[Deptheads] Report Preface

Mon Jun 2 12:03:54 PDT 2008

I had a lot of things fly through my mind when I read this e-mail, but I
will give only the highlights.

First, John I am sorry if I am one of the one's that give "looks" to you.

Honestly I don't know you that well and I myself do not feel like there
should be any reason to dislike you.  I don't always agree with what you
say, or more some times the way you present it, but that nature of opinions
and I know people feel the same way about mine from time to time.  I try to
keep an open mind when listening (reading) other peoples opinions, key word
is "try", I know I don't always succeed.

I read your e-mail and after getting to the end (after I stopped jumping to
conclusions before finishing the e-mail) I felt bad you get those "looks" so
for my part I am sorry.

The other thing that struck me was you mention "improvement" a lot in your
e-mail, I agree change is good but change for change sake is not.  I don't
know if that is what is actually what is going on, but I think that is
possible why some suggestions are ignored.  The people in the department
hear the improvement idea and have something else planned, don't like the
idea, or have something similar idea already.  This of course is all
speculation and there could be people that everything is fine and don't want
to change anything at all, but I like to think everyone is open to
suggestions.

Really the only issue I have is space.  Board games is a space hog, space
junkie, everything is about space.  Right now board games are big thing, I
am not trying to take credit for anything they just are very popular in
gaming culture right now.  We get a lot of people, Patrick already laid out
the numbers in another e-mail so I won't repeat them here but we had a lot
of people.

People + board games = huge amounts of space.  Miniatures and your special
events I see in sort of the same way we need space and lots of it.  I admit
every suggestion, idea, mention of changing or improving the con the first
thing that runs through my mind is;
"How will effect board game space."

And honestly your group takes up space, a lot of it.  The space you use in
game, we could have at least three 6-8 player games going.  The only reason
we don't have more board games run, is because we really so run out of
space, this statement is more true at OrcCon then for GameX but holds true
for all three cons.

Some of our events didn't always fill all the space we took but that is
really hard to predict.

I cannot tell you of the thousands of board games out there which will run
well from one con to the next.  There are way to many factors to do that, so
we plan as best we can.

What it boils down to is we always want to do more but space followed by
lack of enough GM's (much less than space) limits us.

Anyhow, I think this e-mail is plenty long sorry about going on, and on, and
on.

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 5:57 AM, <Evil5757 at aol.com> wrote:

>  Hello everyone.
>
> On my drive home from Gamex, I thought about how we did, what we did, and
> how we can do things better.  There was one thing that weighed heavily on my
> mind throughout, and I wanted to touch on that before submitting my After
> Action Report for Gamex.
>
> There is a pattern to my involvement in conventions over the past 8 years.
> We are at the point where some of the staff doesn't want me around for
> various reasons.  When I go to a convention and about a quarter or so of the
> staff refuses to look at me, turns away from me, or looks at me with "that
> look," trust me, I've seen it before.  The last GenCon I worked in my 5th
> year as both the Boardgame and Miniatures Department head, with over 1700
> events coordinated and run.  After the convention, I turned in a 7 page,
> typed after action report stating what could be improved with at least 2
> options on how improvements could be accomplished.  I was told I was no
> longer needed because I'm too much trouble.  I imagine by now there has been
> at least one Strategicon owner asking or inquiring if I am necessary or
> should be cut loose.  The reason I bring this up is because the next step is
> to ignore what I have to say about the convention, problems that need to be
> addressed, possible improvements, etc.  If I'm ignored, nothing I have to
> offer can be used and I might as well not be there.
>
> I take my task for Strategicon very seriously.  I was brought on board to
> look for things we are doing wrong or can improve upon, and bring forward
> options to fix these problems.  When I sat down with Eric when this all
> started, one thing we both agreed on was that a major problem with the
> owners of Strategicon was complacency and letting things be as they were.
> Neither of us wanted Strategicon to get like that again.  I have spent over
> $800 of my own money in helping Strategicon because I want it to succeed and
> be something to look forward to again.  This is why I am here.
>
> NOTHING I write or say is personal.  I don't care who is in charge of a
> position, department, or event.  I look at the event or situation itself and
> if I see a possible improvement, I will say it.  I KNOW that everyone here
> is doing their best to do the best they can, there is no doubt about that.
> When I decided to make the Special Projects Team over a year ago, I began
> considering what, how, why and everything else about how the team and it's
> events will run.  I figured all possibilities and all problems I might
> encounter, and began with Orccon.  After Gamex, I took my team to lunch and
> we talked about how to make it better.  We came up with 9 things to change
> or update to make things better.  That was after a year of planning.  After
> Gateway, we will come up with at least 5 more things to change and improve.
> I am treating everyone else the same way, because I know you think about
> what you want to do, and how to do it.  If I see something that can be
> improved, I will say so.  It's not personal, but some people are taking it
> personal.
>
> To make a convention work, you must always look for improvement in all
> areas.  I don't want people thinking about Strategicon as "same thing 3
> times a year."  I want them to look forward to the changes we make
> convention to convention to make their gaming experience better every time.
> My team at Gamex consisted of 3 people who had given up on Strategicon and
> hadn't been there since 1999.  They loved it and are already planning out
> Gateway.  That is how we want everyone to react to coming back to our
> conventions.
>
> How we do this is to look at EVERY aspect of the convention each time.
> From the color of the badges to signage to maps to scheduling, EVERYTHING.
> We can't change everything from convention to convention, but we can
> endeavor to change 10 things at a time.  A great example is our signage.  We
> had none.  Now we have some.  How can we improve it for Gateway?  Every
> convention, one more sign, one more improvement…it adds up.  It's nothing
> personal against Eric or whoever is in charge of signs.  I am the perfect
> example of it….I designed the events, the schedule, everything about my
> department – and in 3 days my team found 9 improvements I hadn't thought of
> or rules out in a year of planning.
>
> I truly think this is a great group of people running Strategicon.  I
> genuinely like each of you and look forward to going to the convention and
> talking with you.  If you don't like me that's OK, but don't let the
> convention suffer because you want to ignore what I have to say about things
> that could use improvement.  I have done ALL of your jobs before in my 30
> years of staffing conventions, all more than once, and I understand the
> difficulties associated with each position, from flying to OAK and running a
> convention, to RPG director, to running the Dealer's Room, to Registration,
> I've done it.  I think everyone is doing a great job, but we can always do
> better and yes, I am including myself.
>
> Complacency sucks.  Don't fall in that trap.
>
>
>
> John Paiva
> Strategicon Advisor
> Special Projects Team Lead
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
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>
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-- 
Karl (zeotter at gmail.com)

We are here on Earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I
don't know.
- WH Auden
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