Sunday, April 30, 2006
Effective Networking (How to Work a Room, Part 1)
Note: This is part of a series of articles called Effective Networking in the Games Industry. I'm writing these articles in no particular order, so I'm sorry if this seems scattered. I promise I will collect it all and put it on my permanent webspace for future reference.
How to Work a Room Full of Strangers
So let's say you're trying your hardest to know everyone, and you took my advice and are attending your very first local IGDA chapter meeting. You probably don't know anyone else. And it can be kind of overwhelming to be surrounded by a bunch of people you don't know. This article will outline a few networking tricks that should help you at least know a few names by the end of the night.
Step #1: Shut the #$&@ Up
Seriously, be quiet. Take some time to listen. Spend the first few minutes just walking around the room discreetly eavesdropping on people. Take a quick profile of the folks in the room. You're looking for at least one of a few kinds of people.
Step #2: Introduce Yourself
Yeah, you actually have to do this part. I know it's hard for a lot of you gamer types. Practice in front of the mirror. I actually still do practice this stuff in the bathroom after I've showered. Speaking of which: make sure you've showered. But most importantly, understand that if you've profiled these people correctly, they are highly likely to respond favorably to your introduction. You've already mitigated the risk of rejection. ( For you MMO players out there, think of these people as having a big fat LFG flag in the ON position.)
You can walk right up to The Social Creature and introduce yourself, even if you're just a lowly student. You might even impress her. She might just note that you exist and then move on to someone else, but you're on the radar now. The secret is to keep coming back to these events. She'll be there every time, and she'll notice you there every time. You will go up in her esteem based solely on attendance, if nothing else.
The First Timer is fish in a barrel. Walk up and say, "Hey, it's my first time here." They'll breathe a sigh of relief and say, "It's my first time, too." And there you go. Best friends for life. Or something.
The hardest of the three is The Loner, because you're making the assumption that this person wants to talk to someone. Usually, though, if a person comes out to a networking event, they generally want to talk to someone. It's a pretty safe bet your introduction will be well-received.
Step #3: Shut Up Again
Introduce yourself, but then let the person talk. They will tell you very important things about themselves. If you have a lot to talk about, great, you don't need my help anymore. However, if you don't have anything substantial to say in response, don't be embarrassed. Just say "It was nice meeting you," and move on. But remember what they told you, because if they're an animator, and you meet a First Timer who's also an animator, you can introduce them. All of the sudden you've strengthened your weak ties. And you are on your way to networking glory.
Step #4: Be Realistic
You're not going to make a bunch of best friends just waltzing into a room full of strangers. Consider your first night at the chapter meeting to be a success if you walked out of there with some business cards. Next time you'll be able to recognize faces, and if you took notes, you'll probably even remember a few names.
Next time: How to Work a Room Where You Know Some People!
How to Work a Room Full of Strangers
So let's say you're trying your hardest to know everyone, and you took my advice and are attending your very first local IGDA chapter meeting. You probably don't know anyone else. And it can be kind of overwhelming to be surrounded by a bunch of people you don't know. This article will outline a few networking tricks that should help you at least know a few names by the end of the night.
Step #1: Shut the #$&@ Up
Seriously, be quiet. Take some time to listen. Spend the first few minutes just walking around the room discreetly eavesdropping on people. Take a quick profile of the folks in the room. You're looking for at least one of a few kinds of people.
- The Social Creature. This gal is chatty, personable, probably (but not necessarily) drinking a beer, and has the ear of about three people at once. She seems to know everybody in the room, and--hey!! This is your first time here. She can't know who your are. But I guarantee you that she wants to know you, because she makes it her business to know people.
- The First Timer. You'll know who this guy is almost immediatley, because he's even more uncomfortable than you are. That's because he's a fellow n00b.
- The Loner. This person is different from The First Timer, because he's not visibly uncomfortable: he just isn't talking to anyone.
Step #2: Introduce Yourself
Yeah, you actually have to do this part. I know it's hard for a lot of you gamer types. Practice in front of the mirror. I actually still do practice this stuff in the bathroom after I've showered. Speaking of which: make sure you've showered. But most importantly, understand that if you've profiled these people correctly, they are highly likely to respond favorably to your introduction. You've already mitigated the risk of rejection. ( For you MMO players out there, think of these people as having a big fat LFG flag in the ON position.)
