Jennings Makes Stuff

Twirl Me

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Twirl Me

Sharing more, sharing broadly

“Please twirl me one more time, and don’t stop spinning me Please swirl me in your mind, so I can be a colored painting that you’ll look upon Spin spin with me…”

I’m thinking this morning about how I share the things I share. I am probably like everyone else where when I see something I like, I have an urge to share it with others. Maybe that’s just me being very extroverted. Nonetheless, I’ve been wondering why sharing matters or if sharing is really just a self-satisfaction, small dopamine hit type thing. I really don’t know the science and I haven’t done any research to understand it. I only know how it affects me and it feels good.

Right now, I mostly share a small sliver of what I find cool with a select group of friends. Each one of them has a type or category in which I share things. I don’t share skateboarding things with my partner, for example, but I do share a lot of child rearing things and political/social economic articles and insights.

I really like to share. I like to be open about what I find. Many years ago, I had a tumblr where I put stuff. It was in the early days of people eagerly posting anything and everything on the internet. Most of the stuff I posted was crap, so I’m not even going to share a link.

I’m meandering.

Cannon Ball!

Maybe I should share here? Maybe I should make this a newsletter or a substack? I could tell people what caught my eye. I could talk about content design and art and good music. Maybe it could be Jennings’ playlist?

My friend tells me that sharing playlists helps our music algorithms not go stale. I wonder if I can share one here. One sec.

I can’t. I can only share the link.

Gonna try it

I’ll start by sharing way too much here. We’ll see how this goes.

This world is a mess

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This world is a mess

And a bit of gratitude for my kiddos

Morning thoughts:

I tried this morning to think of all the ways the world was a mess. I quickly stopped myself and thought about something I was grateful for instead. I immediately thought about my family and especially my boys, Quiller, Rider, and Silas. I love even simply typing their names.

I’m grateful for their smiles, their laughter. They carry on, like bees in this hive, laboring without a single complaint. Of course, their labor is play. But nonetheless they do their duties effortlessly and with the kind of conviction that is rarely seen.

Sadly, I then thought about how we don’t value families in our society. Buying a home for my family in Silicon Valley was impossible. I work in tech and make, or have made, a tech salary. I don’t understand how any teacher, librarian, day care provider, laundromat owner, dishwasher, or artist could barely keep their heads above water when I couldn’t afford to invest.

The numbers are true. And even worse we’re in a retirement crisis. In 1980 90% of workers had some kind of pension, that’s now below 15% of workers. The workers’ rights have been deteriorating right in front of our eyes. And now we’re on a precipice, because there’s more.

We are living longer. No one wants to talk about it but living longer is actually terrible for our social economics. We have the largest generation in history, the baby boomers, who then had a ton of kids creating two even larger generations. Think about this: In 1970 the world’s population was 3,695,390,336, today it’s 8,100,191,266. (you can always check at the World Population Project.)

Living longer without a plan

We never expected that globalization would light an insatiable fire under the baby boomers to drive economic growth through the roof. Nor did we expect to create the types of luxurious wealth that the Rockefellers building the railroads and stealing land could only dream of.

Now we have the Waltons who alone own full percentage points of the world’s wealth. The ENTIRE WORLD. Remember how many more people are on this rock now? And we’re letting ONE FAMILY dance around like kings in a global fiefdom.

Putin gets it. So do other scary figures. This is the moment that Batman and the Avengers were warning us about. This is destabilization.

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely", Oscar Wilde.

The conviction my kids hold for their service is missing throughout our capitalistic system. We’re not convinced that our wealth can cure, heal, and or relieve the world of suffering. We’re building rockets. Like some other rock is going to change our destiny of too many people and too little care.

We all fucking saw this coming

In 2001 Michael Moore makes a movie about how our healthcare system has destroyed 1 in 5 Americans’ economic livelihoods. 23 years later, lives are still easily and quickly destroyed by a broken healthcare system (which also sucks btw when ranked against other developed nations).

Our representatives have been talking about the collapse of Social Security since I was born. Nothing has been done except that time the GOP tied its debt ceiling to inflation which pretty much made damn sure the system would collapse faster by doing so. We’ll never know what their intention was but I’m guessing they had a hunch that inflation would skyrocket as rich people diverted the majority of the world’s wealth into phallic rocket businesses.

These rich people are jerks :rocket:

One rocket man, who I won’t name because honestly why would anyone write his name. He had the animosity to challenge the United Nations that if they could give him a plan to fix world hunger he’d pay for it and then they gave him a plan and he didn’t pay for it. Instead, he’s getting a check from Uncle Sam for his satellite and space station deliveries.

Another rocket man, who I won’t name, built a yacht so big it has TWO HELICOPTER PADS. They couldn’t get it out of the sound it was built at in Washington so they took out a bridge to sail it. The bridge connected a small town to another two. This man’s private boat separated families, kept kids from school and friends, for what? A tan?

Let’s loop back around to gratitude (I really did start writing this thinking it was going to be positive. Whatever.)

