Moderator: SC Moderators
Over the years attempts have been made to create and develop an economic workgroup for the CDS. The names I have heard for such a group are the CDS Traders Association and the Chamber of Commerce.
I wonder:
1) what these attempts accomplished,
2) why they were abandoned, and
3) if there is a way we could revive the concept.
Perhaps an NGO could be created around the economic health of the CDS, something like what the Guild is for planning and building.
*post withdrawn*
I have explaned several times my vision of economic activity in SL. SL has not a classical economy, but a long tail economy. In a long tail economy, a large number of unique items are sold, each in relatively small quantities. This is the way Amazon works. In a classical economy, the best sellers have the biggest part of the market. In the long tail economy, best sellers still exists, but their part of the market is smaller. In one word, SL economy has room for niche business. In SL, there are some big malls and big retailers, but the rest of the offer is disseminated through a huge number of small shops. To attract their clients, these shops must fill some conditions:
- niche offer. The products must correspond to a special target, like people who like japanese style ceramic of the 16th century or french empire style dresses.
- as we cannot expect that people visit every sim in order to find what they want, commercants have to work with meta-datas. They have to fill carefully the description of their plots in "About name..." and give the right words that potentially interested people will use to find them. This is absolutely not easy to do.
Knowing that, it is not surprising to see that SL commerce has evolved as RL commerce, going to the Internet. More and more people shop in Xstreet SL (now a LL company) or Onrez. Some look the website and shop in-world. Some shop online. It is also possible to sell stuffs without having a shop online. This should make us think about the ways we can encourage the economical activities in CDS.
The RA was wise enough to enlarge the concept of economic activities. In the amended Commercial Development Bill, commercial activity is meant as "the sale or offering to the public of virtual goods, services, consulting, games or performances". This is the list of what we have to encourage. What can we do is to:
- develop the average skill of our citizen (Metanomics is a great opportunity to learn)
- give good conditions for working (commercial plots, sandboxes, ....)
- authorize renting of commercial places (prepare a draft bill in order to...)
- create a network between people involved in economical activities
- ...
I think that a Chamber of Commerce can do this job. In the Bill that the current RA has amended at the begining of the term, the charter of the Chamber of Commerce must be approved by the RA. Until now, if I am well informed, no meeting was organized and no charter was proposed to the RA. Any group of citizen can organize this meeting and work on a draft of charter to submit it to the RA.
Thanks Arria, all good information for us to consider.
I found the law you talked about at the end of your post here: http://portal.slcds.info/index.php?id=226
In point 6 it says "CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. No CDS Chamber of Commerce or similar merchants group may exercise any designated advisory powers in CDS matters until it is operating under an NGO charter approved by the RA."
i want to start by thanking sonja for reviving this discussion. i was very in favor of a cds c of c for a while, now i wonder if its necessary. i really do think that if we are to accomplish all of our short and long term goals with acceptable speed and quality, spreading the workload to a broader base of involved citizens will be imperative. a new c of c could be a great resource.
i think there would be a lot of overlap though with existing groups like the tourism dept and guild.
i can definately see that a group of cds business people would want to start meeting to discuss and exchange ideas for building a stronger economy in the cds, but does that mean they need to form a new group with a gov't approved charter, and actually perform duties and operate under new, proposed, revised, re-revised, and finaly approved gov't legislation? do we need or want to spend time and energy on that? would it be simpler to expand and use the tourism dept and/or guild with more people and duties delegated to it?
if the business owning community of the cds wants to see something happen, wouldn't they be just a private lobby group operating amongst themselves as they see fit? they would discuss, write a propsal, submit it through the proper channels for approval, and the gov't executes it if approved, like any individual would in the cds. why not skip the step of cds business people writing a charter and debating duties, and just start evolving ideas into real proposals and let the chancellor and ra delegate as needed?
if it turns out that the tourism department or guild is understaffed, then can we just staff and/or create committees/workgroups as needed? maybe even with people who would have been active in a c of c?
i guess i don't see what a c of c would do that we don't already have a system in place for.
just thoughts, i could be convinced either way at this point....
i do believe one good start to whatever gets formed would be a cds business directory, i think this will serve many purposes in the future for analysis and action. if anyone feels like more data should be on here, feel free to add the field. i was thinking maybe a survey of some kind for owners might be helpful too, but that would be a separate doc.
here is a link to a google doc i started for basic info of all cds business owners: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= ... J6swRMkkfQ
Thank you, Solomon. It makes sense problems could come out of having government oversight for an economically-oriented group. 
Political issues could become involved, and it could increase the bureaucracy. 
I guess this would depend some on what the group would want to do, and what role it would play in our community. If it were an advisory workgroup for the Representative Assembly, this would be different from a few local business owners sitting at the Biergarten trying to figure out how to pay their land fees. 
Maybe the difference in approach could be made distinct in part by the law itself, as it says "No CDS Chamber of Commerce or similar merchants group may exercise any designated advisory powers in CDS matters until it is operating under an NGO charter approved by the RA." It seems to me this means the group could exist and do what it wanted without a government-approved charter, but if it wanted to "exercise any designated advisory powers" it would need to have the approval of the RA.
Is there a Tourism Department? I didn't know. 
Has any work been done on a charter for such a group?
If not, maybe this could be something a Minister of Economic Affairs could work on. Please see the thread about creating such a position at: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2336