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Darius For IGDA

Darius Kazemi is a member of the IGDA Board. Follow him here to learn more about IGDA issues..

22 Comments »

1. Transparency of the IGDA Board Said,

   April 2, 2009 @ 8:18 pm

   [...] is a problem. (EDIT: I have created a petition to ask for greater transparency in the matter of the search for the Executive Director. I encourage you to sign it if you are an IGDA [...]

2. Greg C. Said,

   April 2, 2009 @ 9:15 pm

   Darius: See http://playthisthing.com/mothers-dont-let-your-children-grow-be-game-developers

3. Rob Yates Said,

   April 2, 2009 @ 11:08 pm

   Hey Darius,

   Wow. I’m really glad to see you’re taking such a strong stance on transparency. That’s definitely a step in the right direction. Why don’t you take the initiative and run for executive director yourself? Or is the position only appointed by existing board members? Even if it is, starting your campaign now for an IGDA board member position in 2010 is a great start!

   -Rob

4. admin Said,

   April 3, 2009 @ 5:41 am

   Rob: I could in theory run for ED, but I run my own business and ED is a full-time job.

5. Macguffin Games » Blog Archive » Big Things Afoot in the IGDA Said,

   April 3, 2009 @ 6:00 am

   [...] In response to what has been going on, my good friend and fellow PostMortem board memeber Darius Kazemi has kicked off a campaign to run for the IGDA board next year.  Since Darius doesn’t do anything half-assedly, he’s now got a blog/campaign site, has started talking to people a great deal on the IGDA and Chaos Engine forums, and has now set up a petition asking for greater transparency in the search for a new Executive Director. [...]

6. Kim Pallister Said,

   April 3, 2009 @ 7:10 am

   Darius, double-win! (a) This is a fantastic effort, and (b) going to grab my member number made me realize I’d let my membership lapse, so I’ve thrown another $90 in the IGDA kitty.

   If you weren’t busy running your business I’d suggest you for the job!

7. Bob Bates Said,

   April 3, 2009 @ 10:12 am

   Hi Darius,

   The members of the search committee are Tobi Saulnier (Chair), Mitzi McGilvray, Chuck Sapp, Don Daglow, and Gordon Walton. Our rationale in these choices were to select two Board Members (although Mitzi’s term has just expired, she is a past Chair and past Chair of our Governance committee); one member from our Association Management Company, Talley Management Group (that’s Chuck), to provide perspective from an Association Industry point of view; and two respected members of the Game Development Community, Don & Gordon, who have through the years a high regard for the IGDA and its values, and who have a perspective on how the IGDA may be falling short of its goals and what kind of person may help us remedy that.

   It was never our intention to be obscure about this, so I apologize that the information was not readily available. I will make sure that it is posted on our Website so that this response is not the only place that the information appears. Openness is something I/we care a lot about, and it bothers me that people would think we are being secretive.

   I also have no problem with regard to posting the status of the search, although naming names is not possible because some of the candidates may not wish their candidacy to be known (especially to their current employers!)

   To answer one other question further up the thread, the ED position is NOT restricted to Board Members, or even to current IGDA members. Anyone can apply. As to how to do that, the search committee will be making that information (along with a job description, etc.) available soon.

   Best wishes,

   –Bob Bates

8. Noah Falstein Said,

   April 3, 2009 @ 2:45 pm

   I’m a bit reluctant to weigh in on this as I don’t want to add fuel to the fire - but as another former IGDA chair (way back in 97 when it was still the CGDA) I feel compelled to support the IGDA board on this choice. It’s a complicated search, the need for some privacy in who is being considered is certainly obvious, and the people who are volunteering to do this work on the committee have a strong interest in making a good choice. I’ve known Don Daglow and Gordon Walton each for over 20 years and have enormous respect for their ability to contribute to this search, and to make the IGDA even better in the process, and I’m very glad they have offered to help. It’s a very tough job to be on the board, and I think they have made a good decision here in structuring a search committee, and that committee should be given some time and space to do their job. If candidates know that their names will be circulated and discussed among the thousands of IGDA members just by applying for the job, I think we are incredibly likely to scare off most of the good candidates, leaving only those quite desperate for a job, or those naive about the consequences of having a horde of people avidly discuss their qualifications online. We elected the current board, let’s trust them to do their work.