You can walk right up to The Social Creature and introduce yourself, even if you're just a lowly student. You might even impress her. She might just note that you exist and then move on to someone else, but you're on the radar now. The secret is to keep coming back to these events. She'll be there every time, and she'll notice you there every time. You will go up in her esteem based solely on attendance, if nothing else.
The First Timer is fish in a barrel. Walk up and say, "Hey, it's my first time here." They'll breathe a sigh of relief and say, "It's my first time, too." And there you go. Best friends for life. Or something.
The hardest of the three is The Loner, because you're making the assumption that this person wants to talk to someone. Usually, though, if a person comes out to a networking event, they generally want to talk to someone. It's a pretty safe bet your introduction will be well-received.
Step #3: Shut Up Again
Introduce yourself, but then let the person talk. They will tell you very important things about themselves. If you have a lot to talk about, great, you don't need my help anymore. However, if you don't have anything substantial to say in response, don't be embarrassed. Just say "It was nice meeting you," and move on. But remember what they told you, because if they're an animator, and you meet a First Timer who's also an animator, you can introduce them. All of the sudden you've strengthened your weak ties. And you are on your way to networking glory.
Step #4: Be Realistic
You're not going to make a bunch of best friends just waltzing into a room full of strangers. Consider your first night at the chapter meeting to be a success if you walked out of there with some business cards. Next time you'll be able to recognize faces, and if you took notes, you'll probably even remember a few names.
Next time: How to Work a Room Where You Know Some People!
Labels: networking
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Tiny Subversions: The Origin Issue!!
So, nobody has ever asked me where the title of this blog comes from. Well, nobody can now rejoice, for I am going to answer that question.
Back in the day, I was an idealistic student, full of, uhm, ideas. I've lost the original writing to a long-dead server, but essentially I stayed up late one night writing about how the choices we make when playing a video game relate to the fiction of Thomas Pynchon. Specifically, that the video game is a reality that we are given the freedom to change, and that every action taken by the player (in a good game) is a tiny subversion of the orthodoxy (i.e., original game state) of that reality.
Today, I am an idealistic professional, full of, uhm, practical ideas. So I've decided to retcon the meaning of the title. Since I spend a lot of time on this blog evangelizing either rapid prototyping or effective networking, from here on in, a tiny subversion is the act of either (a) creating a rapid prototype of a small game element, or (b) the act of adding a single person to your network.
Back in the day, I was an idealistic student, full of, uhm, ideas. I've lost the original writing to a long-dead server, but essentially I stayed up late one night writing about how the choices we make when playing a video game relate to the fiction of Thomas Pynchon. Specifically, that the video game is a reality that we are given the freedom to change, and that every action taken by the player (in a good game) is a tiny subversion of the orthodoxy (i.e., original game state) of that reality.
Today, I am an idealistic professional, full of, uhm, practical ideas. So I've decided to retcon the meaning of the title. Since I spend a lot of time on this blog evangelizing either rapid prototyping or effective networking, from here on in, a tiny subversion is the act of either (a) creating a rapid prototype of a small game element, or (b) the act of adding a single person to your network.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Becoming Invaluable
(Note: This isn't part of my networking series, but it's sort of related. Maybe the start of a new series of articles?)
Way back in 2001, Joel Spolsky wrote an article called Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt, which basically outlines my entire philosophy of how I work at the game company that employs me. I'm not high up on the totem pole at all. In fact, I started as a temp QA tester, i.e., the lowliest position possible at the company. However, that did not deter me from using the strategies outlined in that article to Become Invaluable to the company. And while I'm still a grunt, I went from part-time tester to full-time developer, and did it rather quickly.
Have you read the article? Okay, good. Now I'm going to add a particular strategy Joel's list.
Development On the Fringes
You're a lowly programmer. Or maybe you're just a tester with programming skills who wants to prove herself. While you're doing your normal duties, keep an ear to the ground: you want to be listening for some kind of project that is potentially really useful to people, but was dropped due to mismanagement, or maybe it stalled because a key developer left, or whatever.
This project is a great one, but for some reason it lives in the margins, on the fringes. This is bad for the project, but very good for you. Nobody cares about a project that's died, which gives you the freedom to poke around in your spare time. Work on lunch breaks, or stay an extra hour every day to spend time on this. The best thing is, because the project is dead, you will have no oversight, and can do whatever the hell you want. Which is the perfect opportunity to do some stealth rapid prototyping in a corporate environment that normally would see it as a waste of time.
