Last night at Boston Post Mortem I got up on stage and strongly encouraged everyone to vote in the upcoming elections for the open IGDA board positions. The elections start this Sunday February 14th and continue through Sunday the 28th. The candidate statements are online now.
The jist of my plea at Post Mortem was — the IGDA has had its share of wounds in the last two years. Many of these are self-inflicted. But we, the members of the IGDA, bear ultimate responsibility for the people we elect. Especially if they later turn out to be asshats.
So, it behooves us to elect non-asshats.
The point I keep hammering any time I get to talk to someone higher-up in the IGDA is that we need a more thorough and transparent election process. The IGDA has taken a big step in this regard – instead of just a short statement with each candidate’s headshot, they now also have a series of questions and answers as well.
This is a great start – but now, we the members of the IGDA need to take it a step further. We need to read these statements, come up with questions, and get the candidates to answer them.
So. I’m chronically short on time (no pun intended). This may not be the most thorough examination of every candidate in there, but my hope is that it is picked up as a starting point.
It is my hope that people will repost this series in various places to help get the discussion going. If you see more info from the candidates in other places, let me know about it at IGDACandidates@macguffingames.com and I’ll link it myself as well. I feel that if we crowd-source this election scrutiny, we can get some awesome coverage on these candidates pretty quickly. Help me out here.
The one thing I ask is that people not make this scrutiny personal. These people are all our peers and deserve our respect for running. Let’s keep it professional. I realize that my assessments could be considered tough on the candidates, but I think that we simply must have a conversation about this stuff, and that we need to set a high bar. I apologize for any personal discomfort it might cause to the candidates.
Disclaimer: I’m a good friend of Darius Kazemi, one of the candidates running for the board. I support him in his campaign. I’m not worried about conflict of interest in my overall effort here, mostly because I still need to vote for 4 other candidates. But I do think that I won’t be the best person to critically analyze him as a candidate - so others should ask what questions they can. I’ll do my best, but you should take what I say about him with a grain of salt.
So, without further ado, here are my thoughts on the candidates, starting with the first three. I’m going to try to do 3-4 more each day until done. Done!
- John Ardussi
- Phil Bourke – (updated Q&A answers)
- Ann Burkett – (updated Q&A answers)
- Wendy Despain – (updated Q&A answers)
- Dino Dini (Mr. Dini posted his answers on his blog. Link inside his profile post as well.)
- David Edery (updated Q&A answers)
- Eric Francksen (updated Q&A)
- John Hight (updated Q&A answers)
- Michelle Hinn
- Chris Hood (updated Q&A answers)
- Chuck Hoover (updated Q&A answers)
- Sean Kane (updated Q&A answers)
- Darius Kazemi (Mr. Kazemi posted his answers on his campaign blog. Link inside his profile post as well.)
- Genevieve Lord
- Michael Lubker
- Ed Magnin (updated Q&A answers)
- Jane Pinckard (updated Q&A answers)
- Ron Schaffner (updated Q&A answers)
- Charles Schultz (updated Q&A answers)
- Ian Schreiber (updated Q&A Answers)
- Coray Seifert (updated Q&A answers)
- Paul Skiera
- Mike Worth (updated Q&A answers)
Just a note – on each of the individual candidate pages, the link back here is broken (contains ellipsis in the URL).
Thanks, Clayton. Fixed.
Hey Scott,
This is an awesome initiative and I’m super happy to see you doing it. This is EXACTLY what the IGDA needs…and I’m not just buttering you up since I’m running this year
That said, the fruit basket should be there in a day or two.
Cheers,
- C
Scott, I applaud your attempt to start a dialogue with the IDGA candidates. If voters are not interested enought to pose questions to the candidates then they will suffer with representatives that do not work to advance the voter’s point of view. As a candidate myself, I look forward to reading and addressing your concerns. All the best.
Sean Kane
Scott, these assessments are excellent. Great work! I look forward to reading your thoughts on the other candidates.
Hi Scott,
thank you for your questions. Please see my answers below, please feel free to follow with further questions/comments.
******Can you please answer the question of how much time you would plan to spend on the IGDA, and how much you think is appropriate?
Initially I plan for four to five hours per week for two to three weeks. Post this two to four hours per week – more time for priority issues.
When meeting people from industry and those interested in the games industry – I will also dedicate part of those meetings to representing IGDA.
BTW its currently 21:00 in Ireland, and I’m still working (from 06:00 am) – not the best situation when considering your next question.
******What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
The IGDA needs to set and update policy for QOL best practice and lobby industry to adopt best practice. Each country has its own industrial relations vehicles and IGDA policy needs to respect those mechanisms. Members and non-members also have a role to play in ensuring the profession is a respected one, both by their employers and the industry in general. No amount of policy will improve things if people accept unacceptable conditions.
******What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?
I am not in a political party and so feel very comfortable stating the following.
There are 20 excellent candidates and I don’t consider myself better than any of them.
