Business Exchange to open

I have been working hard, and blogging hardly at all over the past few weeks, in between a couple of holidays. This is something I have been waiting impatiently for, over the past few weeks: the opening of the Business Exchange, which Nemesis Content Creation has built for Dynamis and the Guild Network.

The Business Exchange is modelled on the London coffee houses of the 17th and 18th century. Having worked for Lloyd’s Register of Shipping in my youth, I knew something about the way in which many London institutions had their origins in the London coffee houses, but I had no idea what wonderful places they were until I began to research them for this project. Coffee houses were places to do business, to network and meet people with similar interests, but they were also places to learn about the politics of the day, the news and gossip. They were places where you might buy and sell, share information or see a scientific demonstration. Some specialised in a particular type of clientele — theatrical people, or politicians, or people connected to shipping — but the one thing they all had in common was that despite the strongly hierarchical society of the time, they were places were all men were equal. I see them as a low-tech equivalent to websites, really. Information travelled a lot faster than you might expect for that time, too, with different coffee houses printing their own papers, often daily.

i think they must have been wonderful places to do business, and very different from the isolation which is typical in a coffee house today. We have Starbucks and Costas and Neros all over London, but apart from the odd personnel interview or business meeting, they are places to sit quietly with a cup of coffee. The old coffee houses were places where everyone present would contribute to discussions, or listen intently to pieces of news brought from elsewhere.

So, the Business Exchange is modelled after the old-style coffee house, as a place for networking for people who are doing business in SL. Not just the commercial companies and bigger shops in SL, but everyone who is running any sort of business. The hope is that we can share information about what works, and what doesn’t work, and use the high level of generosity towards others which is endemic in SL to enable successful businesses to teach new starters, or people who are encountering challenges.

Dynamis is a very interesting company, responsible for Businessesforsale.com and Franchisesale.com in RL, websites which allow people to buy and sell businesses and franchises. They are young and vibrant and immersed in SL, and wanted to provide something of real value to the business community in SL. They have financed the Business Exchange as a place to network, to share information and to learn from each other. I hope it is a pleasant place to be and to do those things.

There are also advertising panels around the Exchange, which allow visitors to advertise their businesses for sale, or allow them to advertise for a business partner. When the Exchange launches, those panels will cost just $1 linden rental for the first four weeks, rising to the normal price of $50 lindens per week after that.

Currently, the Exchange is open to members of the group, The Business, only. The plan is for a soft launch of the Business Exchange, gathering people who are interested in the vision for how the Exchange could work, and then for a proper launching event and announcement in the next few weeks. If you are interested in joining the group, and having a tour of the Exchange, please contact me in world. We are particularly interested in hearing from people who are willing to be active and get involved in the Exchange, perhaps running events or speaking at informal discussions about running businesses in SL.

There are some build jobs which are all about the money, and which begin to make you feel that no matter how much you are paid, it won’t be enough to compensate for the strain and frustration of the job. This one wasn’t like that at all: I loved making the build, I love being there, and I hope to be able to be involved as a volunteer at the Business Exchange in the future too. The client is great, too. I’m just longing to be able to show it off to interested people!