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Monday, November 20, 2006

Scary New World

The company has undergone dramatic changes in the last year, with new product lines and a new outlook on what we want the company to be and to do. This has taken me way outside of my comfort zone, but I'm getting used to not being comfortable. Federation Commander started it; I was not comfortable doing such a "streamlined" game but it turned out to be pretty fun. Just in the last few months, we have built this new web site (for the specific purpose of bringing in new customers with the new product lines that we did for the specific purpose of ...bringing in new customers). The greatest change has probably been in hiring Vanessa Clark as Marketing Director and Jolene Settle as Graphics Director. I am unused to having such talented persons to assign tasks to. Take Captain's Log for example. Just a moment ago I told Jolene to take a copy of the last issue and go do the graphics over, starting with the ugliest ones, and to do as many of them as she could before we go to press. Wow, that was cool. Scary to think I have that much firepower at my disposal. (She did a new logo for SFB-Online and I was so startled by it that I told her to do more of these.) The really scary part, however, is how much raw power than Vanessa brings to the organization. That woman is a go-getter, and if not chained down is likely on any given day to "go get" new accounts, new customers, new ideas, and new ways of doing things. When we launched the Play By Email version of Fed Commander last week, I hadn't told her anything about it. (Big mistake, she gave me that "look" that makes my blood run cold.) She promptly set to work doing the "launch" for this new service after the fact. Yes, Vanessa, I have learned that surprising the Marketing Director is not a good thing for me to be doing.