9. Darius K. Said,

   April 3, 2009 @ 3:22 pm

   Noah, after reading Bob’s statement I am in agreement about the names thing. I can’t change the petition now, but I do beleve that the process should be as open as possible. Also, the fact that members of the board were left in the dark is a significant problem. (I’d write more but I’m on my cell, about to catch a plane. And I may have missed some of your message, reading it on a phone.)

10. Tobi Saulnier Said,

    April 3, 2009 @ 4:56 pm

    As a member of the Board and leading the task force, it is worth noting that whomever said “not even the Board knows what’s going on with the search” is not likely on the Board. The board has been in constant email communication on this topic, had a significant portion of last week’s Board meeting devoted to the topic, and the task force has been executing on a plan during the last two weeks to set up the final process and schedule as committed to the entire Board and announced by Jen. It is great that everyone is eager to identify and fill the position, and that there are so many people inspired as to who they see as the perfect candidate, and we look forward to pooling all those ideas to accomplish that.

    In the meantime I encourage people to send email to search@igda.org if you have ideas, questions, thoughts, inspirations or suggestions. This email goes to me, the Board Chair, and our association management team, as well as the search mailbox, and as is a great way to directly provide input into the process.

11. Ernest Adams Said,

    April 3, 2009 @ 8:13 pm

    I cannot support this petition.

    I founded the CGDA with assistance from Dave Walker and many others, and almost immediately became embroiled in a tiresome and, above all, time-consuming flap when a tiny group of people began to insist that I personally respond to every Internet complaint about decisions I had made. Ultimately I was faced with the choice of working for the organization or arguing about it on line. In the end I decided that my duty was to the organization as a whole and not to a small number of malcontents. It was not humanly possible to argue with all of them, and, like the current Board, I was also trying to work full-time as a game developer as well. My career suffered as a result. The sacrifice was worth it, but I learned a painful lesson: you can make Internet posts or you can do productive work, but not both. This is why the President has a press secretary.

    Noah has articulated some good reasons why the search needs to be conducted with discretion. We now know the names of the search committee. By all means, write to them and let them know of your concerns and wishes for the next ED. But for the love of God, do it politely and with some consideration for the fact that they are volunteers offering their time to the organization. Do NOT expect them to reply to every forum post or to engage in public debate on the subject. I have known most of them for over 15 years and I have every reason to believe they will do an honest job.

    All that said — and with respect to the IGDA leadership forum issue — I have been very disappointed to see the numbers of senior executives running for, and being elected to, the board. I set up the voting system and I strongly believe in the no-mudslinging rule that applied to candidates’ statements, so I suppose I have only myself to blame. Still, the IGDA is a professional society, not a trade association, and it was established for the benefit of rank-and-file game developers, not corporate employers. I encourage everyone to take that into consideration when voting.

12. Rob Yates Said,

    April 3, 2009 @ 9:26 pm

    Chairs Bob Bates and Noah Falstein both bring up good points. Thank you very much for stating clearly who is on the search committee.

    Darius, it’s been what - one day since you made the announcement and already there is an apology for not having the information clearly available. If this much change can happen in a day, just think of what we can do in weeks or months.

    I see the dilemma with protecting the identity of the candidates’ names. But on the other hand, didn’t we just sign a petition for transparency? Can anyone be more specific about what exactly this means? Will we indeed receive weekly updates on the ED search?

13. admin Said,

    April 3, 2009 @ 10:15 pm

    (Tobi said above): “As a member of the Board and leading the task force, it is worth noting that whomever said “not even the Board knows what’s going on with the search” is not likely on the Board.”

    I linked this forum post right in the body of this article:

    http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?postid=221452#post221452

    It’s Tom B., who is definitely on the Board, who is the source of that information.

14. Tobi Saulnier Said,

    April 4, 2009 @ 1:20 pm

    I see that post now, however I wonder how that extrapolates to your statement “that not even the Board of Directors knows what’s going on with the search” unless you also contacted other Board members.

    Perhaps Spam filters are to blame but I also have not seen any inquiry by you to the search@igda.org alias which was publicized in order to simplify communications. As someone who has reviewed Board minutes, you also would have known the March 6th minutes record an update from the task force to the board about the search, and that my name is clearly attributed to that task. Yet I don’t recall even one question from you about the status. So how do you conclude that the process is not sufficently open if you have not asked anything?