My next thought after thinking about what I was grateful for was about how lovely and kind and generous my children are. Even when I fuck up. Which, if you’re a parent, you know what I mean. We make lots of mistakes. My children let me know but they let it go. I mean, just think about that. They tell me directly while it’s happening. Then they tell me later why it upset them. Then they drop it and move on with grace. Anyone who has a therapist knows this process well.

I thought about how these little bodies that effortlessly orbit around my larger body. How this little constellation sees the universe. How they might need my gravitational pull but it’s growing weaker.

I thought about how I could apply their perspective to putting myself out there again and looking for my next employer. I thought about what Quiller would think was cool (he’s our artist). What Rider would think was rad (he’s our race car driver, coolest-kid-on-the-block kid). And what Silas might find funny and cute (because Silas is our family comedian and one of the world’s greatest snugglers).

Just like we do in design. I plan to use these personas. The ones I know so well. To revamp my portfolio for maybe the 3rd time in the last 10 years.

Starting. Now.

~ Jennings

Photo Credit: Stuart Pearce, YachtShot

Sound Synth

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Sound Synth

I recently took a piece of sound from an artist friend and made a online synth where you can change the pitch, warp the sound, pan from left to right, and use an equalizer to adjust low, mid, and high frequencies. This is built using the Howler.js library, an awsome javascript plugin for controlling audio.

Eventually I’d like to take this further and make it an effect pedal for a guitar or a microphone input into my computer. That’s going to take a bit of work but hopefully with a bit of Python scripting I can get this website to interface with my PC or Mac.

Wish me luck!

You can find the prototype on my website here.

Oversharing

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Oversharing

Reigniting the flame

During my recent holiday, I had a significant realization about my career path. I found myself uncertain about the next steps to take. For some time, I entertained the idea of writing a book or starting a business related to my expertise as a designer. I hoped to leverage the nearly two decades of experience I had accumulated in the field.

However, I came to acknowledge that my passion had waned. The drive and enthusiasm that once fueled my ambition had diminished to a mere flicker. Despite this, I didn’t feel as though I had strayed from my path; rather, it felt like I was rediscovering it.

Over the past decade, I’ve had the opportunity to work with prestigious companies on high-profile projects. While these experiences were enriching, I observed a pervasive culture of prioritizing career advancement at any cost, often at the expense of others. This realization left me conflicted; I couldn’t reconcile placing my career above the well-being of my family or colleagues.

Reflecting on these experiences, I felt a distant beacon of wisdom guiding me. I recalled conversations with a close friend who has faced numerous physical challenges. Despite his adversities, he remains unafraid, acknowledging that true control is often elusive.

Contemplating this insight, I came to a profound realization: I am not fully immersed in my creativity, and there are limitations beyond my control. Despite my efforts, the pursuit of professional success alone cannot sustain me. It’s akin to drawing water from a well that can never quench my thirst entirely. While it may provide financial stability, it cannot fulfill my deeper needs.

Seeking guidance, I turned to mentors who are also friends for advice. Should I reignite my passion, document my journey, or seek solace in ancestral wisdom? Concurrently, I found myself drawn to cemeteries, seeking to understand my roots in central Illinois, a departure from my earlier desire to escape to larger cities.

Admittedly, confidence has been a personal struggle. I thrive on recognition, which initially drew me to the tech industry. The immediacy of feedback from online content provided validation for my efforts. However, as my work became more complex, the gratification diminished. Yet, working on personal projects, like creating a card game with my son, reignites that sense of satisfaction and connection.

I’ve come to realize that my wellspring lies in creating and sharing. While crafting comes naturally to me, sharing feels daunting at times. Despite fears of inadequacy or judgment, I understand the importance of embracing vulnerability and owning my journey, failures included.

In acknowledging my flaws and setbacks, I confront the reality that I am both the obstacle and the solution. By embracing this truth and cultivating confidence, I take the first step towards reconnecting with my passion and purpose.

Altus Cosmic Site

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Altus Cosmic Site

www.altuscosmic.com

For Immediate Release

https://www.altuscosmic.com/

Check it out! I created a Altus Cosmic site!

I’ve been really busy making shit and finally I made something worth sharing. We’ll continue to put the comics on instagram but wanted to house them in a way that conveys we are the creators. Also, help build some search awareness maybe through google?

Either way the site is live and the comic is too. (Just takes longs breaks)

Dispatch from Parental Leave in Lockdown

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Dispatch from Parental Leave in Lockdown

This flower is from our garden. From our broccoli plant. I guess you can call it a flower.

Below it are pictures of our growing family. We grew another boy this year and he was born on the 14th of this month.

These are the thing I want to talk about in this post:

Growing slower
Getting less interested in what the world is doing
Gardening
Taking more time away from screens
Building intentional routines
Following routines intentionally
Parenting and self care

Entropy

I read the other day someone asking what you would do if you woke up without the thing that inhibits you. I thought about my ankle, which I broke and have been recovering from for a year and half, and thought: I don’t know what I would do? Go skate?

