Speakers Bureau/Community and Speaker Experience

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Contents

Team Members

  • Donna Djordjevich, Sandia National Laboratories
  • Jay Powell, Biz dev at Octagon in North Carolina
  • Nichol Bradford, Vivendi Games
  • Eric Elder, Art Institute
  • Ramon Romero, Microsoft

Meeting 1 Notes - April 30, 2007

Meeting 2 Notes - May 17, 2007 are integrated below

Meeting 3 Notes - May 30, 2007 are integrated below

PARTICIPANTS

  • Donna Djordjevich (M1, M2, and M3)
  • Jay Powell (M1, M2, and M3)
  • Nichol Bradford (M1, M2, and M3)
  • Ramon Romero (M1, M2, and M3)
  • Jason Della Rocca (via email)
  • Eric Elder (M2)


' PROJECT OVERVIEW'


Speakers Potential Content Offerings

  • Individual Career Overviews
  • Tutorials


Experience for Community Groups


Design Premise: Communities need ways to encourage and cultivate interest in math and science via interest in gaming careers. They want well-spoken, helpful speakers, who can intelligently show the connection between careers in games and math, science and other key topics in school. They may also want specific elements or subjects addressed in Tutorials.

Process:

  • Any group can search speakers by specifying:
    • expected group size
    • zip code
    • general interest (we want a speaker, we want a tutorial)
    • specialization (Business people, artists, programmers)
    • availability (Summer)
    • and/or special characteristics (female)
  • Website bounces back with available speakers in their area
    • If the website does not provide speakers, users will be gently advised to expand thier criteria, including increasing group size
  • When group identifies a speaker to contact they must register via webform
    • As a part of registration, they will be asked to accept a community honor code
    • Every time a new speaker is requested the registered community organizer will have to re-sign the honor code, especially if a great time period has elasped between when they first registered and each request.
  • They select speakers and create a prioritized back-up list of 4 others and provide all relevant data (below)
    • Communities will not be able to request speakers with less than 1 month lead-time between the request and the date needed. This is needed to allow the system to contact speakers
    • For single speaker requests - The community organizer will be asked to make a prioritized list of 5 speaker choices.
      • The speakers will be contacted one at a time, the speaker will have one week to respond before the system will default to rejected and send an email to the next speaker.
      • This will prevent speakers being "spammed" by the system, being "passed" on after they have said yes beacuse another speaker already agreed, and encourage planning on the part of groups because they will have at least 30 days to execute and publicize the event.
      • It also prevents groups from having to return to request new speakers.
    • For panel building request - // removed for this first version due to deadline constraints, expect to revisit in the future.
      • In the mean time, a message should be given to community users to ask the speaker for support in making this happen. Speakers are not required to help out; however. A references list would be all that's necessary.
  • Group is informed that they should have an answer in a month time period.
    • This is possible because all requests will default to rejected after 1 week
    • A way should be devised for communities to log-in and see status of process i.e. "speaker 3 contacted, awaiting response"
    • If a community recieves multiple rejections, after the 3rd (?) they will recieve a gentle advisement to expand thier criteria, including increasing group size
  • Then an e-mail gets forwarded to speaker telling them about the group with basic information from the request form (who, how many, where). They log onto the site to see more details and respond.
    • Place: Place will have already been submitted as part of the request.
    • Date/Time: The speaker/group work together to formalize specific date/time. with an option to note if flexible. Note: Date/Times with less than a month lead-time cannot send requests. The form will automatically say, "So sorry, we need more time, please select a date 30 business days from now"
  • After engagement the community organizer rates the speaker. Broader attendee feed-back is secured by community organizer.
  • At a set period after the engagement, a follow-up query is sent (below)

IF a speaker is NOT available in the area, the community organizer will be directed to the download page for material they can use on thier own

  • The Speakers and Community Experince Task Force is responsible for this content


Experience for Volunteer Speakers


Design Premise: Speakers are volunteers with busy careers, the experience should be pleasant and rewarding. In thier profile, they will be asked to specify the smallest group they are willing to speak to. This will better align expectations and help ensure speakers have the experience they want. One-to-one follow-ups can be managed separately and independently by speakers