    Furthermore in your first para in this blog entry where you say you “have decided to put together a petition open to all IGDA members to ask the Board to tell the membership who is on the search task force” when you yourself were at the membership meeting where my membership on the task force was specifically reiterated (and likely the others - I haven’t reviewed the videos to be sure). Yet not one person has asked me, or the search team via the alias, anything about the process or the group. It seems like you could instead use the blog to share information that you already received yourself, by participating in that meeting, instead of implying it was being kept secret. I agree the Board minutes from the month when the task force are rather sparse and could have included that info - but to claim a petition is needed to get that updated is a bit of an exagerration unless you contacted Coray or Bob and they refused (which I doubt).

    In summary I would encourage readers of this blog to use their access as members of the organiization to reach out directly to the volunteers leaders on the board and elsewhere with your questions, concerns, and ideas, before assuming that thirdhand information is complete. There’s a ton of info on the IGDA website, as well as many email contacts to people who are genuinely attempting to publish information there for *your* review and feedback.

15. Tobi Saulnier Said,

    April 4, 2009 @ 1:53 pm

    Oh, and lest I come across as unappreciative … I do applaud Darius for his enthusiasm and energy, and dedication to supporting IGDA. Just trying to inject some more information to help achieve an even better result

16. Darius Kazemi Said,

    April 4, 2009 @ 2:22 pm

    On the point of getting the membership of the committee published somewhere — yes, that was already public knowledge and I was at the meeting where it was shared. But I didn’t take notes at the time, and I didn’t catch it on video, so I couldn’t say for sure who was on the committee (I remembered Gordon Walton, but that was about it).

    And yes, I could have emailed and gotten it done but partly I am tired of getting things done behind the scenes. As I mention in my comment to Ian, usually when volunteers push hard for a *real* change, for example on matters of QoL advocacy, what we get is anything ranging from a brush-off to an official statement that the IGDA does not and will not support the kind of action its members are crying for (for example, Jen’s memo). The petition is in some sense an experiment to see what kind of response, both from the membership and the org leadership, an alternative method of asking for change can accomplish.

    As I also mention to Ian, this whole debate is kind of off-topic for this blog, but I wanted to address these issues and my blog seemed like the logical place to put it. In an hour or so there will be an unambiguously constructive post here about my strategy for improving the IGDA’s effectiveness by improving local chapters.

17. Tom Buscaglia Said,

    April 5, 2009 @ 8:43 am

    I want to be clear here…any lack of transparency here is not due to some conspiracy or any bad motives…it is just that there is too much going on and getting things done takes priority over telling everyone about it….it is really a communications issue that the Board is well aware of and has been trying to address for a while now…things just take a very very long time to get done in a volunteer organization like the IGDA.

    AS fa as the Board goes…I have said this before and I will say it again, just to be clear. I have a tremendous amount of respect and affection for every member of the Board. This is without doubt, the best Board of Directors that the IGDA has had in my almost 5 year tenure on the board…every one of them is committed and selflessly doing their best to make the IGDA the best organization that it can be.

    That does not mean that we have the same vision for the organization and its priorities though. There is a solid and thoughtful discussion going on right now. But it’s not like the Board all works in the same office and meets every day. We all have lives and full time jobs, most of which are not of the 40 hour a week variety. So, a little patience here is in order.

    I would also like to say the Bob Bates is tops, Jen is as committed as they come and Tobi is breaking her butt on the ED selection front. Like I said, every single Board member is committed and working as hard as they can to make the IGDA the best it can be for its members, not for the companies they work for! So how about showing a little understanding and patience here…after all, it has only been a week since GDC and everyone has had tons to do. There is a Board Meeting later this week and I hope to see something positive come out of it on the QOL issue. I have for sure put my relationship with the Board on the line to make that happen.

    And the ED process is moving forward with all due speed and care, often conflicting issues in something like this. We don;t just want an ED…we want the best ED we can find…and that takes process and time and Tobi is doing both.

    Here are links to the ED Job Description - http://www.box.net/shared/o3h1b9ushm

    And an RFP that went out to a bunch of Recruiters to help with the project pro bonon (as we can not afford to hire a search firm) - http://www.box.net/shared/dl25dpom5g

    These just went find a few days ago…

    I hope this helps you folks unserstand the process a little better.