I did this with an underutilized system at my company while I was a QA tester. It took me a month to develop a prototype of the working system in my spare time. It would've taken me a week working on it full-time, but hey, I got it done. And then I used the rhetorical power of the prototype to gather a lot of high-profile (VP-level) attention. As one lead developer put it: "Darius, you managed to finish in one month what [this other group] has been promising and failing to deliver for a whole year." Needless to say, I was promoted to a developer position soon after.
This whole process can be helped along if you have good networking skills within your company. Particlarly, knowing everyone is a huge help, because if you're friends with a wide variety of developers, you can bug them with questions about how the dead project worked back when it was alive. Don't bug them too much: bug them just enough.
By picking a project on the fringes and developing the crap out of it whenever you can, you can get pretty far as a mere grunt, and is my suggestion for how you, too, can Become Invaluable.
Way back in 2001, Joel Spolsky wrote an article called Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt, which basically outlines my entire philosophy of how I work at the game company that employs me. I'm not high up on the totem pole at all. In fact, I started as a temp QA tester, i.e., the lowliest position possible at the company. However, that did not deter me from using the strategies outlined in that article to Become Invaluable to the company. And while I'm still a grunt, I went from part-time tester to full-time developer, and did it rather quickly.
Have you read the article? Okay, good. Now I'm going to add a particular strategy Joel's list.
Development On the Fringes
You're a lowly programmer. Or maybe you're just a tester with programming skills who wants to prove herself. While you're doing your normal duties, keep an ear to the ground: you want to be listening for some kind of project that is potentially really useful to people, but was dropped due to mismanagement, or maybe it stalled because a key developer left, or whatever.
This project is a great one, but for some reason it lives in the margins, on the fringes. This is bad for the project, but very good for you. Nobody cares about a project that's died, which gives you the freedom to poke around in your spare time. Work on lunch breaks, or stay an extra hour every day to spend time on this. The best thing is, because the project is dead, you will have no oversight, and can do whatever the hell you want. Which is the perfect opportunity to do some stealth rapid prototyping in a corporate environment that normally would see it as a waste of time.
I did this with an underutilized system at my company while I was a QA tester. It took me a month to develop a prototype of the working system in my spare time. It would've taken me a week working on it full-time, but hey, I got it done. And then I used the rhetorical power of the prototype to gather a lot of high-profile (VP-level) attention. As one lead developer put it: "Darius, you managed to finish in one month what [this other group] has been promising and failing to deliver for a whole year." Needless to say, I was promoted to a developer position soon after.
This whole process can be helped along if you have good networking skills within your company. Particlarly, knowing everyone is a huge help, because if you're friends with a wide variety of developers, you can bug them with questions about how the dead project worked back when it was alive. Don't bug them too much: bug them just enough.
By picking a project on the fringes and developing the crap out of it whenever you can, you can get pretty far as a mere grunt, and is my suggestion for how you, too, can Become Invaluable.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The Will To Learn, Part 2
I have two follow-ups to my post about game education from the other day (The Will To Learn).
First off, there's an article in Tom Sloper's game design FAQs called Is It Enough? which echoes what I was trying to say, but I think far more eloquently.
First off, there's an article in Tom Sloper's game design FAQs called Is It Enough? which echoes what I was trying to say, but I think far more eloquently.
You have to work hard at what you love. Then you have to continue working hard at it. Then when you get dealt a setback, you have to go right back to working hard at it some more. But if you love it, you'll do that anyway, without having to hear me telling you what to do. If you do that, then eventually, some day, some time, some place, you'll meet someone who'll see what's inside you and will give you the chance to show your stuff.My friend Ian Schreiber, who's a professional game designer, had the following to say:
The question "What if I'm motivated but not talented" inherently assumes that talent is static. That assumption is flawed. Talent can be learned through study, practice and hard work (all of which are available to someone who is motivated). Therefore, the (motivated && !talented) problem is temporary, and will fix itself.Good advice all around.
The one thing you might add is that gaining talent takes time, so you really need TWO things: motivation and patience.
If you have those, then this isn't a problem. If you're lacking either one, then you're likely to complain about how you deserve a break but no one will give it to you, boo hoo, and you're really just claiming that you have motivation when you actually don't, and you're just kidding yourself but you sure as hell aren't fooling the rest of us.