Skating of course is the method in which I’ve sprung a lifetime of pain across my body. It’s the way I let go of anger and pain. It’s been with me since I knew what those things were.

Now I can’t really skate, my ankle doesn’t move well and I cannot run, so my chances of rebounding from a wheel jam are much less than they were before.

Then I thought: I actually don’t want to be without my ankle. My entropy is who I am.

Growing Slower

A while ago I was told by a professional sociologist that when interviewing people you should always go into their environments and get down on their level. I’ve been trying to practice this with my little ones and so far it’s made little difference other than I get bonked more.

But the concept works, because when you’re on their level in their space it’s simply being present. Which is so freaking hard to do. Being present is the economy of everything now. What’s worth your attention is not only what defines who we are but it’s what everyone else is seeking.

In being present I’ve found that things develop a lot slower than I had previously understood. World is big and small, but the small world is full of whimsicality and wonder. Things move slow and erratically — almost as if it’s a world without bias.

Moving slow isn’t all that it’s worked out to be. There’s still a need for a strong heart-rate and passion. But when observing, things tend to move slow, and in that slowness is a sweet grace.

Who Cares

The world is a fucking disaster. RBG died and 45 is going to get reelected because the US is an idiot farm. Too bad abundance and wealth don’t make societies more effective. Never once has a society had it’s cake and ate it too.

I’m really at the point of “Who Cares?”. I’m still going to vote of course and look the ticket up and down but I have done nothing to support anything or anyone. I’m nearly completely disinterested in the lies and rhetoric that seam to be the only headlines my fellow “patriots” care about.

In general though it’s my prescription to my own headache. I’ve been a creature of the news for most of my adult life and I am just now starting to see how deer in the headlights it’s made me become.

Gardening

A few boxes in our backyard has helped set a routine for me, which I’ll talk about in a few. Gardening, has been a delight. It’s slow and precious but yet plants fail or don’t do things they are supposed to whereas others go crazy and crawl up your neighbor tree and onto their house. That didn’t happen but, it could.

There’s really nothing that couldn’t happen in a garden and that’s cool. Today there was an army of ants marching up the watermelon vine. I’d sprayed them all with the hose last night but it was for null as they’d come back and kept on doing whatever ant civil engineering project gathered their attention.

What I find in gardening is just that. I’m an engineer and a mayor and the god of weather (within parameters that I can control of course). It’s not that I dominate the garden, I do, but dominating would apply that the inhabitants actually abide by my rule and they don’t. And that’s cool because that’s why we’re in it together. They can’t have me without them and I can’t have them without… well nevermind.

Time Away from Screens

Fucking starring at a screen right now to be honest. And it’s the evening when I usually wind down and don’t look at screens as much. At least not unless it’s baseball. Screentime and baseball hapeening in a passive way tho. I don’t actually stare at baseball much at all. It’s more like a clock or a boiling pot of water, I don’t want to watch for too long less somehting might happen and in baseball things happening isn’t exacly good.

In all I’ve been able to cut out a lot of screens for no reason. Gaming systems are really only played intentionally and using my computer is reseraced for fun projects that don’t involve work.

Intentional Routines

I’ve probably used the term intentional like 80 times in this fucking post and you’re probably drinking each time you see it by now. God knows why you’re still reading this.

I shoudl stop writing this post and start making a calendar for myself and boys and so we can be INTENTIONAL AF about EVERYTHING WE DO. :CAPS LOCK:

For reals tho, I think I’ve found that life is easier when nearly hour by hour there is an expectation. It’s hypercriitcal for me for sure to say thhis, liek most of this post, as I have had many adventures where I don’t really know where I was going.

What is Content Strategy

Tue, 27 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

What is Content Strategy

What is Content?

Stories building on stories. Influence through what a lifestyle looks like. Turning products and services into associations that resonate and are something people want to flaunt.

How do we do that?

There’s layers to this work. First is identifying your audience, user, champion; whatever you prefer to call it. Working to engage them on what they’re doing, where they’re hanging out, and what types of outputs, creations, or artifacts persist throughout their ecosystem.

Map that ecosystem, sit at the fire with the tribe and listen to their stories.

How does this become a strategy?

Creation of a plan. Curation of a community. Nurturing of a system of nodes, independent, yet connected through a shared experience.

Experience design, interaction design, and human factors research all apply heavily because they’re the best tools we have to administer these types of organic fellowships that help us identify more fully with our work.

An Urban Footprint in the New York Times

Fri, 05 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

An Urban Footprint in the New York Times

A product I designed in Berkeley is being used to visualize cartography in Editorial by the New York Times

A few weeks ago my mother-in-law forwarded me an article in the NYTimes.com. It was about single-family zoning in American cities. It’s a converstaion we’ve been having about how unaffordable where we live is (I live in West Los Angeles, Venice specifically, a community that’s at the front lines of a housing crisis).

