Networking

Today I had a lunch meeting with Chris Canfield at Subatomic Studios.  If you play games on the iPad you may know their game FieldRunners.  Considering that I am a rank amateur and an ancillary acquaintance it was awesome of Chris to have lunch with me, and we had a great chat.  He is a great project manager and had tons of great advice.  He reminded me what I'm doing wrong as a project manager, and motivated me to do it better.

What we talked about will have an immediate impact on the Zorts project.  And most likely future game projects as well.  I regret falling into the trap of talking about my project because that was not what my goals were.  However Chris prodded me and provided tons of great feedback.

Tomorrow I have a coffee meeting with Dave (don't ask me to pronounce his name) Bisceglia, co founder of The Tap Lab.  In fact that may be my first question for him tomorrow.  Dave is a business guy in game design and my goals are to talk business theory with him.  There has been this question in my mind about the difference between someone who builds a company and someone who just works for one.  It's one of those existential questions which is hard or impossible to answer without a life spent in the field.  I'm going to put that question to him tomorrow and see what happens!

Will anything come from these meetings?  I'm not sure at the moment.  I don't expect anything tangible immediately.  What I'm hoping for is getting to know people who I can ask further questions and advice from.  I'm hoping for mentors.  Trying to find role models.  What is the take away for the reader?  Getting out there, meeting people, talking to people, and getting excited seems to be the path to getting stuff done.