What do I bring to the table – over 20 years experience in working with international organisations.
********Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing? If yes, what will you do to begin changing this? If no, why not?
Yes – if the IGDA main modus operandi is solely industrial relations.
No – as the IGDA core values are Community, Professionalism, Expression, Innovation, Impact, Leadership and Fun – through working to improve the lives IGDA members – the industry benefits.
My answer is no.
As the industry is a beneficiary the IGDA is a beneficiary. This symbiotic relationship will only work where there is inclusion that encourages contribution. This can take many forms – financial or benefit in kind (examples include support of community involvement, CPD – continual professional development, supporting attendance at industry events)
Hi Phil,
Thanks very much for coming by, and for your responses. I’ll put them into that post & note it here as well.
Hi Scott,
I’m in agreement with Coray that this is a great thing. I’m running too, and look forward to seeing you tear my platform apart along with all the others
Coray – don’t be so happy until you see what Scott actually writes about you
Awesome, exactly what I hoped would happen this year. The board Q&A on the profiles was a good step forwards.
Are you going to submit your questions to the email addresses they provide on their pages?
And I hope that the IGDA news feed can post links to things like this – there’s a dire need for simply more information, and it’s hard to find – there isn’t even a forum for discussing candidates on the IGDA site! Makes it hard for members to find information from candidates (like Phil’s answers!)
Hey Andrew – good idea. I did write all the candidates to let them know what I was doing, but I didn’t mention specifically that posts were up for individual people. I’ll do that.
Thanks Scott, I think this forum is a great idea to help folks ask questions to the candidates. Looking forward to your questions.
-Chuck
I will be travelling from Europe to United States on Monday. If anyone would like to meet in person – then feel free to drop me an email.
Schedule is Chicago Monday and Saturday and Washington State for most of the week. I can also pop across to Canada, to cities close to Washington state.
As an FYI, I’ve suggested the IGDA put something like this together in an official capacity.
I believe it would be worth wild for everyone to participate in a moderated webinar or chat. Maybe 3 random candidates a session, spread everyone out over the course of two weeks and allow the voting members to join us and ask whatever questions they may have. Not only will this give us a chance to interact with our members, but it will also give the IGDA a little more insight on the topics our members are concerned about.
I fully support the need for all members to research and become informed about the candidates, and if anyone have questions for the candidates, they should be encouranged to voice them publicly.
Thank you so much for putting this together, I really appreciate your time and hard work. Voting starts tomorrow and I would really like to see the rest of the candidates vetted. Do you plan on having the rest up soon?
Hey Susan – Thanks. I was traveling this weekend, so I didn’t get a lot done. Going to try to hit them hard tonight and tomorrow, we’ll see how many I can get done, and how fast.
Thanks for the candidate analyses, Scott. I — and I’m sure quite a few others — certainly appreciate the time you’ve put into them.
Hi Scott. Echoing the thanks above for your energy and diligence in putting this together.
Scott, also anyone who is running is welcome to post the EdSIG list if they have anything education specific they feel they want to address to that constituency.
Thanks so much for doing this! Hopefully we’ll get answers from them (and if not, that says something too I guess!) soon.
Okay, cool! read through them all – great work, shame some haven’t responded yet (prompt responses would be much better…you are running for a position that demands communication! One candidate in particular needs to speak up…).
The one thing I feel is missed out (not just by your additional questions – I could have taken this myself to the candidates I guess!) is the international aspect – NOT that there is a massive amount of people outside of the Americas as members – which might well be my point. To be honest, most candidates are American or work in the Americas, most do not even say “international” anywhere, and think that the healthcare benefits, for instance, apply to all members! The fact there isn’t anyone from the East also is a little sad, but the efforts there are mainly centred around a few chapters in major cities I guess and there has been no major outreach to get such people involved unless they can communicate in English.
Only one thing comes to mind here; that there are more then enough internal problems (as noted) and issues with entrenched USA chapters/things to warrant ignoring everyone else, but it is a bit sad regardless, especially since more outreach to those areas would be nice. For instance, if a board member is present at any big events outside of America, would they make time to meet IGDA members? or have an informal get together? (in fact with Jason gone, since he did a good job of that, will our new ED do this or any current board members?
).
Another was, in the case of people who have no past IGDA work under their name (and if they had but didn’t mention it, well…) I laud the fact the last year likely spurred many people into action but I do wonder if they will work as a volunteer trying to help the areas they promoted themselves to help if they didn’t get a board position. I feel the SIG members would carry on regardless, while others would just disappear as quickly as they appeared. Of course this is always an issue, nothing specific to this organisation!
(and I’d agree that some things can only be done on the board such as finances and board communication, but most of peoples points were on Quality of Life (there’s a SIG!), providing information or expertise (I am sure any of board would welcome both), etc.).
I’ll leave my actual voting until next week, I’ve noted down names and will check one last time here for updated questions. I think voting closes on the 28th (it’s a bit confusing…!).
