…I’ve taken a couple of months of time off in order to dedicate myself to some serious fiction writing. Hence the lack of updates lately.

After a month across the US to visit some friends (and attend to the Narrative Summit at the Austin GDC), I settled in San Diego for 2 months for 2 reasons: 1) It’s an easy living, so I wouldn’t have to worry about anything besides writing, and 2) I didn’t know anyone there, so I wouldn’t have to wish for anything besides writing.

I had stellar expectations in terms of output, but I have to admit that I don’t think I’ll reach my objectives. I think it’s okay, though, as I have learned much from my first formal attempt at writing.

As a follow-up to Seth Godin’s Linchpin, I’ve been probing my life for linchpin moments I might have had. If you’re not familiar with the book, I can only advise you to order it: It will most likely change you in a subtle but strong way. If you need a little bit more convincing, go read the the manifesto (okay, if you really need more convincing, go to Amazon and check out the raving reviews, or head over to Seth’s blog to know more about what the Man is about).

Anyway, there was this one time I was at the movie theater:

I was definitely late, and my movie was about to start. Only one register opened, maybe 30 people ahead of me, this wasn’t looking good. As I was (not-so-patiently) waiting, I checked out the schedule: 3 movies were starting in the next few minutes, while the rest didn’t start for another half-hour. Based on people’s attitude, you could definitely tell the ones in line for a movie that was about to start apart from the ones who weren’t in a hurry.

And then this clerk came up the line, asking people if they intended to pay by card; if they did, he’d take them away to another counter and would speed things up, which was a good idea (whether if was a spontaneous one or not). However, using the means of payment seemed like a somewhat irrelevant criteria. What he could/should have done, is simply walk up to people and ask them what movies they were about to see; if it wasn’t about to start, politely ask them if they’d mind waiting 10 minutes to help expedite things for those in a hurry.

And you know what, I could have done it, too. But we’re not used to putting ourselves on the line like this, and I just waited, hoping the situation would somehow fix itself. It didn’t, and I missed my movie. And this is an important shortcoming: to put it in Seth’s own words, a linchpin doesn’t simply think outside of the box, he acts out of the damn box.

Guess I’ll have to wait for the next occasion to pin an orange lizard to my chest.

“Managing people is hard. More often than not, you’ll be asked to make decisions. These decisions will have to be passed onto the team. Your job is to make them acceptable by the team.

If you have a decision to make, set up one-one-one meetings with every person involved. If no decision is to be made, relax, nobody is expecting anything from you. Instead of just slacking during these downtimes, however, I advise you try and motivated the troops: set up a team meeting.

• Team Meeting

The goal here is not to actually make any kind of decision, but to create the illusion of progress being made. Stand at the door, be real friendly to everyone and shake all hands.

A few PowerPoint slides into the presentation, The Enquirer will have a question.  Answering it will probably put you in an awkward position, so don’t. While he’s exposing his beef, scan the audience for another person talking. If there are more than 3 or 4 people in the room, you can expect a pair to be chatting: that’s your Involuntary Attention Deflector. If they’re taking too long, make non-committal sounds to buy some time. When they’re done, laugh loudly and crack a joke: it need not be witty or funny, its sole purpose is to signal The Enquirer he’s lost your attention. By now, chances are a colleague cut off the bewildered Enquirer with a question of his own.

Repeat the process and slide from question to question until the meeting is over. Either be the first one to leave or find yourself extremely busy with your laptop or projector. If you’ve done your job and confused them enough, they might just go away.

• One-on-one Meeting(s)

The bewitching upside of one-on-one meetings is that you can tell one person one thing, turn around, tell the opposite to the next and get away with it. When perfectly executed, this “Divide and Conquer” tactic will have everyone back to their desks promptly. Hearing what they wish to hear is what they really want; the situation itself can then silently drag on for some time.

Beware: every now and then, those two might actually know each other. If you weren’t paying too much attention, they might even be on the same team; in this case, applying this technique won’t buy you much time. Hopefully, it’ll still be enough for you to just happen to be on vacation when the shit hits the fan.”

Hi, my name is Eric ‘Spiffre’ Miffre and this is a “hello world”.

Alright, I guess I’m going to start off with explaining a bit about what this blog is about; basically, it is about everything I find related to the entertainment industry. So you only have two words here, but it includes a hell of a lot, so let me boil it down to the main points of interest I have:

• “Entertainment” standing for: the video game industry (of course) and the film industry.

• “Industry” standing for: everything business. Because yes, I have personal interest in business and marketing, even though it’s not what I do for a living. Turns out, I believe there’s a lot to learn in everyday life that can be useful when building (and leading) a business.

But enough chit chat, let’s get this thing rolling: welcome to spiffre.eu, stranger !