37 Signals and Rapid Prototyping
37 Signals has a somewhat old blog post on interaction design. And a newer one on the illusion of agreement. See if you can spot the parallels to rapid prototyping in game development, kids!
...
Okay, I'll spell it out.
The interaction design post is about how static documentation is pretty useless when you're desigining interactive applications. Hmm. What's better than static documentation? Try on a prototype and see how you like it!
The illusion of agreement is something that can't occur when you've got an interactive prototype, because people just Get It™.
...
Okay, I'll spell it out.
The interaction design post is about how static documentation is pretty useless when you're desigining interactive applications. Hmm. What's better than static documentation? Try on a prototype and see how you like it!
The illusion of agreement is something that can't occur when you've got an interactive prototype, because people just Get It™.
Scary
I was reading an Escapist article about The Last Express today, and I was kind of taken aback that it's been almost ten years since the game came out. Yeesh.
Anyway, you should read the article, because TLE is one of the greatest games ever made.
Anyway, you should read the article, because TLE is one of the greatest games ever made.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
The Will to Learn
So Brad posed some good questions in the comments of my previous post ("On Breaking In, and Your Education"):
I'll answer the second question first, because it's just a whole lot easier for me to answer. If you are not well-motivated but wouldn't be happy doing anything but creating video games: find some motivation. I have no idea how to do this. Otherwise, the game industry is not for you. You will make bad video games, and I would like to see fewer bad video games, so please stay out of the industry.
On the other hand, if you're motivated but not talented, that's okay. Talent can be learned. I'm not sure how other people learn to be good at stuff, but I'll outline my general method.
As I put it to my friends last night, I think the best thing you can do is a breadth-first search of all knowledge. I'm not kidding. Learn a little bit about everything. EVERYTHING. The more you learn, the more likely it is that you will run into a natural talent you have. For instance, I didn't know I was good at networking until I tried it. As you learn little bits about different things, you'll hit on something cool, and you should learn more about that particular thing. Drill down. Get some depth. Meanwhile, never stop gaining breadth: keep learning something about everything. Soak up that information like a freaking sponge.
But you have to have a will to learn. If you have no will to learn... well...
I'll give you something else to consider. Nobody says, "I'm not good at math, or analytical thinking, or abstraction, but I think I could be a pretty good theoretical physicist." This is because people understand that theoretical physics is hard. Well I'm telling you now: making a good game is hard. Making a great game might be the hardest thing you ever do in your life. If you want to make great games, excellence is required. And if you're not in this to make great games, then what good are you?
On the other hand, if you do possess a strong will to learn, then you can become excellent.
Sigh.
I don't know, I get the feeling that this post is mostly BS. I wish I could say something better than, "Uh, learn everything and you will be awesome!" But I can't. That's all I know. Furthermore, every awesome person I know eats information for breakfast, too. So I think what I'm saying is correct. But it's functionally useless. Sorry.
One thing I'd like to see this article expand to address is what should we do if we are not in any way "excellent." I recognize that excellence is the remedy to all obstacles but sometimes it's just not an available option. Is it different for a person who is motivated but not talented? What about those who are not well motivated but wouldn't be happy taking any other path in life?I also happened to see Brad last night, and I had a really great conversation about this very topic with Darren and Craig. (In fact, Craig's post on Lazy Smart People came out of that same conversation.)
I'll answer the second question first, because it's just a whole lot easier for me to answer. If you are not well-motivated but wouldn't be happy doing anything but creating video games: find some motivation. I have no idea how to do this. Otherwise, the game industry is not for you. You will make bad video games, and I would like to see fewer bad video games, so please stay out of the industry.
On the other hand, if you're motivated but not talented, that's okay. Talent can be learned. I'm not sure how other people learn to be good at stuff, but I'll outline my general method.
As I put it to my friends last night, I think the best thing you can do is a breadth-first search of all knowledge. I'm not kidding. Learn a little bit about everything. EVERYTHING. The more you learn, the more likely it is that you will run into a natural talent you have. For instance, I didn't know I was good at networking until I tried it. As you learn little bits about different things, you'll hit on something cool, and you should learn more about that particular thing. Drill down. Get some depth. Meanwhile, never stop gaining breadth: keep learning something about everything. Soak up that information like a freaking sponge.
But you have to have a will to learn. If you have no will to learn... well...