The article is Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House With a Yard on Every Lot), written By Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui for the Upshot. The article begins with these maps:

The significance of those maps is that they were made with Urban Footrpint, an Urban Planning product I designed years ago at Calthorpe Analytics in Berekely, Ca.

It’s not every day you get so say you did something that ended up in the New York Times. A colleage told me once that you either end up on the frontpage because you did something really dumb or you died in a plane crash. Well, I did something good and still got there! #Winning

Here’s the digital homepage:

You can lean more about Urban Footprint (and see the UI I designed) by watching this demo: <p></p><p>6-Minute UrbanFootprint Demo</p>

Your World of Warcraft Job Application

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Your World of Warcraft Job Application

Dear “Tribal Chief” of Insidiously Delicious,

We appreciate your interest in InterBizCo.biz for our Senior Director of Biz role in our Environments of Wellness and Greatness devision. We regret to inform you that we will not be moving forward with your candidacy.

In our application we asked you for a few insights as to learn more about why we should consider your candidacy. Your responses where interesting and we wanted to provide you this feedback. Question, answers, and our responses below.

What experience do you have in biz wellness or greatness that we should consider for this role?

Your Answer: I have logged over a 100k hours maxing out 6 characters through 8 content expansions over the last 10 years. Diversifying each of my rolls by playing a different part in the end-game grind. As our guilds Tribal Chief I am renowned for managing one of the worlds largest and longest running tribes, Insidiously Delicious. We have defeated the most elite, end-game raid bosses. We’ve stopped many Alliance incursions on our peaceful undead city of death and decay, The Undercity. Most importantly, we dropped the (heroic, not normal mode) Lich King on the second try and thus bestowing the horde’s invocation of the legendary Thrall, son of Durotan, former chieftain of the Frostwolf clan, on our server, Moonrunner.

We maintained greatness by keeping the guild bank full of goodies from our dailies like pots, fish, buffs, bandages, cloth, bars, cheeses, and, my favorite, and most insidiously delicious were, the Grilled Murloc Flanks. Our members fished, tailored, fabricated, sang, conjured, cooked, smithed, knitted, cobbled, smelted, and enchanted everything from our indicative green hats to our rad as hell guild banner. We created macros for tracking gear rolls of member we thought were particularly greedy and ranked members on their Armorwow.armory.comy scores.

Our members are eagle eye’d, snake biting, go-for-dead type Horde no matter the repair cost. We give the developers night sweats in terror when they can’t make any content we won’t mop the floor within weeks of it dropping.

We are not sure who Thrall is, or what makes him the Son of Durotan. Our question was referring to skills in management, team wellness, achievements of greatness, environments of each, and so forth. You logging 100k hours in a video game, playing many “rolls”, we don’t at all find this is applicable. Though, your time spent building a “tribe” does sound interesting aside from that we won’t consider that a fit as part of our biz at InterBizCo.biz. And “night sweats”, really, if that happens often you might want to see a doctor.

Have you managed a wellness and greatness team? What’s your management style? What did you find most difficult?

Your Answer: Maintaining a guild of over 100 players is like herding cats with a Leeroy Jenkins event happening about twice a week. The devs actually gave us an extension from the normal 100 cap because we were so dedicated. And we kicked so much ass!

Our guild has cleared content from every expansion going back to the Burning Crusade (no one actually raided in vanilla WoW you know). Many first on the server; once first in the world (FTW!). We once zeroed Illidan Stormrage, brother of Malfurion, Lord of Outland, and ruler of Black Temple, with a tanking shaman. How? Ingeniously, we devised a way for him to swap his skill tree and gear mid-fight. It was going great until a healing shadow priest nuked out so hard he killed half of our party by accident with his Shadow Crash AOE in combo with the totem buffs. Really what made this a remarkable feat is when they were both popped cloaking potions every 10 seconds or sooner, depending on when the cooldown hit, and effectively solo’d Illidan to his merciless death!

All this was witnessed and documented into the history of gaming as we were Twitch streaming for a charity event at WoW Nerds 2015 in Springfield, Missouri at the main street GameStop. (Greatest day of my life!)That day, June 27th 2015, our guild crystallize its celebrity status. Now and forever remembered amongst wow-heads as Insidiously Delicious Day (idd).

Wow, I cannot say we have ever had a day named after us. I’ve also never been to the Springfield, Missouri GameStop. I’m sure it’s a significant accomplishment but how does this remotely qualify you in biz management of a wellness and greatness team?

When Paul in IT read this we, soon after, had to peel him off the a desk. He’d stuck to it because he clinched his Diet Coke too hard when he passed out laughing, face first, on the hiring mangers desk (that’s me! My desk.). (It is a sticky mess that I am especially pissed about. Not that it’s directly your fault. But indirectly, it is.)

At first I thought, “is it supposed to be funny”? And for a moment I thought, maybe, this person must be a genius? Got me to look! Where’s his number? But you didn’t fill out that part of the application. Instead repeating your email address, chieftan@insidiouslydelicious.wow in all fields. Here’s a little tip Chief: It’s impossible for me to consider you as a candidate when I don’t even know your first name.

