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It's always tricky when I write here about in-grid marketing events I've recently attended; because my day job out in RL Chicago is actually as a marketer, not a journalist, meaning that I attend such events usually with an eye towards participating, not just being a spectator. That's how it was, for example, when I attended Crayonville's inaugural "CaseCamp Second Life," an 'unconference' of sorts where different marketers are simply given a short period of stage time to talk about a recent case of theirs; and thus it is that I now report on that unconference both as a journalist and an industry peer.

For those who follow along, this is the first big public offering from the so-called SL marketing 'supergroup' Crayon, founded by such pre-existing Web 2.0 stars as Neville Hobson, Shel Holtz, Joseph Jaffe and CC Chapman; for those who obsessively follow along, yes, this was the group earlier in the year that faced such a tremendous backlash for calling themselves "the first new company in Second Life." Their hearts are in the right place, in my opinion, even if they have stumbled quite a bit since forming; and that's why I'm willing to cut them some slack, and was interested in attending this get-together they recently hosted.

And it was interesting to be sure, well-run, well-attended and with some pretty interesting people in the audience. But unfortunately CaseCamp ended up suffering from the same two problems that almost all marketing events I've attended now in Second Life do: too many stories of 'zany' marketing campaigns that accidentally catch on for gimmicky reasons; and not enough talk about what people are actually doing within Second Life. And this, I think, reflects the still-hesitant position that most marketers still have about the grid; that even as more of them are starting to embrace it, almost all of them still see it mainly as a gimmick, where only 'wacky' marketing campaigns will work.

I mean, take the first 20 minutes of last night's presentation, which was done by one of those guys from that goofy Competitive Rock Paper Scissors thing; you know, that they're always holding down at that obnoxious sports bar you hate going to, on the nights the Jaeger Girls aren't there? I mean, don't get me wrong, more power to those guys, for stumbling ass-backwards into some goofy gimmick that they've been able to accidentally squeeze a lot of pennies out of; but that's just not the type of project that I'm personally interested in, nor the type I do for clients. I'm more interested in the 42 Entertainments of the world, the PSFKs, the Douglas Atkins; people doing truly innovative and cutting-edge campaigns, where a ten-minute talk by them truly would produce ideas I hadn't thought of before. And not to mention, even at the end of that 20-minute talk, as far as I could tell the Rock Paper Scissors guy still hadn't said word one about Second Life itself, other than that 'he was excited about the possibilities' (yes, and babies are excited about candy).

Unlike my crypto-anarchist friends in the arts community, I for one welcome the growing amount of marketers who are taking an interest in Second Life; but I'm telling you, the industry needs to quickly get out of this "wow look at us we're all sitting around and talking in Second Life" self-congratulatory mode, if they expect any work to get done, and start talking more about what actual lessons have been learned so far about MMO marketing. I'll definitely attend a CaseCamp again, if I'm ever invited again (and with entries like this, you never really know); I would like to see such events, though, focus more on the Electric Sheep Companys of the world and not the Girls Gone Wilds.