I'll give you something else to consider. Nobody says, "I'm not good at math, or analytical thinking, or abstraction, but I think I could be a pretty good theoretical physicist." This is because people understand that theoretical physics is hard. Well I'm telling you now: making a good game is hard. Making a great game might be the hardest thing you ever do in your life. If you want to make great games, excellence is required. And if you're not in this to make great games, then what good are you?
On the other hand, if you do possess a strong will to learn, then you can become excellent.
Sigh.
I don't know, I get the feeling that this post is mostly BS. I wish I could say something better than, "Uh, learn everything and you will be awesome!" But I can't. That's all I know. Furthermore, every awesome person I know eats information for breakfast, too. So I think what I'm saying is correct. But it's functionally useless. Sorry.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
On Breaking In, and Your Education
Robin has written a great post over at her blog in regards to game development majors at universities. She writes:
Obviously, there's limits to what I'm talking about. You really ought to go to college, and graduate. If nothing else, it shows game companies that you're capable of sticking with something for several years to completion (a truly excellent trait in a game developer). And if you're at a significant socio-economic disadvantage, or don't live in a rich-industrialized-Western country, you're going to need to be way more motivated than others. But I'm side-tracking here. Sorry.
It might sound like I'm knocking people who do a two-year games program at a trade school, or people who go to a four-year university and get a game development degree. But I'm not knocking those people. I work with very capable folks who have done both of those things. What I am knocking is the perception that those people are successful because they went to Full Sail, or Digipen, or CMU, or USC. They probably would have done just as well anywhere else because they are excellent people with great personality, talent, and a will to learn.
I guess I could have said all this in one sentence: it's the person, not the degree, that counts in the end.
(Speaking of colleges, check out Tom Sloper's "how to pick a college" article on his fantastic website. Also see his corollary: Regular School? Game School?)
At GDC, several speakers coyly referred to the “top three game programs” here in the US - a list that was then gabbed and gossiped about precisely because it remained nameless. But I’m not afraid to say that the student I’m talking about is not from CMU, Georgia Tech, or USC. In fact, I’m kind of excited because they are different!Why? I guess I see things through the eyes of a self-starter. I didn’t get to take classes with likeminded, aspiring designers. I didn’t do group game projects. Instead - I played games, read articles and wrote email. I got involved with the IGDA and GDC. Always watching, asking questions - in many ways, I educated myself. And now that I’m working - I find these skills *immeasurably* valuable.
I identify with this a whole lot. I was also a self-starter: I went to a great four-year university, and got my regular ol' degree (B.S. in Electrical Engineering). But I made sure to be heavily involved with the Game Development Club while I was there, where I worked on game-related events, built small and large game projects, and even designed and taught a number of classes and workshops on game development and design. I learned leadership skills, management skills, and how to navigate a bureaucracy. I, too, became involved various industry organizations. But overall, it's the meta skills that Robin talks about--watching and asking questions--that have served me extremely well as a professional game developer.
This is maybe why I get annoyed when people post on the IGDA Breaking In forums and ask:
- Should I bother with college at all? [Short answer: yes.]
- Should I go to a game school or a normal school?
- If I go to a normal school, should I pick one with a game program?
- If I've picked one with a game program, should I major in that?
- und so weiter...
Obviously, there's limits to what I'm talking about. You really ought to go to college, and graduate. If nothing else, it shows game companies that you're capable of sticking with something for several years to completion (a truly excellent trait in a game developer). And if you're at a significant socio-economic disadvantage, or don't live in a rich-industrialized-Western country, you're going to need to be way more motivated than others. But I'm side-tracking here. Sorry.
It might sound like I'm knocking people who do a two-year games program at a trade school, or people who go to a four-year university and get a game development degree. But I'm not knocking those people. I work with very capable folks who have done both of those things. What I am knocking is the perception that those people are successful because they went to Full Sail, or Digipen, or CMU, or USC. They probably would have done just as well anywhere else because they are excellent people with great personality, talent, and a will to learn.
I guess I could have said all this in one sentence: it's the person, not the degree, that counts in the end.
(Speaking of colleges, check out Tom Sloper's "how to pick a college" article on his fantastic website. Also see his corollary: Regular School? Game School?)
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Problem Solving Techniques
The Soak is the most powerful of all advanced problem solving techniques. It's my favorite tool in the world. I was going to describe it here someday, but Rands beat me to the punch.