Q: Tell us about what your last team did and what you are most proud of?

Your Answer: I’ve primary rolled my Troll Mage, Nosfuratus, but I’m most proud of my undead pally, Oralroberts (obviously I’m HORDE4Life). Oreo, we call him for short. His skill tree branches are intentionally optimized to pull agro. (I know, I know, this was before they nerfed the Blessing of Salvation buff). Anyway, like a tank but, he could turn on dime, then drop a Blessing of Protection, and a Hammer of Justice, and CONSECRATE! Like a fucking ninja with a 100 thousand pound hammer going mach-3 in a flaming pope-mobile! Oreo, crunched every gnome he came across in Azeroth into a puff of hydraulic waste with one glance and plunder of his undead holy hell. Kaaaachuugggkkkk!!

Once in the encounter at Khaz’goroth, where Kel’Thuzad, founder of the Cult of the Damned and one of the principal agents of the Lich King who spread the plague of undeath across Lordaeron. I led DPS over a feral, Bear-formed Shaman, and a fire Mage in a complete Tier-7 set (the mage also had the Lagiesh Greatstaff of the Lagger!) I was pushing all limits, adding about 10,000 DPS per cooldown to the leaderboard with my Holy Smite. In the end I had racked up 1.4M points of damage, which was about 25% of the entire output of our 20 man raid group in the encounter.

At this point I am not even sure what I am reading. Paul is back. Well, he’s awake enough and we’re looking at this together. He says that this has got to be a hack or an imposter. Either way, you lost me at “Khaz’goroth, where Kel’Thuzad…” whatever.

Is there anything else you would like us to know about you in regards to this application?

Your Answer: If you can’t tell by now, I am serious about gaming, well I don’t really play any other games, I am serious about World of Warcraft. Raids take 4 nights a week of at least 6 hours of playtime. Every week, on Tuesday afternoons, after the reset, we send the freshest group of noobs we can find in to clear the first couple of bosses in the instances we are targeting. They’ll usually squabble and get wiped by trash for about 3 hours before a couple of them will relinquish their application to the guild, sit outside the Orgrimmar Auction House, and whine into the cities public channel (5), while their pet Alarm-o-Bot beacons trauma for all to see.

WoW Pet Alarm-o-Bot, https://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pets/mechanical/robots/alarm-o-bot/Although we found your application entertaining and Paul especially thought it was amazing that the founder of the Insidiously Delicious World of Warcraft guild (or an imposter) applied to be our Senior Director of Biz. We absolutely fail to understand how your experience playing a World of Warcraft makes you an ideal candidate.

Best,

- Your friends at InterBizCo.biz

Skate or Die

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Developed and released for the Commodore 64 by Electronic Arts: Programming by Stephen Landrum and David Bunch. Graphics by Michael Kosaka. Sound effects by Christopher Grigg. Music by Rob Hubbard and Kyle Granger. Product management by Kelly Flock. Associate producer: Don Traeger. Technical support: David Maynard. Art director: Nancy L. Wong.

Skate or Die

What I learned making content and editorial at Electronic Arts

The first title published by the behemoth video game corporation was Skate or Die in 1987, for the Commodore-64. Many people don’t know this or think this when they hear EA or EA SPORTS it’s in the game. If you haven’t played Skate or Die you aren’t missing out on much. It was an impossibly hard simulator of halfpipe, downhill, and gladiator-like pool fighting skateboarding. If you were really talented (or just spent way too much time playing it) you’d maybe land a handstand. Back in those days games were ametuer. It was the beginning. The game’s release also just so happened to be during the early days of Silicon Valley in general.

You see, EA was founded in 1982 by Trip Hawkins, while he was working for this other corporation you may have heard of called Apple Inc. It’s the classic Silicon Valley story you’ve heard on repeat since computers became cool sometime around the late 1990s. One of a Stanford graduate starting a dreamy computer software company. Skate or Die was the earliest offering. It now seems more fitting to the San Francisco of yesteryear than today.

My story isn’t about Skate or Die, Trip, or the history of EA and Silicon Valley. Rather it’s about my love of gaming and video games and my experience working for the company and in an industry I adore. This is about what I did, how it affected the business and myself, and where I think I am headed now. Before you read any further, know that this is in memoritorium and is a therapy of sorts for myself, nothing more or less. The opinions expressed in this piece are my own and obviously are not warranted or sponsored by Electronic Arts or their studios or partners. I was laid off from EA in a mass layoff a few months ago, April 2019.

Press start key!

A boy finding his love for video games

Sometime around 1987 a starry eyed little boy, born in (and of) the early 80’s zeitgeist, found his love of video games. There was something wrong with little boys that didn’t play video games in this era. Friends were ranked on their cartridge collections and completion percentages of Metroid or Final Fantasy III. I was so endeared with the medium I would routinely meet up with a friend to design our own Mega Man maps. We did it with pencil and grid paper. He’d focus on the boss and I would create the level. At nine years old so we didn’t have computers yet and even if we’d had computers the 8-bit programming that made up these early games would have been super challenging. This is why Skate or Die sucked to play and took five years to develop. Remember EA started in ‘82 and published its first title in ‘87.

