Networking

Last week I did quite a lot of networking. First we went to the Game Design Expo at the Vancouver Film School. We watched a few lectures (Prototyping, Secrets of designing enjoyable games and "Women in Games") and attendes a workshop on storytelling and flash in games. It was like an open house day and free so there were a lot of people. I still got to talk to a "real" game designer from EA. She does mostly level design and strategy and could explain same things I never really could understand (like what is QA? = Quality assurance, well that was easy) plus had a good link for job posting on facebook :-)



On Monday I went to the monthly Graphic Design Meet Up, which was in a nice pub on Granville Street. We were about 15 designers (Web, Print, Typograpy ...) The oldest was about 55 but most were my age or younger. A lot of freelancers, a teacher, a startup partner and some jobsearchers (one was just laid of). We talked about a lot of things, design or not design. I learned that there are two mayor indian languages, that the Hotel Rem Koolhaas build in Beijing burned a day before and that Fontlab is the new Fontograoher! Nice people and deffinately worth going next time.

The other networking event I went to was "Twestival" a initiative that was organized in 200 cities around the world on the same day just time shifted because of the different time zones. Already at noon I could watch the live stream from parties in London and Stockholm, 9 hours before the Vancouver event. I did not know a single person but there were some people I met and at the end I had a few new ideas and about 5 new followers on Twitter (still not much but I am not an active twitterer anyway and don't think I will ever be). It was interesting to watch people and some also talked about there Twitter experiences. All in all it was nice to be at a global event organized by volunteers, sponsored by local businesses and supporting charity : water, a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Its always great to combine fun with a good purpose.


Incoming "tweets" on a screen during the Twestival


Good beer and snacks with some good talks are much better then twittering (with strangers) sometimes!?