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via Bill Trammel

I’ve been playing Real Time Strategy (RTS) games for about 10 months now. Thanks to a former coworker, I started playing Starcraft 2 (SC2). Thanks to Daniel Lewis, I also recently started playing Lord of Ultima (LoU).

Both of these games have multiple processes going on at once, and good game play requires adequate attention be given where needed; i.e., a good combo of micro-management and macro-management. For example, in StarCraft 2 you have to get your economy up and going at the beginning. Once you get that going well, you begin building the rest of your base and your battle forces. Eventually, you go in for the attack. At every step you have to make sure your economy is still going strong. When you’re sending troops to attack, you have to make sure your troop production is still going.

I’ve only been playing Lord of Ultima for a couple weeks now, and yet again, timing is key. You have to get your resources going, so you build and upgrade Wood Huts, Cottages, Quarries, and Iron Mines, for example. But you only have so many build and upgrade orders you can issue at any one time, and the higher the upgrade, the longer the process will be.

Similarly, you have a recruitment cap. You can only recruit troops based on the levels of your barracks, training grounds, and other related buildings. When you want to issue commands to raid dungeons, you can specify a mix of troops, but it takes time for them to travel to and from.

It’s like building and managing community.

The community has needs. It needs to be fed and nurtured. You want to be building it so that it grows in numbers but also in strength. All members of the community participates at their individual levels of engagement: some are very actively involved while others are only occasionally or remotely involved.

Setting expectations helps considerably, both for community members and for the community manager. For example, instead of figuring out what day or time was best to have an event, I decided that we would hold New Media Cincinnati on the second Saturday of every month, except for December. That makes planning a lot easier! When are we meeting? I might not know the exact date, but we all can look at the calendar and identify the second Saturday.

In StarCraft 2 there are build order constraints. You can only build a Starport, for example, after you’ve built a Factory. Similarly, there’s an order that must be followed in putting together an event like a New Media Cincinnati Second Saturday. Things like making sure we have the venue for the date, setting up the theme and getting the word out. There is an order to this as well. Some of these actions can be done concurrently; some depend on other actions to be done first.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Trailer

Lord of Ultima – Walkthrough Part 1

Some might say that working in the soundbooth at church has ruined the way I look at movies, TV programs, and any other productions. I never realized how much goes on behind the scenes at church until Chuck, my friend and brother in Christ, invited me to start working with him back in the A/V room at church. I hadn’t noticed lighting changes with scenes, for example. I had never worked with ANY mixing board before, much less the 40-track one we have. MediaSHOUT, the system we use to send content through the projector and mixing board was just as daunting.

In 2006 I had been creating content through my own podcasts and blogs, and Chuck was well aware of it. In September 2005, after podcasting for less than a month, I recorded and produced audio from a domestic violence awareness walk we participated in. Ever have one of those projects you’ve worked on that you felt just had to be told?  Chuck heard this episode and complimented me on it. He said it reminded him of something he might hear on NPR. You can judge for yourself The Cheryl Dawson Memorial Walkathon.

I’ve been spending time in this specific behind the scenes environment for five years now, but for as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by what it takes to tell great stories that resonate with others.

You might say it’s ruined my DVD watching. Well, not my DVD watching. I put the disc in and immediately go to the Special Features so that I can see the “making of” featurette. My family, on the other hand, would much rather I just play the film. Or I’ll look up the Trivia page for it on IMDB.com and share it with my wife, who then says, “Can’t we just watch the movie?”

Seeing how others create inspires me to create more myself.

Can you relate?

This post was written entirely on my Droid phone. Another experiment in content creation!

Cover via Amazon

I don’t know why, but ever since I got a copy of No More Mondays, Dan Miller’s follow-up to 48 Days to the Work You Love, I kept it sitting among the other books in my collection (Thanks, Brent!). It had been calling to me, like any one of those things you know you should do but keep putting off.

Updating my reading list

Seriously. I went to the library awhile back and checked out a couple handfuls of books. I even began reading some other books I’d gotten over the past six months.

But this book kept staring at me. It was one of those books I was initially so excited about reading that I updated the Amazon reading list in my LinkedIn profile to mention it.

So at the beginning of the year I began reading it with the intention of finishing it. I’ve realized that the content is so important to where I am right now in my life.

I’ve done this in the past with books in the Harry Potter series. I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix book during the first weekend it came out. I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in about two days as well. I read the last book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, before going to bed the night it came out.

It’s easy for me to do this with fiction because I can get engrossed in the story. This book quickly began to unravel my thinking about what I do for work. Whenever this happens, I realize I have to slow down and be more deliberate as I read.