Process:

  • Speaker signs up, fills out profile
  • Speaker clicks on an acceptance of a Speaker Honor code
  • When he/she is selected by a group they receive an email asking that they consider and review the opportunity as quickly as possible. Basic data is included in email.
  • Speaker clicks on a link, or logs into DB and reviews detailed request.
  • Speaker rejects or accepts request, and states why (eg, not available, off topic, etc)
  • When speaker accepts, they see the Honor Code again
  • Once speaker accepts request they are connected directly to organizer via email to organize details.
    • The burden now rests on the organizer who would get the contact info of the speaker and make the connection.
    • At this point responsibility for the event leaves the realm of the database.
    • If the speaker/group needs to cancel for whatever reason, they do that direct with one another at that point…
  • If a speaker does not respond to the query within 72 hours, they are pinged by system again to reject or accept the engagement
  • The system will automatically default to REJECT in 7 days
  • If a speaker rejects 3 requests in a row, they are queried if they want to update their availability
  • After the engagement the speaker rates the community
  • Addition: A Speaker Forum - allows speakers to share successful methods, mentor one another etc.


POTENTIAL POLICIES


Game Industry Speakers


  • Profile Content
    • Name
    • Gender
    • General bio blurb
    • Specialization/Discipline
    • Game Credits
    • Years in Industry
    • General Speaking Interest (I want to do Tutorials, I want to talk about Careers)
    • Size group willing to speak for (better description needed):
      • 5
      • 10
      • 20
      • 30
      • 50
      • 75
      • 100
    • Willingness to Travel X distance for free or if travel expenses covered
    • Availability / Unavailability – i.e. not during crunch time


  • Affiliation
    • IGDA members
    • Members of recognized gaming bodies (AIAS, WIGI etc.)


  • Behavior
    • Honor Pledge
      • Online pledging process during sign-up where speaker agrees that they understand 1) they will reflect on the reputation of the industry, 2) that they can decline an invitation, but they must respond to queries, 3) etc.
      • Speakers will see honor pleadge again whenever they accept an engagement
      • Speakers grossly violating the HONOR CODE can be delisted by the IGDA, details below


  • Ratings/Speaker Reviews
    • SPEAKERS RATING COMMUNITY - Speakers will rate community group (Were they prepared and well organized? Did they have enough people? Was the group well-behaved?).
    • COMMUNITY RATING SPEAKERS - Speaker reviews will be tracked internally but not visible to the communities or other speakers.
      • The Bureau is a volunteer organization so poor reviews will instead be used to offer tips for increasing skill.


  • Rewards/Recognition for Good Behavior and further Participation
    • Visible Only to Speaker and Speaker Bureau Management/IGDA staff
      • Listing of Accepted Events, dates/locations
      • Community Organizer Quality Rating on that Speaker
      • Avg. response time to queries/# of default responses/no shows
      • The thinking is that participation in the DB can really help members become better speakers and so should help them track thier efforts and improvement
    • Visible Only to Other Speakers/Speaker/IGDA staff
      • Frequency Rating of all speakers with stars for # of engagements
      • Speakers Forum - where speakers can share successful methods, mentor, etc.
      • Community Organizer Rating - so speakers know what they are getting into
      • The thinking is that frequency ratings will encourage a little friendly competition and that the forum will help speakers with best practices.
    • Communities do NOT have access to any of the above


  • Managing Controversial Statements
    • IGDA Disclaimer and set presentation on industry size, growth, career paths etc that does reflect the IGDA’s POV
    • Speaker Training FAQ to suggest how to deal with questions on violence, etc. as well as a statement to use when representing a personal view not reflective of the IGDA


  • Delisting
    • The Speakers Bureau and the IGDA reserve the right to delist a speaker for inappropriate behavior that is given in writing or via telephone to the IGDA.
    • The standard for delisting will be the HONOR CODE.
    • This is expected to be a rarely or never policy, but must be considered in advance of any issue.
    • Criteria for delisting include, but are not limited to slurs, cursing to grade and middle-school children etc.