Early on video games were relentlessly hard to play—just ask anyone who beat Goblins and Ghouls or PunchOut. They weren’t responsive enough. They were laden with bugs and holes. Most of them were hard-coded and if they crashed or you spilled juice on the cartridge, the game and the save were gone forever. There were no backups or redundancies, just a good old piece of plastic with some chips in it. It might as well have been a cassette tape rewinding and forwarding on command.

Growing up in the ‘80s I was one of the many who daydreamt about playing video games, drew video games maps and characters in class, and play-acted out scenes from them. As I grew older the games grew with me. They got more angsty in the ‘90s when Mortal Combat was obsessed with Fatalities and Twisted Metal filled afternoons with missiles exploding out of an evil clowns’ ice-cream truck. Later I found storytelling of the likes I’d never seen before in Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger (both still widely considered two of the best games ever). As adults, my brother’s and my love for football still manifests in regular Madden bouts, which, no matter how long it’s been since one of us played, are almost always too close to call.

Once out of college and onto the dropship of adult life I found community in a game called World of Warcraft. Like most departing from college, my friends and I had been dispersed across the country. One way we stayed together was to hang out and kill murlocs in the virtual world of Azeroth (insert murloc gurgling sound). For those of you not familiar with WoW, it’s an online game that is filled with real people playing trolls and paladins and other fantasy types. There were many late nights of raiding, or just talking about raiding. We built a guild with a website. We farmed items and put them in a bank for our members to utilize to play advanced end-game content. We were a fellowship of gamers. A collective in search of the same goals: to beat bosses…really really fun (not important) goals.

Being silly and having fun is why we play games!

Getting in the game

How I got into the gaming industry

You can imagine my response when I got a phone call from a previous colleague asking if I wanted to join them at Electronic Arts. I was ecstatic! But, my WoW days ended as my friends started to drop in to life and do adulting things, like have kids or take responsibility for their careers. I had done the same, and my gaming days were a little distant. I’d pursued and completed my master’s degree in New York and soon after moved to LA. Then the Bay Area to work in tech. I no longer had time to consume video games, at least I thought. I said yes to come to EA—here was no thought, I knew I wanted to Skate or Die.

My friends that played WoW were my community. We still kept in touch. Nowadays that meant texting each other, but we stayed in touch nonetheless.

Subsequently, my wife, my 6 month old son, and I moved back to Los Angeles and settled in. I started soon after at EA as an Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Strategist. A fancy title but simple task, I supported the editorial and content teams in strategy and product implementation. That meant things like gettingdata for articles from developers and amiplifying content through Google’s AMP program.

Ripping and dipping

What we made

The company was changing its approach. A pivot of the variety of “content is king”. EA had found itself stagnant in the market, making the same titles year over year to less and less fanfare. The market was good but their approach wasn’t sustainable and they knew it. Their response: create more content, better content, and a steady stream of it. Hence, we were brought on to create a newsroom. There was some vision, but not enough. It amounted to some random BCCs from higher ups asking us to spur“cultural moments” (still not sure what those are) or to “execute with global reach”. A fast reminder that buzzwords and acronyms and task forces are the cotton candy of leadership.

Our mission directive seemed simple though. We would build a media company inside a video game publishing company.

Upon arrival we were a team of three: myself, my boss who I’d worked with before, and a senior manager from a devastated marketing team. I later found out he was the last man standing from the multiple year culling the marketing departments had been laid to waste with.

We were assigned to look across the entire portfolio (12+ AAA games), an impossible task for three people. “Can you provide a centralized execution of content?” We’d do the best we could but we needed a team. There was a copy team and a content strategy team that we partnered with but we needed direct heads working with studios on specific titles (spoiler, we never got there). We quickly absorbed the copy and content strategy teams.

All the sudden we are twelve people. Still vastly underhanded.

That was the first year. Really, it was the honeymoon of any job, especially one that lights up your starry-eyed nine year old self like this one did for me. We hit the ground, pounding our fists with genuinely interesting work:

We made some beautiful content rich sites for Mass Effect and Star Wars Battlefront II.
We implemented GIFs and data journalism into our editorial.
We built Easter eggs and community-driven content that were touched by hundreds of thousands of players.
We created kits and services for our audiences to use in creating their own content on their own channels.
We created a philosophical approach of telling human stories and acting as reporters to “stage and report”. (Sorry I know those are buzzwords. I’m not innocent either.)
We created a lense through which we validated all our ideas.
We built efficiencies across:
- Publishing (both web and social)
- CDNs
- Content Management
- Analytics
- Localization
We wrote content strategies and held our publication accountable to them.

We had built (or we’re well on our way to building) a media company. It was like playing baseball in the majors.