Predictors of Success

In chapter 6 of No More Mondays, entitled “Secure” or “Imprisoned”?, Dan Miller talks about  5 Predictors of Success. They are

1. Passion. A person with passion is a person who can set goals. Someone with passion has intense emotional excitement about something that goes beyond mere enthusiasm.
2. Determination. With determination you can set priorities to guide you even amid circumstances that are challenging and unexpected. You don’t see circumstances as obstacles. You stay focused on your goals.
3. Talent. Think about the things you love to do whether or not you get paid. That’s where talent lies. Talent gives the ability to focus. No one can be talented in every area. Where do you rise to the top?
4. Self-discipline. The one with self-discipline is not easily swayed by others. Acting on the other predictors of success requires self-discipline. But make no mistake, this acting is not hardship or suffering. Instead there is joy because you’re focused and intentional in what you do.
5. Faith. Dan describes faith as “that intangible ingredient that moves a person past the initial planning and persistence.” If you believe and can see what you want in your mind, then it can become a physical reality.

What really struck me as I read this, was the fourth predictor: self-discipline.  It was as though Dan had written it specifically to me three years ago for where I am right now. As you might recall, my three words for 2011 are Focus – Intent – Deliver.

Maybe this helps you, too.

Note: some links to content here are affiliate links.

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If you grew up watching Sesame Street in the 70′s like I did, you might remember the segment called “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things does not belong.” The point of it was to have us pick out which one didn’t fit.

Typing as a College Prep Course

Among the other classes that were availble in the College Prep (C/P) curriculum in high school, Typing seemed at first like it didn’t belong. It might seem like a no-brainer here in the 21st century, but at the time, it didn’t.  Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, English, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, American History – those were the ones we’d expect as college prep classes.

But Typing? Seriously? In the generations before mine, most typing was probably done by secretaries and administrative assistants? Back in the late 1980s we still used typewriters with auto-correction tape. Word processing software had yet to really become mainstream. I can still remember in junior high school nights of hunting and pecking on my Dad’s old typewriter in the basement, trying to get my papers done. Liquid paper was in full effect!

And yet now, as I look back on multiple careers of computer programming, blogging, and the like, I can’t help but see that Typing is clearly the one class that I use every single day! I cannot fathom what my life would be like if I had not learned this basic skill!

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Imagine if you woke up one morning, and your hearing was gone. Would you be able to listen with your eyes and other senses?

Learn To Read People

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with how we communicate. It probably goes back to my time an awkward, insecure kid, looking for as many ways I could relate and understand people better. At a book fair in fifth grade, for example, I got a book about handwriting analysis; i.e., what our handwriting tells us about ourselves.  In junior high school, I read a book called Face Language, which talked about how you can discern things from people from their faces. There was another book, I think, called Body Language.  Suffice it to say, I’ve been a lifelong student of reading people. I’m still learning.

Listen With Your Eyes

Have you ever heard of method acting? Many actors, in preparing for a role, do things to put themselves in situations like the characters they are portraying. Francis Ford Coppola wanted Matt Dillon to understand what life in jail was like. To help prepare him for his role as “Dallas” in “The Outsiders“, Coppola had him spend the night in jail.

This past Saturday, my family and I went to the “All About Deaf Kids Fair” at Cincinnati Christian University, put on by the Deaf Institute, and it was a great time.  The theme was how we communicate in ways that are not just with our ears. They even had earplugs that us hearing people could wear to force us to “hear” with our eyes more.

I put my earplugs in and was immediately struck by how attenuated the sound in the building was. I noticed I worked to read lips more. I paid attention to body language, much of which was sign language.  I used sign language as well to communicate with others. I found myself reading more. And watching more. People were painting, and others were watching stories told through sign language.

How Many Ways Do We Communicate?

Yet another booth was about adaptive technology for the deaf and hard of hearing.  Our hard of hearing daughter, for example, doesn’t hear a regular alarm go off.  The woman at this booth had written out a diagram about all the ways that she communicates.  She also demonstrated a portable alarm clock she puts under her mattress or pillow, and when it goes off, it vibrates like crazy. She had a smoke detector that connects to another vibrating alarm clock that also flashes the lights in her home. I believe she mentioned that her doorbell is set up with this as well.

How well do you listen without your eyes?

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Happy Groundhog Day 2011! I’m writing this beforehand, so I don’t really know whether the groundhog saw his shadow or not. Nor do I really care, since the calendar still says we have six more weeks until spring actually occurs.

To be honest, it probably won’t be until May arrives that it actually feels really warm around here in Cincinnati, based on how things have been over the past five years.

