Election Results

The votes have been counted and the results are in for the new IGDA Tools SIG chair, which is me! Late last week, Raquel let everyone know the results of the election on the mailing list and asked if I had a few words to share with the membership. Below are my comments sent to the list which hopefully explains my positions on where I see the SIG going over the next year. I mention it in the post, but I want to reiterate that I cannot do this alone. If the Tools SIG is going to succeed, we need to foster the collaboration of all of its members. I think this blog is a good start for that, but we have a long way to go.

I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me, and I’m looking forward to talking on the responsibilities as SIG Chair.  I am positive that this year will be full of new advancements and initiatives for the SIG.  Over the next few years, I’m hoping that we’ll be able to leverage the experience of our members into many tangible benefits for the community.  Whether this takes the form of books, white papers, surveys, open source tools and frameworks, or even just increased awareness of the benefits of a good tools team, I want the SIG to be on the forefront of driving the state of tools and tools development forward in the industry.

But this is obviously not something I can tackle alone.  One of the first things I’d like to do is create a SIG leadership: a set of individuals who are interested in taking on leadership roles, heading up small project teams and initiatives, and being evangelists for the SIG itself.  In my mind, my position as SIG chair will only be to help these people really get organized and working, and keep the daily politics and maintenance of the SIG out of their way.  If this sounds like a good position to you, please let me know, and what projects you might want to see take off.

All of this, however, is open for discussion.  If you have any ideas on how the SIG can improve, please don’t keep silent.  If you can, please try to make it out to the GDC Round Table so we can start some face to face discussion about the direction of the SIG over the coming year, and find some volunteers who will be interested in tackling the hard projects.