If anyone who is nominated wants to answer these vague, generalised areas of IGDA work I’ll certainly read them. Maybe I should think about emailing them all, but it’d need to be formatted in question form, something I don’t feel I can get the point of across as well as!
In any case, I feel there are many worthwhile choices even reading a little into what they don’t say rather then what they do say (not that they’d not do work, I am sure all would – just you want them to do effective work that aligns with what you prefer!), and I am glad you are not limited in the amount of tickboxes you can choose. This method of voting does make you think more then ranking people, or just being able to choose X, where X is the amount of seats available.
Thanks again for doing it
and sorry for this long and rant-like comment, it isn’t intended to be, I can fully see where priorities lie for the better, just thinking about it after reading 23 different peoples stuff! Especially since they are elected for 3 years and some of their work might take less time then this unless they are verryyyy slow.
Wow, my post had actual paragraphs when I posted it, odd that, no new lines?…css formatting oddity?
Oh, one more area missing from most candidates – the student membership, only noticed it on a few. They can’t vote, but can they really be routinely ignored? I guess the more pressing matters push things to the sidelines a lot! (and in fact I think that apart from the foundations scholarships, some volunteer efforts on the forums, and independent chapter work, students don’t really get much apart from the discounts and IGDA party, if that considering the cost to get there…).
(And yes, in fact I wanted to restart the Students SIG if you were on their mailing list, but this got turned down a while back since they were busy (think: fiascos, no ED) and I now need to find new people to get involved in it, haha! However that does mean I know what I’m talking about I hope!).
Sorry Andrew – yeah, the comment formatting currently isn’t the best. I tried adding some line breaks in WordPress for the comment, but it doesn’t look like it helped. Hopefully I can get that sorted soon when we do the site for All Heroes Die.
Thanks for coming by and commenting! I hope the candidates get back to you.
Hi Andrew, (thanks again Scott for the opportunity to answer questions)
Most of my work, when not making or teaching games development is dedicated to engaging with industry and academia. I feel students are our future and that of the industry.
If you take this example; when students register for college, banks line up to get them to join – in the hope they become life long customers.
Similarly it would be great for IGDA to use opporttunites like these to ensure international students are aware and involved with the association. Global Game Jam has been fantastic success…..hats off to Susan, Ian and the rest of the team who put GGJ together. I support the event each year and enjoy working with my students and students from other colleges/locations.
If you look at the GamesFleadh.ie site you will see the IGDA logo is prominently placed. I also include the logo in many workshops presented to thousands of people.
I do think the IGDA can grow internationally and as you have pointed out this requires people with international expertise. My next workshop takes place in Qatar, again I will ensure awareness of the IGDA during the presentation….elected or not.
Andrew:
I’m not sure how to best answer your questions (do I just respond here and risk clogging up this thread as everyone else does the same, or do I answer on my page and risk that no one knows to go there to follow the discussion, or what?) so I’ll just try posting here, and Scott can move things around if desired. You make some points that are certainly worth addressing.
On the issue of international outreach: Yes, the “I” in IGDA does theoretically stand for something, and I think we are all aware that it is still largely a US-centric organization. While I cannot claim any definite plans for outreach, I can say that my work on GGJ shows dedication to this — I know for a fact that we gained three international Chapters as a direct result of GGJ 2009, for example — and I think that by opening up initiatives worldwide we can offer value to all members, regardless of time zone.
On the subject of QoL: your concern is that we already have a QoL SIG, so why is this something the IGDA needs to focus on? I would respond that while there is a SIG, that issues still persist in the industry, and if the IGDA just points to its SIG that can make it look like the IGDA as an organization is tap-dancing around the issue. QoL is an issue worth taking head-on, not just at the SIG level but at the organizational level, given that people’s lives, families, and emotional, mental and physical health hang in the balance (not to mention the quality of the games they are working so hard on).
As for student members: since I am a professor, you know that I support students even outside the IGDA. The issue of student memberships usually comes up around this time of year. Last I checked, the ONLY difference between student and full membership was the right to vote in elections, and there are no restrictions on full membership (i.e. any student can pay the extra $18 to cast a vote for the Board if they want). This makes student membership a great deal, as they get a lot of benefit for a relatively low cost, so I do not see much of a need to make drastic changes to this system. If anything, I’d love to see more schools promoting IGDA to their students; while schools can be part of the IGDA Partners program, I think we could do more here, perhaps offering institutional or departmental memberships to colleges/universities and their faculty and students.
No, no, I am re-reading all of them this week just to make sure nothing comes up. Thanks for the responses!
I realise the tactful response about the international aspect is pretty much true as I said, and the student issue is a low activity area (although the lack of student things generally comes from a lack of anything apart from volunteer work for members in general first – not much motivation for anyone to join not just a lack of motivation for students!).
Thanks for providing this excellent resource! It helped make my voting decision, especially since I was unfamiliar with a good number of the candidates and their positions. I got my vote in with your help. B-)