Skinning knees and elbows

And our impact on the business

Over the course of year one we built a team of nearly thirty comprised mostly of copywriters, content strategists, and a few editorial staff.

Our impact on the business was difficult to measure but we had our successes (however subjective they may be).

We created editorial that is now standard practice for EA called the “This is” series.
We created an easter egg in Battlefield engaging players of Battlefield about the announcement of a new title. The response was that more than half a million people logged in concurrently to watch the announcement livestream.
We created regular updates on sports titles like FIFA and Madden with daily Twitch streams, custom web products, and regular updates from the developers
We interviewed top FIFA, NBA, and NFL athletes and made full content pieces with them. Here are a few examples:

Watching out for gnarly

Two reasons the video game industry is only going to get worse

My perspective and a lot of those that have worked in gaming is that the gaming industry is rotten AF. What I mean by that I’ll do my best to explain two-fold.

One - it’s really hard to make video games at the expectations gamers have now. At least for AAA titles.
Two - it’s a tale we hear, too often now, of a business eating its own tail and being at conflict as to how to move forward with its product. It’s too focused on how to make ridiculous profits year over year for stakeholders.

My first reason: The product is too difficult to make. It takes too much time and requires too much work and advanced knowledge of 3D, annimation, and programming.

Think about a fruit tree, an apple tree, for this metaphor. When it blossoms in the spring it’s pretty but hardly useful to its owner. As the summer passes, its flowers begin to turn to fruit. In the fall the fruit is brilliantly ripe—calling to be plucked. In the ‘80s, gaming was the blossoming tree entering the summer. Then in the ‘90s the flower survived its summer boom. And continuing into the 2000s to ripened to a fruit.

As the industry grew and the games got remarkably better and more complicated, the business of making and publishing games growth was stunted.

As for our apple tree? Well, it’s got rotting fruit hanging on the tree now.

Games have continued to be set at a price point of $60, which is not enough to recoup the cost of making the thing. Publishers now, more and more, take on debt to build games and rely on monetization fromother ventures. These tactics are divisive and widely disliked. You may have heard of a little thing called loot boxes? The industry calls them micro-transaction, and, well, this is actually the premise of my next point.

My second reason: The business is eating its own tail and bis at conflict with itself.

The gaming industry is born of tech. Just look at Tripp’s voyage from Apple to starting EA fresh out of Stanford. Making games is software and making software is tech work. Tech work right now, in our postmodern age, is in the neanderthal stage. It’s just learning to start fires and not die from eating raw meat.

Gaming, interestingly enough, is where the term “burnout” originated. Studios were renowned for crunch time and expectations of long hours were the dues you paid for working on something you love. Working in the industry is predicated by accepting a horrible work/life balance.

The reason this can persist: accountability is non-existent. Leadership acts more like a conveyor belt for the loyal than rewarding those who actually listen to what people are saying. Look at the insane brain drain happening now at Activision because they laid off 800 people while giving a new CTO a massive bonus. People who built that company left and doubtless, the games will suffer.

I have a rational fear (I think it’s rational) that the gaming industry has in its wake built a dark army of people that are difficult to work with because they accepted the grind and lack of meritocracy these companies.. I hope I’m wrong.

Pool-galdiator was never a skateboarding thing

What did I think I was getting into?

Skate / Die / Start Over

When Tripp founded EA he wanted to make electronic art. I think. I am not Tripp and I have never met him so I can’t validate that. But I think I can make the assumption. I imagine a young engineer at Apple thinking, “we could make art out of this software, interactive art”. Simple if you think about it. Video Games are software interfaces that respond to your input and feedback. They’re games, yes, but really, they’re software first.

Like all software, there’s a learning curve to usability. We call this the users experience. I am an interaction designer by training so let me quickly explain how long it actually took software to get a grip on what good interactions look like.

Sometime around the late nineties, Steve Jobs met a fella named Cooper. Cooper was working on the interface design of medical equipment used mostly in surgery. Extremely specific technology applications that require robust systemization and reliable output while also having cohesive and usable operations. They weren’t trying to “delight” a user back then. Instead, they were simply making sure your heart didn’t stop while the doctor reads the defibrillator manual. The application of the users experience was paramount to the machine and software working properly.

Steve Jobs was, without skepticism, very interested in Cooper’s work because he had heard of this concept of the users experience or, put academically, the HCI (Human Computer Interaction) that Cooper was using to help surgeons. Steve wanted to incorporate it into his products. Once the iPhone released and changed the world, everyone wondered what the secret was to making such a ubiquitous product. It was the focus on the customer as a user, not a transaction. Thus, UX design and interaction design was born.

Video games took the same path as the rest of Silicon Valley software junkies: from therassic software to jurassic games to modern experiences. Unlike their neighbors, EA didn’t take the interaction design and user’s experience very seriously. Instead, they thought of the user as a transaction, and instrument of making money. This misstep led to them further and further down a capitalist pig spiral, eventually not giving a fuck and outright treating theirusers as unlucky guests at a micro-transaction surprise party.