  • Speech Content Consistency
    • Individual stories will differ
    • Speaker will have option of downloading a template industry overview for consistency


Communities


  • Affiliation
    • Securing a speaker requires a formal group (e.g. Church, school, girl scouts/boy, moose lodge, HOA, PTA, sorority, Computer Professionals Club etc)


  • Audience
    • Securing a speaker requires providing an audience description
    • Audiences can include:
      • Kids
      • Teens
      • Adults
      • Schools
      • Professional Groups
    • Securing a speaker requires stating an expected audience size:
      • 5
      • 10
      • 20
      • 30
      • 50
      • 75
      • 100


  • Behavior
    • Community Honor Pledge
    • Click to acknowledge IGDA Disclaimer


  • Facilities
    • Community group must provide facility description tied to their request type: (Can the speaker use PowerPoint? Is there a C compiler installed?)


  • Ratings/Community Reviews
    • COMMUNITIES RATING SPEAKERS: Communities will rate speaker (Were they on time? Prepared? Interesting?)
    • SPEAKERS RATING COMMUNITIES: Poor community reviews will be tracked internally but not visible to communities.
    • Visible to Community: Past requests.
    • Visible to all Speakers:Community reviews


  • Follow-Up
    • At a set period after engagement, communities will receive an automated follow-up survey: were there any outcomes from the talk (i.e. Joe signed up for art school because he was so inspired), does the community now have a more positive picture of the industry as a whole?


Constraints/Resources

  • Site must be as self-sustaining as possible, so policies should be designed to be ideal but also realistic
  • Policies governing interaction of site to communities, community to site, site to speakers, and speaker to community should be as automated as possible


Work Planning

Dependencies

  • Tech Team Goal is to have speakers site up and running by the beginning of the school year
  • Group is aware of Tech Team dependency on policies to impact design


Project Scoping and Calendar:

  • Initial Meeting: 4/30 - DONE
    • In the interim group will consider topics independently and comment via wiki to shape the policies; length will be “like a Koi fish” (as big as it needs to be)
  • Meeting 2: w/o 5/14 - DONE
    • Group will meet to discuss wiki-shaped policy
    • In the interim group will consider topics independently and comment via wiki to polish the policies
  • Meeting #3: w/o May 28th - DONE
    • Group will meet to finalize policy for implementation by other groups


Principles

  • Meetings will last no longer than an hour


HUB TEAM REPRESENTATIVE: Jay Powell

Community Honor Code

  • 1)I understand that speakers are volunteers, not staff, and that they have agreed to participate in the speakers bureau as a volunteer civic service to their community.

Given this…

  • 2) I agree to provide speaker’s bureau volunteers with well organized event
  • 3) I agree to have events for speaker volunteers begin and end on time
  • 4) I agree to have the attendance levels I promised in making the request
  • 5) I understand that though I may ask my speaker to assist in filling out a panel, he or she may not be able to do so. In any case, the responsibility to assemble and organize the panel remains on me.
  • 6) I agree to… (what else)
  • 7) I understand that I can be barred from accessing Bureau Volunteers for a gross violation of the Community Honor Code

Speaker Honor Code

  • 1) I undertake that community members be treated with respect and professionalism and to be cognizant of my audience by refraining from using curse words, slurs, or other inappropriate language for any audience. My comments and actions as a speaker reflect directly on the IGDA, while I am not a spokesperson for the IGDA, and the perception of the games industry as a whole.
  • 2) I undertake that it is my responsibility to respond, accept or reject a speaking request within one (1) week.
  • 3) I undertake that I am to be on time for speaking engagements.
  • 4) I undertake that I am to be prepared for speaking engagements.
  • 6) I undertake that I may be asked by a community organizer to assist in assembling and organizing speaking, panel, and tutorial events, which I will do if I am able. I understand that this is not required and separate and distinct from my agreement to come and speak.
  • 8) I understand that I can be delisted for a gross violation of the Speaker Honor Code
Retrieved from "http://wiki.igda.org/Speakers_Bureau/Community_and_Speaker_Experience"
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