them in and away from Real SL residents.  The few that escape shouldn’t be hard to hunt down.

Pfffhaha. A lot more truth in that assessment than you might realize. Been busting my hump to help people flocking onto internal Nebraska grids for business conferences and such to even know there is an external grid. Sorta gave up on helping the internal Neb-born newbies. Too much swimming upstream:

  • no NCI to send them too
  • no freebie stores to take them shopping
  • no live, quality entertainment
  • no amazing, artistic, educational sims to show them
  • no friends to introduce them too from communities of their personal interest
  • no dancing (usually to un-stuffy for corporates to allow)
  • no way to shop
  • no way to invite guest speakers
  • no way to help these first-timers really care about their experience at all

These folk come to Nebraska mostly ‘because they have to’ and never see anything else. Corporate newbies won’t be bothering SL residents because they won’t know it exists or won’t care that it does. Therein lies the quiet, tragetic dilemma of Nebraska.

Tom Hale said those who stay in SL are those that

  1. make a friend
  2. buy something

The first is possible, but less likely than someone they might personally care about more in a social setting other than work.

The second is just not possible at all on Neb grids unless there is some plan to open SL exchange to internal Neb deployments, which technically is very problematic. Then again, why? As long as the big, immediate money is coming from big companies LL might not really care about the long-term longevity of the people being introduced to Second Life for the first time through closed Neb grids.

For the record, I really tried for about a month to help translate corporate interest to SL general interest only to discover the hard way that it is easier helping people on the main grid find what they need and really care about professionally and personally before they hide behind a firewall. Otherwise they largely miss the point. They don’t know of the main grid, often aren’t told, and if they do know generally are not encouraged to use the public SL grid. Those ambitious enough to attempt it face the quiet concern about bringing their customized internal avatar (if they in fact spent any time on it at all) into the main grid.

People get a bad taste in their mouth from an internal only first virtual world experience. All too often the best any internal corporate grid has to offer is a 3d space to watch boring PowerPoint slides or a place to put on a really, really good virtual office party, which people only attend in physical form for the food and beer anyway, right? Well, depending on where you work.

One thing is for sure, big companies and educational enterprises want this, without considering all the ramifications for isolating and insulating their people. They are more concerned about their own risks and interests above those of the individuals they are introducing to this technology. In many cases these are legitimate security and IP concerns, in others, over-blown FUD mongering. Everyone is watching as specifically corporate external presences, even good ones with community interaction and strong ties, fold up, close shop, or languish unattended while resources are heavily deployed toward making and marketing these internal options. CIOs have the big stick of ‘you will do this internally or no where’ and are using it to effectively control introduction of all their workforce to the first virtual world experience the company wants for them. This isn’t all bad. I would never have given SL a second look, having dismissed it in 2006, without the CEO of our company at the time on our main homepage standing in Second Life. I owe those who made that happen so much for opening my eyes. I don’t know if I would have made the internal-to-main transition beginners are now facing. Let’s hope they make it, but I suspect too many won’t.

It will be interesting to watch the digital generation now required to learn SL as early as high school, but always by college, overwhelm the corporate workplace. These guys don’t need an initial introduction to virtual worlds. Will they accept the closed tool being presented? Or shun it quietly for other options. That is when the dynamics will get really interesting.

/me pops some popcorn, opens a root beer, sits back, watches this one unfold

[DISCLOSURE: I work for IBM but do not represent them in any way. I founded the IBM SL Mentors group and co-chaired it for six months before stepping down last week. Much of this time was during the transitional time from external to internal grid at IBM. I have personally spoken to many IBMers who are long-time SLers internally that share this sentiment in different forms and levels. I sell services and goods in Second Life main grid as a hobby. I have made hundreds of acquaintances and several deeply close friends on Second Life main grid, some IBMers most not. ]

Porn, Ice Cream, and Stolen Virtual Stuff

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2009 by Mo Hax

So I’m not above putting porn in a post just to generate traffic. (Wait, I forgot to slather my blog with Google ads, dag nabit.)

Put aside your opinion of the specific items rampantly being stolen in the virtual world for a moment, yes some are sexual. While you are at it ignore the Hax-name bigotry in Serpentine’s post.  (I have almost been banned from sims just for having the Hax name.) And let’s consider how all this affects you, just another avatar.

