The Donald Harris
Just passionate about Education, Gaming, and Family
No More Gatekeepers
02 months ago
I had this post in draft for a while. I wanted to finish this thought on salesmanship before I forgot it. I am longer focusing on sales in my career path but I wanted to share this with you. So I wanted to cover the topic of gatekeepers and how things have changed with them. Now that sales man and women can access the people they want directly, your strategy should change to fit this. I want to share some tips on how I am doing business in this post gatekeeper world.
Ideally since you can go directly to the target you will be in a more cold environment. So to over come this I try and make sure that I am direct to the point. I also make sure I have a call to action in the first correspondence. It should go with out saying to make this also very relevant to what the target is going through. If you know they are starting a new project where your service could benefit, make sure and bring that up. Make sure and do as much research as possible before reaching out. With all the tools we have its super easy to blast a large number of targets blindly.
With tools like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google+ we can gain a lot of insight as to what is going on in the world of the person we want to speak with. Check out their past tweets and recent job changes on Linkedin. Get to “know” them before you even send the first message. The last thing you want to do is reach out to the person and not have much to talk about other than what you are trying to push them to buy. Think of it as building a relationship.
When you have done your research and have a good understanding of who the person is. Make your move! I find twitter is one of the best ways to start reach out to CEO, VPs and other high level execs. It’s less personal than facebook and feels less “sales like ” than Linkedin. Twitter helps me build relationships with people. Now this may be difficult for you if you have been using twitter as a more personal account. If twitter is out then go through Linkedin again, keep in mind that you are building a relationship and you are not just trying to close the deal quickly. I have found that Facebook connects are more difficult as Facebook is more typically used for friends and family and than business. Keep the first short and to the point, make sur
How Do You Define Yourself?
2 months ago
A while back I had to go through an exercise of labeling several people and putting them into certain buckets based on their skill set and the needs of the project. The interesting thing is we already had internal labels. The project we were signing them up for had different labels. Internally we called the people who manage the project, producers yet the project would label that person as a Development Director. It was interesting as the people we were reviewing had a vast amount of history and had done many different jobs in their chosen field. As we moved through the process 3d Artist became 2d concept artist and game play engineers were moved into the tools category. I know these people have the skills to kick butt in any of these roles, just as I could produce or go back into business development. I started to think about my resume as my name was coming up on the list. I like production and I am trying to make my way into this field and gain as much experience as possible. Yet I have done many other things – Talent Acquisition – Business Management – Business Development – Social Media Marketing. Now my title is Project Manager, which is a producer. So a few questions started to pop into my mind. What do these titles tell people who look at my resume? Am I using the right titles in the first place? How do other define themselves – not the people who call themselves a something Ninja… So how do you define yourself?
Moving and Shaking
3 months ago
So if you are not one of the 3 people who follow me on Linkedin, then you have no idea that I recently changed jobs. On January 21st I joined the creative master minds at Chaotic Moon. In doing so, I left behind two studios that I worked with over the last couple years. Not to get all sentimental, but saying good bye is always hard. I made some really good friends and mentors at Heatwave Interactive and I have developed some life long friends at Cerebral Fix. This opportunity with Chaotic Moon offers me a greater opportunity for me to learn and expand as a producer.
If you ask me, “What is Chaotic Moon?”, I wont say it’s a simple mobile development studio. If you do a search on Chaotic Moon, you will find games, applications and… a smart shopping cart? After being in the fold for only a week, I think all the leaders in the company are each a mad scientist in their particular field. I think I have several opportunities to learn quite a bit. In fact, my manager spent more than a decade in the biotech mechanical industry…. yeah, I don’t know what that is either 
Anyways, you can have a read about them here.
I would love to post more pictures behind the scenes at the studio, but there are so many projects going on that I don’t want to break NDAs. What I can say is, it’s a lot like Dexter’s Lab… only with out DeeDee
Who Would You Share a Beer With?
06 months ago
by Donald Harris
in Uncategorized
As simple as the title states… who in the gaming industry would you like to share a beer with? In particular who in the Austin Gaming Industry would you like to sit and chat with? I am putting together a little project and I would like your input on who is interesting in the Austin developer community. If you could leave a comment below as to who you would like to speak with and what sort of things you would ask them.
Why all the hate?
