I popped down to DC last week for a photo shoot with Associations Now, a magazine for association leaders. I wrote an article on all of my radical approaches to running the IGDA, and they wanted to do a fun photo concept to compliment the article. In short, have me stand in an elevator with a bunch of stuffy status quo suits.
What I thought would be a few minutes to stand there and smile, took a full two hours. Turns out lighting an elevator is quite a challenge. By the time all was said and done, they had a good half-dozen different lighting rigs hooked up and had taken well over 200 shots.
Will be interesting to see what the end result will look like.
Plaque on the ASAE building.
Photographer Mark starts setting up some lighting rigs.
Magazine staffer, photo assistant, Mark and art director Beth Lower evaluate the initial results.
Stuffy suited models set up in the elevator.
Admittedly, feels a little surreal for me, but IGDA recently announced Joshua Caulfield as the new executive director for the association.
As an industry outsider, reactions have been somewhat mixed (all the way from the “Is it April 1st?” comment at Gamasutra to much more supportive words about bringing in outside expertize). Though, was happy to see that Darius had some good words, as he was particularly critical in the past about hiring a game industry veteran type.
In fact, my parting advice to the IGDA board was to hire an association professional - and specifically NOT a game person. Sure, someone who appreciates/plays (or at least respects) games and perhaps has experience with related associations in the arts or tech. Ultimately, what the IGDA needed (and part of the reason why I left) was someone who has real experience with leading a non-profit association, who can be a partner with the board of directors, can drive forward on governance issues, rope in wide ranging stakeholders, understand the financial/legal landscape and membership models, etc, etc.
I didn’t know any of that stuff when I was first hired by the IGDA. But, the org was tiny back then. I had the luxury to learn and grow right along with the organization itself. As a much larger entity with so many programs and balls in play, any new leader would simply not have that luxury and would have to hit the ground running.
Anyway, time will tell. Hopefully he’ll get more accomplished than I apparently was able to (from the comments at GamePolitics’ post on the hiring):
Jason talked too much and did little. They decided to do the inverse now. Not that Jason sucked or anything like that, he did a decent job, but not a excellent job.
Hahaha. Good luck Joshua, the community is watching!