It’s Groundhog Day All Over Again

Nevertheless, today gives a great opportunity to share about one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. I’m talking about the 1993 movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, Phil Connors is an egocentric weatherman who finds himself living Groundhog Day over and over again.

At the beginning of the movie, Phil is a jerk, a “prima donna” consumed with himself. Thankfully, through the course of living Groundhog Day over and over again, Phil’s journey eventually transforms him.

Groundhog Day definitely teaches us about living in the moment, as it becomes clear by the end of the movie how much life Phil is able to pack into a single day, winning the respect of those around him, and changing his entire world view.

I’m reminded by the quotation by Albert Einstein:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”

Takeaways

So… for you and me, what does this mean? Here are some thoughts:

• How many times have you felt like you’re living the same day over and over again? If not the same day, the same week?
• Where do you in general feel stuck right now?
• What can you do today to make it different than yesterday?
• How can you take a different approach to the persistent problem or situation you’ve found yourself in?

Today is a great opportunity for you and me to reframe our lives. Here are some practicals that spring to mind:

• Take a different route to work.
• Change your morning routine.
• Wear a different outfit.
• Have lunch somewhere different.
• Have lunch with different people.
• Call someone you haven’t spoken to in months.
• Listen to a different radio station.

What are your thoughts on how we can reframe ourselves so that we don’t repeat the same day over and over again?

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How much is your time worth?

I recently read a story about Thomas Edison in the book Movers & Shakers: Deaf People Who Changed the World (affiliate link).

In the late 1800s, he got a job working for a business on Wall Street, by fixing their stock ticker when it had broken down and improving it so that it wouldn’t happen again. Years later when he and a partner were about to go into business together, his former boss asked to buy the patents he earned from the stock ticker.

Stop and put yourself in the inventor’s shoes for a moment.

Edison needs the money badly, but he isn’t sure how much to ask for. Should he ask for $5,000 or $3,000? He wants to ask for $5,000 but at the same time doesn’t want to make his former boss angry. At the turn of the 19th century, this still seems like a lot of money.

What would you do?

Edison asks his former boss how much he would be willing to pay for the patents.

“40 thousand dollars.”

Edison grips the table firmly and says, “That would be fair.” And they make the transaction.

With the $40,000 Edison was able to work full-time as an inventor.

I have to imagine that in Edison’s time there wasn’t really any market data on how much patents like his could sell for. By keeping his mouth shut and seeing what his former boss had to offer, he was able to see what the market would bear.

The early part of the 21st century has us in similar situations. Jobs are being created and there is work that needs to be done for which there may not be much data on how much the market can bear. While it’s important that we do as much as we can to find that data, it’s also important that we see the inherent value of our time, or in Edison’s case, ask those who would hire how much they see what we’ve done is worth.

How much do you value your time?

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I’m still young by a long shot, but not as much as I used to be. Maybe it’s a product of experience and how I see the elasticity of time with each passing day, but in this post, I’d like to share about risk.

Over 20 years ago, as a senior in high school, the yearbook staff did a feature on the top 10 ranked students in our class. They asked us about our plans for the future. Here’s what they included from me:

Daniel Johnson wants to become a part-time jazz musician, invest in stocks, become rich and famous, and visit the Far East. He considers himself an Ambassador of Good Will. Before all of this, he plans to attend the University of Cincinnati.

Yeah. I actually said that. I’m not going to include what other classmates said.

Strike that. Yes, I will share about the classmates that wanted to go to school to study Sex Education, change the entire face of fashion, live on a beach and have 5 children, marry a rich man and party all the time. Or the one classmate who said he wouldn’t get married until he made his first million.

The point I want to make with this is that in high school, before we ventured into adulthood, with college, jobs, families, and other responsibilities, the world was our oyster — nothing was impossible.

Since then, I don’t know about my other classmates, but I’ve been averse to risk. I have a family and other responsibilities now, and I need to consider what I do and how it might affect them.

Even so, there are risks that are worth taking.

In your case, maybe your life situation has changed up significantly. Maybe your kids are grown and out of the house. Maybe your career has changed so that you’re able to consider other options.

Angela, another one of my classmates, had some big changes in her life last year. As she was considering options for work and career, she was presented with an opportunity unlike one she had seen before: to teach English as a second language in Korea.

She went for it, and, from reading her updates on Facebook and her blog, it looks like she’s all the better for it. Check out her New Year’s Day post: “Happy New Year from BEIJING, CHINA!!”

She’s even thrown out a challenge for everyone reading her blog:

So, in this New Year, I have a challenge for all of you reading this. Try Something New!! Get out of your comfort zone and just do it! Take that trip you always wanted to take! Go see that famous wonder you have always wanted to see! Taste that food that you are afraid of, but have heard was wonderful. Friends, life is too short to live with regrets. Unfortunately, we all have our regrets, but there is nothing we can do about them. Live for today. Enjoy each moment you have been given on this earth and make the most of your life. Life is too short to be unhappy or stuck in a rut.