What made video games so interesting to that starry eyed kid in the ‘80s was that they were a fun way to learn. Interaction is about learning and skilling up. Meaninglessly! Being good at a game takes practice and focus, and I hate to mention it, but like learning anything and being good at it, it takes patience.

I had computer lab in school and we had a choice to play Math Crunchers or The Oregon Trail. We learned things like how to read and how to multiply from these games. They gave us skills that we’d have otherwise learned through repetition and basic literacy. Instead we were able to apply the learning to an interaction that was engaging—so engaging, in fact, that if you ask anyone my age about these games, they’ll probably be able to share with you very specific examples of playing them.

John Madden once said that thepartnership that made the most infamous football video game series of all time with EA was focused on being a teaching gamefirst. His only requirement for the game was that it teaches people the game of football. A little known fact is that John Madden was a teacher before he was a coach. Now doesn’t it just make sense why he would be one of the greatest coaches and announcers of all time? He taught me and the rest of America how the game of football works for over twenty years on Monday nights.

Video games have taught us how football works, taken us all over the world, and helped museums recover historical artifacts the elusive Carmen Sandiego stole. Video games have brought the world together to solve puzzles in Myst and to experience bards’ tales of adventure at virtual pubs in Ultima Online. Eve, a massive multiplayer online game of spaceships, once had a completely organic civil war break out amongst its two largest player guilds!

There’s a great book chronicling twenty years of the Ultima Online community called Braving Britannia: Tales of Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online

Game Over

What I learned and where I'm at with all of this

As I mentioned in the beginning of this article I was includedin a mass layoff not long ago. I learned a lot from my experience at EA. It’s actually very difficult to write about this because, in all honesty, I am still a bit angry and resentful. When I was laid off it wasn’t just me, it was a lot of folks that I’dhad a hand in hiring. I feel guilty and responsible for not doing better to protect those people. A few of them have young kids and, as a father with two young boys, that bothers me the most. We have a larger responsibility when we employ and work with others than just giving them a desk, paycheck, and healthcare. We also have a responsibility to keep them employed and keep those people and their families in good situations.

I’ve shared how I got into video games, how I ended up working for the largest video game company in the world, and what we did while I was there. I’ve told you the story of how video games have grown in my lifetime, alongside me. I’ve written about how software is at the root of all gaming, how my training and experience in UX and interaction design are fundamental to its creation, and how these methodologies, in better application, can solve the industry’s problems. I’ve shared how learning is part of the process of playing games and why that’s sticky.

In closing, I am not sure where I am headed. Trip Hawkins wasn’t sure where he was going either. I don’t think I want to write another post in a few years about how I helped a company do all this stuff and then questions both the ethics and the sausage making of the business itself. I don’t think I’ll be looking for work in the gaming industry. Instead, I’m looking to work forsomething where I can pay forward a little more. Something that’s less of a take and more of a give. Like government or global warming. Maybe financial wellness or healthcare.

You think Trip skating down the Santa Cruz boardwalk thought his electronic artistry company would become this? I’m sure he didn’t. Did that starry-eyed boy getting up early on Saturday mornings to play video games ever think he’d be on the inside? I’m sure he didn’t either. I’ve learned a lot and have grown a lot from my experience. Most of the work we did was challenging and rewarding. And almost all of the people I worked with regularly were spectacular at what they did and kind doing it. I’ll always have fond memories of the time I spent at EA. And I wish all my colleagues the best going forward. I’m in the game, y’all.

Skate or die.

~ Jennings, reflecting on his work at EA in Summer of 2019

Jennings Makes Stuff

Twirl Me

Twirl Me

Should sharing be as light and swift as an arrow or a bombast and crushing as a cannon ball?

Cannon Ball!

Gonna try it

This world is a mess

This world is a mess

Living longer without a plan

We all fucking saw this coming

Sound Synth

Sound Synth

Oversharing

Oversharing

Altus Cosmic Site

Altus Cosmic Site

For Immediate Release

Dispatch from Parental Leave in Lockdown

Dispatch from Parental Leave in Lockdown

Entropy

Growing Slower

Who Cares

Gardening

Time Away from Screens

Intentional Routines

What is Content Strategy

What is Content Strategy

An Urban Footprint in the New York Times

An Urban Footprint in the New York Times

Your World of Warcraft Job Application

Your World of Warcraft Job Application

What experience do you have in biz wellness or greatness that we should consider for this role?

Have you managed a wellness and greatness team? What’s your management style? What did you find most difficult?

Q: Tell us about what your last team did and what you are most proud of?

Is there anything else you would like us to know about you in regards to this application?

Skate or Die

Skate or Die

Press start key!

Getting in the game

Ripping and dipping

Skinning knees and elbows

Watching out for gnarly

My first reason: The product is too difficult to make. It takes too much time and requires too much work and advanced knowledge of 3D, annimation, and programming.

My second reason: The business is eating its own tail and bis at conflict with itself.

Pool-galdiator was never a skateboarding thing

Game Over