The many languages of English.

I had a pretty heated discussion with a client the other day. It was an extremely frustrating experience, and one that almost cost me a good business relationship. At no point could either of us answer the other's questions, and when he dropped the "You're not listening to what I'm saying" bomb, I was floored - I had been thinking the exact same thing!

We both left the conversation angry, depleted and nowhere even close to having an understanding about the other side's argument.

It took a while of reflection to figure out what had happened. Even though were we both speaking English fluently, we were speaking different languages! The client was a project manager and wanted to talk in terms of milestones and scope, whereas I was wearing my bookkeeper hat and wanted to talk in terms of source documents and invoices.

Since neither of us were willing to bridge that disciplinary gap, it created a barrier between our communication. We were talking about the exact same thing, but without a common language we just ended up butting heads without finding a solution to the problem at hand.

It is vitally important to know who you are talking to, and know how to communicate with that person. I was only recently introduced to the concept of code-switching, but until the other day I didn't have a practical application for it - I'd only previously seen it refer to either multi-lingual conversationists or bridging the gap of talking and texting between kids. But it is more than that. To be a successful communicator, you need to know that what you say makes sense to the person listening. Communication isn't about talking, it's about making sense to the person listening.

Many of us work in cross-disciplinary workplaces, even multiple workplaces. This is a minefield of social cliques and dialects! How often do you actively change your communication to suit the people you are around on a daily basis?

I'm learning to communicate with the programmers at RocketHands. I know now that I can't just take off about 'shareholder drawings' and 'targeted demographic marketing' without giving examples.
I talk with my band mates differently than I do with my bookkeepers. I certainly don't knuckle-bump my co-workers and give a "'Sup!" to my office manager.
And now I know that there isn't a single client language. They all work in different industries, come from different circumstances. They don't all know about bank reconciliations, the same as some audiences don't care about pentatonics and many gamers don't give a flip about monomyth narratives.

I did call that client back. I put on my project developer hat and talked in a language similar enough that I could start to breach some bookkeeping concepts. As a result we now have a dialogue and process that isn't usual for bookkeeping, but one that can develop into a solid understanding of both businesses.


-Anthony
we need to synergise our backwards overflow

Thought|Post - Success

The theory is: success is a habit.
Habits comes from practice.
Practice comes from motivation.
Motivation comes from inspiration.
Inspiration comes from success.

Put the five points in a big circle with a one way arrow going around. The trick is to figure out where your strengths are in the circle, jump on from there and work your way around to where you want to be.


-Anthony

the only wrong way is to not do it

Thought|Post - Nature of Business

It turns out that when it comes to writing, there's an inbetween state where I find something I want to write about, the idea is longer than 140 characters, but shorter than a typical blogpost. Mainly I've been storing them up in my head, but that's starting to take up too much space. Instead, I'll just start posting them here as mini-posts.

Anyway, little bits of pith always sound trite over Twitter.

--

The nature of business isn't an objective science. The trappings of business can be charted on graphs and defined by trends, but the nature of business is personal, emotional and coincidental.

We don't purchase items - we buy experiences.
We don't obtain services - we hire personalities.
We don't invest in enterprises - we buy into people.

I'm certain you'll never hear someone like Richard Branson claim he has business down to a science. The only people who would boast something like that are the people who aren't aiming high enough to break out of their numbers and graphs.


-Anthony

The Indie Team Startup.

Starting as an indie is a pretty daunting task. You don't have to just make a game, you have to make a business. You can't get away without knowing about your target markets, press release distribution or how to lodge a BAS. Ignoring any aspect of your business can very easily make the time you spend on game development moot, which is a scary notion when you're in this by yourself.

So at first you might think that bringing more people in can make things easier. Time to team-up! But creating an indie team has its own hurdles and issues that need to be considered before you start slapping high-fives and chanting "C-C-C-COMBO" with your best buds.

Here's the response I gave to some fellows over east looking to start up a medium sized indie team, similar to RocketHands in scope. I talked mainly about the issues that team start-ups face, although quite a bit is still relevant to the lone wolf start-ups. Enjoy, I hope it is helpful to you guys as well.

Game Design for the Non-Technical.

So lately I've been getting a number advice requests over email from indie developers, ranging from business structures to game design. In typical fashion I'm unable to reply to these emails in anything short of five paragraphs, so I figure: "Why not kill two birds with one blunt object haphazardly hurled in the direction of my blog?".

The following is my lightly edited reply to an email I received from a fellow non-technical type asking how to get a game made without the development know-how; something I can very much relate to!

Contracting Basics.

I've recently had some stories come to me about friends (or friends of friends) being burned by nefarious schemers practicing unethical business. I feel really bad for my (friends of) friends, not just because they've been pushed out of pocket for no good reason, but also because if they'd come to me first, they might have had a few more tools to cope with the situation, perhaps even prevent it completely.

Here's a couple of things to keep in mind if you are planning to get yourself an ABN and go the route of working as a sole trader. These are just some tips mind, not a complete overview - there's some extensive sources available from federal and media bodies - but if any of these points can save you a day of stress, then my job is done!

The importance of clean underwear.

Over a month ago now my wife and I were involved in a car accident. We are both thankfully fine and have since moved on, but at the time it felt pretty horrific. My in-laws took us to the Joondalup emergency ward after we had moved my poor little car off the main road; I had insisted we go due to my wife's pregnancy, and my wife insisted because of some little thing about me not being able to move my neck.

One of the key memories I have of this experience is lying on a hospital bed with a neck-brace on and sandbags around my head, my beautiful wife standing on one side and a cute nurse on the other, both of them pulling at my jeans and telling me to stop fidgeting. And despite the frustration of having to lie still and not being able to move, and the concern for what my x-rays were going to come back with, at that time the only thought I had was; "Gosh, it's a good thing I put good undies on this morning".

The important things in life, huh?