People will pay over $1 billion for virtual goods in 2009

Yep, over 1 billion for pixels and electrons this year with a lot of that exchanging between Second Life avatars. Compare that to the $1.7 billion Americans spent on movies, a 17.5% increase, or even the $13.3 billion Americans spend on porn, or the $13.8 billion we yanks spend on ice cream:

Porn, Ice Cream, Virtual Stuff

Thank goodness there are more ice cream eaters than—no wait, that doesn’t work because you could have ice cream while—oh nevermind. <Insert your own bad pie joke here.>

Still, none of this holds a shoestring to the $38 billion spent on footwear and the ungodly $401.6 billion spend on sports in the United States alone.

So what is the difference and why do I care?

The difference is theft—specifically how stuff is stolen—and what that means to the industries involved. All of these industries have stuff ripped, but the ease with which virtual stuff is stolen and redistributed puts Second Life and any virtual world economy at greater risk. World of Warcraft has been dealing with similar issues for years. If you like having your virtual world around and having decent stuff in it, beyond the legitimate freebies you can find around, then this should matter to you. Second Life content creators are leaving for other things because of this.

Ripping virtual goods (digital content) is easy

Script kiddies with the right viewers steal and redistribute Second Life content as easily as they can get any music they want. This reality is not going to change no matter how much anyone does technically to prevent it. In fact, no security is fool-proof, everything can be cracked, it’s just a matter of making more of a hassle than those wanting to steal it care to take. Then again, in the online world, one determined hacker can open the door for everyone else, and always likely will. But how does this different from ’save image’ from any image on the Internet?

Easy theft does not make it right

Just because my 6-year-old could steal content off just about any web site does not make it right. Just because you could copy any full-perms content out of Second Life into  your own sims even though you don’t have permission from the original creator to do so does not make it right. Just because you can run a viewer that lets you leverage a Linden bug to create identical duplicates down to the asset IDs doesn’t make it right. Just because you can ’sample’ any music from the internet without paying a dime does not make it right.

The world runs on trust and ethics. They come from universal communal values and have been around since Lucy or before. Every living thing in the observable Cosmos functions by playing a part in some community. Stealing will get you shunned or eaten in most all of them. *grin*

Where there is money there are thieves

And where the crime involves digital assets there is rampant piracy. I know a person or two who works with those agencies interested in this stuff. To quote this person in effect,

“There is no way they have the resources to ever chase that stuff down, not with people being killed for drugs and other violent crimes. That warning at the beginning of every movie just makes me laugh. There is no way we could ever go after anyone for that.”

There will always be thieves and digital thieves will probably always have the upper-hand, sad but true.

Don’t put all your virtual eggs in one basket

Even though Linden Labs is really putting an effort up to get a handle on this content theft stuff, the fact is, they have a nearly impossible battle ahead. The music industry has taught us that.  It is not surprising to see Linden Labs attacking this on policy grounds as opposed to technical grounds. Imagine the technical changes required to change the very encoding of the trillions of assets in Second Life only to have that encoding eventually cracked. No sane business leader would undertake that kind of risky effort, hence the policy-based approach we see.

The reality shaping up is that  content creators have to find ways to make a living that don’t involve that rather sweet create-once-sell-millions model. That model is very addicting, no doubt, no overhead, no staff, no raw materials, no overstock or inventory run-out. Content creators do put a lot into what they make and sell, but not nearly what a physical-world product vendor does. Does that sound like I am hinting that digital content creators are acting a little spoiled? Nah. But perhaps these challenges are the trade-off that comes from working with purely virtual goods.

Do content creators just have to be faster?

Some have suggested to play in the digital content world market you just have to be fast, real fast. Mr. Serpentine’s stuff was ripped in under three months. That is three months to make a profit before losing it to the knowing thieves and unknowing public accomplices. This roll-over-and-play-dead-but-fast-developer approach infuriates many since it just accepts that people will be thieves and somehow justifies it. It also emphasizes another idea that drives content-developers insane (myself included) that creating this stuff is easy, so easy we should just give it all away for free and make money some other way. [Disclaimer: I make practically nothing for stuff I sell in SL, just not that good yet.]

Digital content creation is  indeed a fun, fast growing industry but contains unique challenges requiring quick development skills. Just know what you are getting yourself into before you start.

Five Ways to Know You are In A Virtual World

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 22, 2009 by Mo Hax

Recently Agile Bill started a thread on the definition of virtual worlds. (He’s writing a college paper.) I know. I hear many sighing, “Not that tired topic.” But you would be surprised. People are still talking about the complexity of all this. Again, I know, “What complexity?”  That’s exactly the point. For whatever reason some have stretched and twisted the definition of virtual world beyond recognition to most of us. To help you make sense of it, here are ten simple ways to tell if you are in a virtual world:

1. You twitch and stare

… while staring at a screen, typing, mouse-moving, or using some other tech gadget to make something happen on that screen. This is the virtual part. You might do a lot of twitching and staring in real life but without a screen involved, it is a good bet it ain’t virtual.