    Tom B

18. Andrew Said,

    April 5, 2009 @ 11:24 am

    I’ve got some other things to ask the board (since Jason is leaving, it’s hard to know who to ask, but I’m taking a stab at asking someone ), but this is interesting because I too am interested at least in the process of this.

    Since the members, it appears, won’t be able to vote on the executive director, this is much more important to put forward openly then almost any other issue. It’ll be someone who has to speak the IGDA line, and do the work day in day out for a unknown amount of time. I hope that IGDA Board Blog is coming along, and that information can be added to the website!

    I do wonder if the board, if they are overworked, needs more then just those 12 people plus the executive director, and a few more IGDA employees (like Joe). If putting out information is hard, share the workload a bit I guess
    [WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.

19. Tobi Saulnier Said,

    April 5, 2009 @ 12:17 pm

    Darius, to follow up on your further explanation as to why the petition seemed like a good use of people’s time.

    You say: “As I mention in my comment to Ian, usually when volunteers push hard for a *real* change, for example on matters of QoL advocacy, what we get is anything ranging from a brush-off to an official statement that the IGDA does not and will not support the kind of action its members are crying for (for example, Jen’s memo). ”

    I queston whether your impatience on one topic is enough to extend to say that “usually” volunteers are brushed off.

    First, I and everyone else you are critiquing, other than the ED and Talley, are volunteers.

    For instance the Programs and Membership committee’s work on chapter formalization was driven and finetuned by just that email and in-person feedback you say is “usually” ineffective. I am surprised that as one of the leaders of one of the chapters that most influenced the approach you would discourage other members from thinking they can have impact.

    In reality all of that behind the scenes activity and communication is fundamental to what IGDA does and becomes, whether it is the SIG leaders email list, a chapter in-person meeting, opinions shared at the annual meeting (even if the time was not there to individually acknowledge all in detail they *were* heard). Spending people’s energy on petitions to release information you already know is released is not an experiment in change.

    There are many opportunities to drive forward initiatives and change in IGDA that all can focus on. If one doesn’t move forward as fast as you would like, consider there may be other factors other than your claimed malfeasance. IGDA is a group of diverse individuals that only accomplishes anything by working together to combine our differences into a common venture.

    Whether bitten by a radioactive spider or running for IGDA Board, or elected to serve on the IGDA Board, or promoting a blog, it is worth thinking about how to use that position wisely, before acting.

20. wendy despain Said,

    April 6, 2009 @ 1:01 pm

    I think part of the problem here is that Darius sees openness and transparency as “information in a public place, easily accessible by many people - on a website for instance”

    and the board sees openness and transparency as “making ourselves available to answer questions and provide information.”

    In my opinion, both kinds of transparency are vital. Sure, we could have emailed the generalized “search” email address and maybe learned something, but that’s a one-to-one communication. I think what Darius is petitioning for is a one-to-many communication.

    Technically, who was on the search committee was “public knowledge” yes. But if Darius had taken notes at the annual meeting and put it up on his website - readers of his blog would be getting that information third-hand. Something even you agree is a bad idea.

    I’m thrilled the job posting is live now. I’m discouraged that it takes a week and a half to update a website, but I’m hoping that problem will be solved… with the new web technology.

    I still agree with Darius about getting weekly updates published in a public place about the ED search. I don’t want to know names, but I want to know it’s not stuck. As an active member of the IGDA, I feel strongly that it would be disastrous for this position to go unfilled for too long. Perhaps you should consider appointing an interim ED?

    Since Jason did so much, going without someone in that spot for even a few weeks could make many many things grind to a halt, and that’s the last thing IGDA needs right now.

21. Rob Yates Said,

    April 6, 2009 @ 8:21 pm

    Agreed. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

22. J. Said,

    April 7, 2009 @ 10:22 am

    I think this might be the first Internet petition that’s done any good, ever.

    I still say that the moment JDR announced he was leaving, there should have been a far more concerted effort for an ongoing, controlled, inclusive message about the process for looking for his replacement.

    But now that this and the Quality of Life arguments have been flying, board members have offered up real, useful information about the process, here and on the Facebook page.

    That’s significant in my mind, and might be all the “openness” necessary to quell most concerns. This process isn’t going to be any good as a completely open, American Idol-style popularity contest, and both the board and candidates deserve a good measure of privacy.

    But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be able to talk about it. So now, we’re talking, and that’s good.

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