Crossing a line

I've enjoyed Kathy Sierra's blog, Creating Passionate Users, quite a number of times, and I was very disturbed to read about her recent troubles. How is it that the RIAA can get ISPs to roll over on alleged 10-year-old file-downloaders, but nobody will roll over on someone making death threats? I don't want to get into a long and pointless discussion about the way people behave online, but I will say this: Kathy, don't let the bastards get you down.

Iteration, iteration, iteration!

This post at Gamasutra caught my eye. I didn't make it to GDC this year (I was at OTC, as I noted in my last post), so I missed the actual talk, unfortunately. But "iteration wins" because a big, collaborative effort (like a game, or a film) has everything to do with a tenacious attention to detail, and the willingness (and patience) to tweak and refine the details until everything is "just right". A singular vision is essential - a director or a designer who can give clear, concise direction to the artists - but pipeline is the way that happens. And the faster your pipeline works, the faster you can iterate, and the more iterations you get, the better your project turns out - it really is that simple.

Vegas, Baby!

I spent last week in Las Vegas at Autodesk's One Team Conference (It's over now, but you can read about it here.) It was good - and thing that I thought was interesting was, it was a (mostly) internal conference. It's not about meeting up with customers, it's about Autodesk connecting with their resellers and partners, helping them be more successful, and hearing about the issues those resellers encounter. Yes, it's important to meet with customers, and listen to them - and that's what we all need to do, every day - but I think every company could benefit from looking inward, and trying to improve their processes, at least once in a while.