This has certainly got me thinking.

What risks do you see in your life that are worth taking?

To be continued…

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I’ve been playing Starcraft 2 since August of this year. It’s my first-ever venture into massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) or real-time strategy (RTS) gaming. The game has many areas for individual players to enjoy as well as multiple players to have matches with one another.

Two features of the game that I love are

1. Watch Replays of previous matches (single player vs computer and multi-player)
2. Load and replay earlier saved sections of campaign mission (story mode)

Both of these features help me see what I did that was and wasn’t successful, and this helps me choose different approaches where necessary. I’m able to learn from those who have kicked my butt and become a better player. (In one particular mission in the campaign, there is an achievement badge you can get if you accomplish it on Hard difficulty in under 10 minutes. I probably played that mission over 70 times before I finally got it!)

Many Starcraft 2 players have shared their replays up on YouTube so that others can see and comment on what they’ve done.  This sharing aspect helps build community and helps others learn, too.

The same goes true in life, especially that part that you can share through blogging, podcasting, and other new media.  I’ve been blogging since January 2002 and podcasting since August 2005. I’m able to go back through content I’ve created over time and learn from what I did.

But the content exists not only for myself but also for others to learn from and comment on, too. A couple other personal examples of this:

• Earlier this year I started creating a list of some of my favorite Journey Inside My Mind episodes so that I can go back and listen to them. It’s one of the things that helped rekindle the desire to bring that podcast back.
• Last year I participated in NaPodPoMo, in which every day in November, I recorded videos of me answering job interview questions and posted it to Get That Job! There were days that it went well, and there were days that it didn’t. I’ve got that content on the web now, not only for me to go back and review, but also for others to review, learn from, and comment.

As I’ve shared personal moments on my blogs over the years, I’m able to read and remember how I’ve gone through tough situations and be encouraged by my success in overcoming them. Even now, as life continues to be tough at times, being reminded that I’ve been through other experiences helps me know that I can get through what’s happening now.

We need the replays and do-overs. We need to take advantage of opportunities to go back and review how we’ve played things out so that we can do even better next time.

P.S. If you want to connect over in the StarCraft 2 universe, my player name is Neo.

P.P.S. Update: my coworker just read this and reminded me that people cannot connect in SC2 via player names, only by player number and e-mail.  My player number is 317.

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Geez. It’s October already.

For three years now, I’ve been organizing events for the in-person social networking community I founded called New Media Cincinnati. We actually have the October event coming up this weekend.

My approach in getting the word out about these events has changed over time, from sending multiple direct messages to followers, to using Facebook as the medium to plan and organize the events.  For awhile we even had a wiki set up. I thought I’d share some of  my current approach to getting the word out.

An approach to event marketing

In 2008, I began using Eventbrite to organize, plan, and run the monthly events, which have become known as New Media Cincinnati Second Saturdays (mostly because people always wondered when we met). I’ve enjoyed using Eventbrite, and I’m not ashamed to recommend them (and for you to use my affiliate link!).

One of the main reasons for using a system like this is just to know who is planning on coming to events and having an easy way to follow up with them.  Over the years I’ve understood that it’s important to have a database. As Chris Brogan says, “you live and die by your database.”

Past attendees. For New Media Cincinnati, part of that database is the list of past attendees — registrants, actually, since not everyone who registers always attends.

E-mail signup list. People would also contact me to ask if they could be invited to future events.  Instead of wrangling multiple emails to make sure people got their invitations, I set up the New Media Cincinnati E-mail Sign-up List. I’ve also added it to the New Media Cincinnati Facebook page. I make sure people on this list get an invitation.

E-mail subscribers to the blog. When I set up the New Media Cincinnati website, I added a way for people to sign up to receive updates at the website via e-mail through FeedBurner. Some of these people may or may not already be connected to the group through one of the many other touchpoints, so I make sure to invite these people.

Cincinnati-area LinkedIn connections. The main reason I founded New Media Cincinnati is to take connections made online into the real world. Over time, another reason is to help promote digital literacy in the community. It’s so easy to make connections, and I think that New Media Cincinnati events are a great opportunity for me to re-connect in-person with people in the Cincinnati area I know through LinkedIn.

I’ll leave the mechanics of how this all comes together for another time.  One thing I will say is that Eventbrite definitely helps keep track of the status of invitations, including responses from people who say they are not interested or have otherwise unsubscribed from these types of communications.

As well as those who are.

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