Steam Machine No Longer Mystery Machine

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The big news, Steam’s latest announcement is Beta for Steam Machines.  Friend of the site Indiehaven sums it up well.

Well we’ve got one more Steam Announcement coming, but I wanted to take a look at the Progeek and Musehacker applications of what’s going on.

Here are my takes:

  • First of all this is a definite strategy to spread Steam all over.  It’s own console, it can be installed.  Steam just got itself even more mindshare and install share.  This is not a surprise with the way they’ve been evolving – remember they have even more than games.
  • Secondly, this is a disruptive strategy, the kind of strategy that may have a plan, but is also to make people go “what the hell do we do now?”  They just put everyone else on notice.
  • Third, they just owned the “unsure” market.  That old machine you’re not sure what to do with, that HTPC that could be done in various ways, the just gave you an answer.
  • Fourth, they also may own the pickup market.  Now you can take an old system and turn it into something else – a Linux based game and media machine.
  • Fifth, this is a challenge to everyone, and I see some possibility that other companies have to deal with.  You can’t corner Steam or just not allow them on your devices, but they’re also stepping on your territory.  Steam is now a fact of life.
  • Sixth, as this is Linux-based, who knows what they can get from other install bases (like Android?).
  • Seventh, they just grabbed the news cycle.  They’ll grab it again when the Machine comes out, and they’ll grab it next holiday.
  • They just cozied up to many a manufacturer.

This is going to be big and interesting.  Work in gaming, you must pay attention, period.  Also start learning Linux.

– Steven “Steam Power” Savage

Reporting And Project/Program Management

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One of the most important tasks of a Project/Program Manager (even if they don’t call you that) is reporting.

That may sound odd. It’s supposed to be management, or projects, to tracking things. Which is of course core to what you do, but just because people are managers doesn’t mean management is the most important task. Management can only happen in the right environment and place.

An environment and place where you, the manager, are properly informed and aware.

It doesn’t matter how organized you are, how well you plan, how well you update your gantt charts, or if you’re SCRUM certified if you lack information and if you don’t know you have the right information. No matter your skills and abilities and inclinations, you have to know in order to manage, and if you don’t know you can’t do your job.

That comes back to what I said – reporting is one of the most important tasks of Project and Program Management.

Good reporting is all about making sure information flows to and from the right people, in the right format, and that includes yourself. Without that information flow you can’t do your job, people can’t know what their jobs are, no one knows what’s going on – and you’re probably going to get blamed for it. In fact things could be a complete mess reporting-wise and you may not even know it since . . . reporting is so bad.

Again, reporting is one of the most important tasks for people in the Project/Program Management profession.

In fact we have to work on it even if it’s not officially our job. Because we stand in the middle of everything and know how things work. Because information can flow to us and often does, even if it’s half-baked. In short, because we’re in the best position to make reporting work unless someone has specifically been given that job (whoever that poor sot is).

I’d like to see more of this covered in Project/Program and even Product Management training.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Make It So: A Skunkworks For Films

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Last “Make It So” we had a roundup of how the MuseHack gang would try and change how theaters would run and how movies worked: a return to serials, more events, theaters as destinations, and heavy social engagement. It would mean less theaters in some cases, but more connected ones less dependent on tentpoles.

However there’s a flipside to this that Serdar and I had been discussing that’s our next make it so. We’re still trying to save the movie industry here at MuseHack, but in this case we’re focusing on the way films are made. Which, as you may guess, kind of sucks.

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