There are few that have been as committed to building the chapter as I have and the data on chapter growth supports that. There is nothing more concrete than data. No yapping about how much time one would or wouldn’t spend or how one juggles is really relevant, what is really relevant is results.

Talk is cheap. Ambition is cheap too. Criticism is exceedingly cheap. Action is expensive and rare.

I’m ambivalent because I’m happy doing what I do. Would think that’s a good rather than a bad thing.

Yes I can deal with low budgets and tight schedules however if the IGDA is complaining about a crunch time mentality in the industry they should address their own. I don’t know how to be any clearer.

As far as jobs, fun, connection and quality of life go, to site one example, we had a game project connection night which was oriented towards people finding jobs, and it was during an ugly ugly time when people thought the economy was falling off the cliff. Noah Falstein was awesome, check it out here http://www.siliconvalleyigda.org/projectnights/ and yes I do know people who astoundingly did make connections and get jobs even in that wretched environment through the networking on that and other events and friendships through the IGDA chapter. Have gotten feedback from other chapters which was “can you come help with our chapter event” to which I respond “plane ticket and I’m there”. Have also stated it’s a personal goal this year to build a widget that separates jobs by locations for people and dump it into the blog. For now we have a nice linked in jobs section which is active http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1853608 look under jobs

This is a volunteer position, lots of work, lots of criticism, unpaid time and huge expectations. In fact it seems like the more people promise usually the less likely they are even to attempt delivery.

So I want to be very careful about what I focus on and not pretend I can change the economy or labor laws to get a vote and instead focus on things I have some inkling how to improve like how chapters touch peoples lives and do some good for them.

The IGDA went through quite a lot of upheaval last year and it was probably appropriate for the chapters to maintain their independence, I know ours did. They IGDA came out on the correct side of most of the upheaval and now seems like an appropriate time to work to strengthen the chapters and the central IGDA.

I would be committed towards active chapter enlargement (which I am proven to do well) and taking that to the next step with the help of others which is connecting strong chapters to the IGDA and using that to make quality of life improvement.

Money and the chapters is something I’ve been very straightforward about saying is an issue and not just the issue the blogger mentions. Developing sources of income in conjunction with the chapters would be a serious goal. I have a high level idea of events or activities that might fit. It would make sense to develop them further if elected.

And if I don’t get elected, sounds good too – more attention what I do now, up to you all.

Ann spends a tremendous amount of time arranging contacts to bring the most to her chapter. She might not get her chapter jobs directly, but her actions and events surely got people into work places and building up connections and business relationships.

I have no idea what other chapters do, but as far as their web sites show about their activities, they are no match for the Silicon Valley IGDA, and her 1000+ members will vouch for her.