“Bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe.” ~ The late, great DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Via Bennett, Krikes, Meerson, Meyer, and/or Nimoy)

So, right, the layoffs… erm, restructuring.

I don’t have a lot to add about the reasons behind the recent changes taking place at Linden Lab, or emotional response. For insight far keener than anything I have to offer on that subject, I suggest reading, Grace, Gwen or Tara. However, amid all the history, speculation, and other reasoned interpretation (not to mention the mass hysteria) there has been a significant point I’ve not seen covered and it’s still buzzing in my skull.

The unreliability card and the unforeseen side-effects of playing it one too many times.

Whatever this new direction means for Linden Lab and Second Life, and whatever spin is being put on the situation, this drastic, public about-face signals yet another example of how arbitrary and unreliable the management/decission making structure within the Linden Lab hierarchy remain. In fact, unless there is some heavy-duty duct tape being applied to what remains of the SL Enterprise division, this latest stunt may make certain no serious business looks at SL for quite some time.

Gwen brings up an interesting point in her post, speculating that probably only a couple dozen SL Enterprise boxes ever got shipped, indicating (to her) that this makes the project a failure, or, at least a failure in the eyes of income strategy for Linden Lab. But, the fact is, we don’t (and can’t) know that for sure. Forgetting that we don’t have any real numbers to mull, the SL Enterprise system has only been in place for a year. A year. A year is not nearly enough time to evaluate a project that is marketed to the types of organizations that can consider investing in anything with a $100k price tag.

Why? Because bureaucracy takes time — and this appears to be something that neither Linden Lab, nor most bloggers who talk about the SL Enterprise project seem to understand and address.

Yes, there are some organizations where a few people in the tech division can write a $100k check for new development and projects without a lengthy time-table, but they are not the bulk of this type of targeted market. SL Enterprise is/was focused at a certain type of clientele — the type that includes government, big corporate structure, or higher education and all the red tape those types of environments entail. Red tape means drafting funding proposals and grant applications. It means submitting budget requests. It means shuffling paper between departments, making deals, revisiting numbers to shuffle some more. Lather. Rinse. Repeat until blind and/or numb.

Anyone looking to use the SL Enterprise system would have to evaluate it, research it, investigate it and put together a preliminary report that would convince a board and/or someone who makes the big calls that they could further develop proposals. Assuming that hurdle is lept, then they have to go through the budget planning phase and pass that on for approval. Probably more than once. Then, assuming they still have a green light, they may well have to wait for fiscal markers or goals to be reached (especially during one of the shakiest financial years in recent history). This process would reasonably take months in a best-case scenario. Throw in a conservative penny pincher at any leg in this process trying to stretch a profit margin for an extra quarter (or two) and approval gets stalled or rebooted back a few steps.

In fact, I have a contact who recently related a conversation they had with a frustrated government official who’s been considering an SL Enterprise implementation into their existing projects. The official explained that trying to get the necessary funding could be expected to take up to nine months due to the basic process of review cycles — each of which last more than a month — to seek approval.

One year is not enough time to know if SL Enterprise was a success or not, and you have to wonder how many people were engaged in some sort of planning process that just, for all intents and purposes, appears to have been cast over Linden Lab’s collective shoulder (assuming rumors are true that the SL Enterprise top planners and liaisons are among the layoffs).

Anyway you look at it, this radical shift in focus sends the message that Linden Lab is a company with short-attention-span syndrome. Something didn’t work as quick as they wanted it to, so they moved on to the next shiny idea. And who knows — the next shiny thing may, in fact, be better. But there’s something to be said for not burning bridges you don’t have to burn. And, don’t kid yourself, without a liaison and advocate in a high office, SL Enterprise is a burned bridge. Because no organization is going to be able to function as they’d like with basic Linden Lab “support.”

Now, don’t get me wrong — I do not default to the position that the layoffs are a bad thing. I am not in the Chicken Little “sky is falling” camp on this one. The internal structure of LLab hasn’t been working for a long time – a personnel shake-up was damn necessary. Some good people will always get swept away in a house cleaning like this. There are always unfortunate casualties in a restructure. But usually, in any corporate sweep, the bulk of what goes is dead or outdated weight. Who is going out doesn’t interest me intellectually. Who comes in, and what those that remain focus upon is the food of my concern, and my hope.

Moving toward a consumer-based market (or, moving back to that market, to be accurate) is actually a direction I support. I also support making some of SL functionally available for mobile devices and making it more social networking friendly (assuming they do the legwork and get their privacy options up to par before implementing this kind of thing). These sorts of evolutionary steps are simply a necessity to remain competitive in today’s market of social formats. Yes, I’m concerned that this may lead to a “Farmvilling” of SL, but I’m not greatly concerned. Technology moves forward. It just does.

Now, if we’re lucky and the Lab finally gets a fire under its ass and starts moving in a coherent direction, this will lead to community and consumer growth. That’s a win no matter your business in SL. New communicators, new customers, new creators — this is what it’s about. In a best-case outcome, a significant influx of new residents and new energy into the format means that some of the SL Enterprise targets may even forget and forgive this recent quake of unreliability.

But, it’s worth noting the message this abrupt series of events sends out regarding the stability and reliability of Linden Lab’s internal structure. Shifting focus off SL Enterprise after only a year means they didn’t understand the market they were going after, or they lost patience before a reasonable time frame of execution. Neither of those instills confidence in the company or its product.

Was this because they recognized it as an unrealistic focus and turned it into a more back-burner long-term project? If so, where it the PR to assure SL Enterprise customers (and those who might be seeking funding) that the SL Enterprise project is still healthy and supported? And I don’t mean the lame “the kids are alright” M Linden statement. I mean real PR. There’s a lot of work to do to make this a case where current obligations appear to be tucked safely under one arm while turning a new corner. Right now, it still looks like a kid with ADD chasing the next pretty butterfly.

When it comes to SL, my current belief is that “anything different is good.” So I remain a little hopeful; I’m a sucker that way. But then again, I didn’t shell out $100k for an SL Enterprise box, so my hope is free.

Sure, everything new is a gamble, but smart players understand the importance of remembering the cards they’ve already revealed so they don’t overplay the hand. No one likes placing all their bets on the wild card round. Especially not in a high stakes round.