37 months ago
by Donald Harris
in Gaming
So I have been noticing that I have a lot of “hate” in my head when it comes to new game hardware. The bad thing is I am not sure if I am making a judgement call on my feelings or just that I am being a sourpuss. Every time I see a new head mounted VR system or some motion controlled joystick/glove and boots setup , I hate it! The first thought that comes to my mind is that it will be a failure or that no one will buy it.
This all came to my attention the other day when I sat down at my buddy’s pc to play Hawken. He got the game along with his purchase of the Oculus Rift. When he told me he spent 300.00 dollars for this thing I cracked. I can’t see how people jump onto another peripheral and furthermore spend 300.00 dollars on it.
Oh well I will keep this one shorter than normal, don’t want to focus so much on a negative post. Anyways I will work at not being so negative to new gaming hardware in the future, but 300.00 on a vr helmet from the 90s… sigh.
Stop Wishing and Start Doing!
08 months ago
by Donald Harris
in Uncategorized
Photo by Az Jade
In this blog, which I update so often and regularly (not), I often talk about different business tactics or what is going on in my business of choice… which is game development. One of the things I rarely talk about is motivation. When I tell people what I do I often get this comment, “I wish I could do that!” or “I wish I had a job I enjoyed.” Now before I go into this, I know that the economy is not the best and finding a job period is challenging. With that said however, sitting there wishing you had something will get you no where.
You need to start doing what you want to do instead of sitting there and wishing it to happen. I have worked very hard to get to where I am in my career. I realized, while working at another job, that I only enjoyed that job for the money. Once the money left that job I hated it. I wanted more, I wished for something better. Guess what? Nothing happened. After quickly figuring that out I started joining groups and events that carried the same interest in what I wanted to do… video games! Luckily I already live in Austin, so I had a bit of an advantage as the city boasts a very active game development community.
Photo by Gfpeck
While still working at the other job, being a husband, and a father, I started working to develop teams and make games. Even though the games we ended up creating were not blockbusters we did one thing… we made a game! At that point I started DOING instead of wishing! Then because of this base work I had done I know had a foundation to get into the job I really wanted. Soon after that I was able to leave that job and start my career in games, which is still evolving today. I created this post not to bash people but ideally to help encourage them into getting up and changing their life. You only get one shot on this planet, don’t waste it wishing for something better. Make a plan, set your goals and start DOING.
The Rise of the Next Gaming Console
1 year ago
For a while now people have been talking about the death of the console as we know it. My friend has been telling me this for years now, but I tend to think his view is slanted because he is a mobile game designer. That is, until recently. With the upcoming changes to Apple TV and everyone scrambling to make a proper controller for iOS platform it’s really easy to see what my kids will be gaming/computing/calling on. Several things have changed my mind to make me agree that the next Xbox and Playstation will be the last or better yet, the last worth buying.
Like I mentioned earlier, several companies are trying to make a controller for the iOS device. I have been able to spend some time with the iCade cabinet and 60Beat‘s controller as well. They are both excellent devices. Very responsive and could stand up to the response time you would find on today’s console. However, the games that are currently available are not up to par with using the controller. Typically what it looks like is that the physical controller piece has been tacked on to the game that was designed for a touch interface. Certain screens still need touch input and the controller is sometimes useless until a certain point in the game. I think once the manufactures of the controllers actually start creating games that are designed with the controller in mind first, that is when we will see a big change in how the controller and iOS device work together.
Once games that are designed to play like a console w/ a controller come out and are powered by the current and next gen game engines like Unity and Unreal, I think you will see a lot more attention on the portable game platform. We know that the processing power is increasing as well as the graphical power of these devices. Combine that with your HD Tv at home and there you go. Your new portable console phone computer thingy
The Molyjam is Over LONG LIVE MOLYDEUX!
01 year ago
So we finished up things in Austin and even ended the night with an award ceremony. I have a lot of video to go through and edit down, but for now please take a look at this:
#Molyjam2012 Austin Texas!
31 year ago
by Donald Harris
in Uncategorized
Here is a quick update. I am co-hosting a Molyjam in Austin,Tx You can find the information here. If you are in the Austin area I would love to see you drop by. If you don’t know what MolyJam is I would love to see you read this first…before dropping by
And yes I know I have not been blogging much lately. To much life going on