This was just too juicy not to blog about to my WA buddies.  A good friend of mine is the CEO of a company that develops virtual conference and training centers in Second Life.  He was written up recently in the Washington Post for the cutting-edge, imaginative stuff his company is doing, and they are experiencing a lovely growth spurt due to all the current interest in virtual training/learning from corporations and universities.

I’ve been pitching him for months now on the value of article marketing to increase traffic to his website and build his back-links.  He’s checked it all out, seen that his competitors are on EZA and Squidoo, etc., and he’s ready to hire a freelance writer.

Not just any writer, mind you.  He (I'll just call him Virtual World Guy, or VWG for short) wants someone who’s basically IN LOVE with Second Life.  (If you are reading this now and wondering whether Second Life is a religious cult or career-changer resource, then this gig is not for you.)  Someone who is an active participant, who's explored the space, whose avatar gets regular exercise.  He’s also looking for someone who lives in a U.S. time zone and whose spoken and written English is first-rate. 

VWG wants (on average) 5 good, knowledgeable, keyword-optimized, “spinnable” articles per week at $20 per article.    Some of those articles might be for the company blog, and some might be destined for EZA or similar directories.  And some weeks it might be a little more or a little less--think of the 5 hours as a weekly average.

There might be some weeks where the 5 hours of writing would include a press release.  If you’ve never written a press release before, that’s okay—as long as you’re willing to learn how to do it and to take direction.

So, 5 hours (avg.) a week:  $100.  What about the other hundred?

Well, that’s where the project management part comes in.  VWG's got some pretty highbrow clients (University of Virginia, AES Corporation, Michigan State University, Johns Hopkins, Cyberwatch, to name a few), and he needs someone to help keep projects moving along--for an average of 5 hours per week at $20/hour.  Someone with good communication and organization skills who’s comfortable interacting with both artists and clients.  The goal is to make sure agreements are being met thoroughly and on time.

The other part of the project management is client training.  When new clients comes on board, they need to be briefed on the technology and the SL platform.  And on what they can expect during the development process.

Could this lead to more work?  Yes, quite possibly—for the right person. And VWG is someone with a lot of business integrity and smarts.  He'd be good to work for.  And a terrific mentor for anyone who wants to get started in gaming and 3D modeling.

So…the WA community gets first dibs on this job alert—before this goes out on LinkedIn, Craigslist, and Elance.  I convinced my friend of the value of appealing FIRST to a community that’s already heavily invested in article writing, managing multiple projects, and celebrating all things virtual.  If you are interested in knowing more, just PM me.  Ask whatever questions you may have, and summarize your qualifications.  No resumes necessary--let's just keep it conversational.  This could be a cool income and resume-building opportunity--with room for growth--for the right person.