2. You miss places that never existed

A fancy term for this is spatial memory and you don’t get it if there isn’t some mappable geography involved. This is the world part of the term. Worlds are things you navigate, things that have a least two dimensional space, but usually three. This is why most any average person—even most geeks who understand the virtual worlds industry—will tell you Twitter, Facebook and things like them are not virtual worlds. Anyone trying to convince you otherwise is very likely and literally trying to sell you something.

By the way, this separates platforms from worlds. OpenSim is a good example of how this gets confusing. People often say “So is that in OpenSim?” when they really mean “So is that using the OpenSim platform?” Few beginners know the difference and probably don’t need to. It’s the decision-makers and people buying stuff that need to understand. This confusion is probably a carry over from, “So is that in Second life?” which means the Second Life grid, the virtual world of Second Life, not the platform that supports it, which only recently became available for people to deploy their own virtual worlds behind their own firewalls (Nebraska). Even then, on the main secondlife.com home page is says ‘virtual worlds’ implying that there are many virtual worlds within the Second Life grid, which is really even more accurate, Luskwood is different than Health Info island for example. The folks at Linden Labs often remind us that Second Life is a platform on and in which you can to build your virtual world. Nevertheless, ‘in Second Life’ has come to mean ‘on the Second Life grid.’

3. You fix up your hips, hair, sword or horde

… and you like it. You take some sense of ownership and pride in that representation of yourself in that virtual world, after all, you likely created, customized, or grew it. Usually this is a singular avatar, but might be an army or civilization that you command. You might even really empathize with this small version of yourself, real or pretend, in that place. Barbie, Ken, zombie, cat, elf, ship, mole, army, horde, whatever you are you see yourself there and care about that virtual you.

4. You throw up, duck, swoon, sweat, or swear

Ahhh, immersion. My wife used to duck when rockets flew at her playing Doom in college with friends after sneaking into the language computer lab where I worked. Doom, by the way, not just gave me nightmares, but had me dreaming of the future possibility of visiting a virtual France and practicing the language without being there. Guess that’s what you get when you have demonic monsters and foreign language on the brain as much as I did then.

As your avatar interacts with this world so do you. That’s what virtual is all about. You can be shot, kissed, pushed, bumped, forced to walk the Sahara and you sorta feel it, so much so that respectable health institutions use this for emergency response simulation and phobia treatment such as vertigo and social anxiety. If you feel it even though it isn’t real there’s a good chance you are in a virtual world.

You should know people sometimes call this immersive (even though no spell-checker I have ever used recognized it as a word). Business types and others don’t like looking too playful despite what Mr. Pink and his research has to say about that. This might be why they flock to this immersive term. For example, Linden Labs is coming out with an Immersive Workspaces product, code named Nebraska. Erica and Sam Driver at ThinkBalm have practically built their business around the term immersive internet and immersive environments. Dealing with businesses and ’serious’ decision makers requires a fancier term I suppose. Truth is, immersive is usually just a way of saying three dimensional, but the subtle differences are justified. You could become immersed in a two dimensional environment. My boys have proven that to me over and over playing in 2d Flash virtual worlds.

5. You talk, yell, shout, whisper, or poke others

… for fun or profit. You certainly could be the only one in the world. I have often done that running a personal version of OpenSim on my desktop. But unless you are Will Smith, and even then, your world likely includes others with whom you interact, communicate, and collaborate. This multi-user aspect is behind another term you might hear that seems popular with people that use the word pedagogy a lot as well. A Multi-User Virtual Environment or MUVE is the term they’ve come up with, but it seems to include all the non-spatial, non-immersive stuff as well so I don’t use it. Still good to be aware of it.

Twitter is Not a Virtual World, But is Google Earth? How About Zork?

Ok, I admit I wrote this post because a some otherwise very respectable people keep insisting that Twitter, Facebook, and the like are virtual worlds. They just aren’t. Please stop confusing the rest of us simple people by making confusing arguments that they are. Here’s a bunch of obvious virtual worlds:

I will leave you with a riddle to solve. Is Google Earth, the best widely-available, virtual representation of our actual world even a virtual world? And what about  Zork, that classic single person interactive textual world that became the basis for Multi-User Dungeons (MUDS)? What say you?