David Doane's Portfolio

My teams new website is now live and slowly filling with content that we are creating for the game. I'll be writing the blog there too, it will be about challenges the team is facing and how things are coming along 

check it out at startselecteject.com

Found a very interesting article about the 10 things most people didn't learn in college. Find it here

I'd have to say of all the things on the list there are four that I really could have used during my year in the industry.

How to be betrayed - I was all to naive going out into the world. Hand shake deals are meaningless, get it in writing, really really clear and specific writing! Always remember the value of the work you're doing. It's a bad sign if someone values you a lot, but doesn't want to put any money on the the table. 

Failure - I never expected to fail like I did, and the number of times I did (depending on who you ask). I was totally unprepared for such a possibility. It was soul crushing and painful. I pulled myself up though, and managed to fail in whole new ways! What I have to be proud of about my failures though, is that I didn't make the same mistake twice. I learned quickly and kept my head above water and made it through, and I'm certainly not letting that happen again.

Negotiation - I could swear there are people in this world with Jedi mind powers. I could negotiate in meetings fine, pushing my agenda, compromising when required, shooting for better win win options. But what I could not seem to hack was negotiating with my own bosses, when it came to issues that concerned me. I always seemed to let myself get talked out of how I really felt. In other cases we compromised about an issue but then the follow through never came and by the time I realized, it was too late. 

Happiness - I got so caught up in my work and job I forgot to do simple things for myself, to enjoy myself. In the end this stifled my creativity and made it difficult to interact with others because I was frustrated and without a release. When times get tough is when it's most important that you have some fun and make yourself happy, but that's what will allow you to cope with your bad situations.