From Abominable to Adequate [Presentations]

It’s my last year in the business school and I see people making the same atrocious presentation mistakes.  This week I have to sit through four separate days of group presentations.  Inspired by the professionalism antithesis I’ve witnessed thus far, here are some suggestions to turn your awful presentation into a bearable one.

1. Don’t ever use Comic Sans ever for anthing, ever. Ever.  Not for presentations, not for documents, not as a joke.  Every time someone uses Comic Sans a unicorn dies.
2. Don’t turn your back to the audience, especially if you are speaking.  I can’t hear you. I don’t want to look at your butt. Or do I?  Either way I’m not paying attention anymore.
3. Please use relevant visual cues.  Static presentations are so boring. Include animations and pictures that relate to your speech.  Connect audible components with visual representations.  Don’t insert decorative pictures.  Using proper visuals maintains your audience’s attention.
4. Roadmap is not a word.  Not as bad as Comic Sans, but don’t use it.  You can call that slide “Agenda.”
5. Project a voice that represents your understanding and possibly some excitement for your project.  Monotone makes me a sad panda.

Yours truly,

~Sean Royce

When Stress is Good…

I’ve been so freaking busy with school and AMA that I don’t even know what to do with myself.

This week we are presenting our case to the ASUO student senate to secure funding for our trip to nationals.  By no means is it guaranteed, but last year we were able to get $3900. 

I’m hoping and praying that we get this money. Last year’s conference was unbelievably fun and was such a good experience.  We attended workshops and seminars, networked with AMA students from across the nation, and then hit the town by night.

Anna lives in N.O. now and she’s been telling me to come visit her.  It would be great if I could fly out early and spend my entire spring break down in the bayou.

So if you’re wondering why I haven’t written anything for a while it’s because I have nothing left. I’m totally wiped by the end of the day and the only thing I want to do is read a book.

It doesn’t help that our house lacks internet.

~Sean Royce

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Not so Breaking News: Casual Games are HAWT

Casual Games are Big Money.  A headline that might have been breaking news a few years ago is not news to anyone who’s been working in the game industry.  That is the biggest trend right now, producing more accessible games on a lower budget.

As a former employee of two video game companies, there was more than one time that I questioned the seven figure production budgets of top companies.  To make things crazier, the budget for the most popular titles are often matched with just as large of a marketing budget. That means that companies might end up spending more than $10 million before their product even hits the shelf!

The backlash to this really took off a couple years ago when top companies and market research firms started to identify the older less ‘hardcore’ audience.

Here’s the point: a game like Grand Theft Auto 4 might sell 15 million copies, but there will still be more people playing solitaire on their computers every single day.

Company Profile: Zynga
Founder: Mark Pinkus
Founded: 2007? unclear…
Product: Casual games delivered on a variety of platforms.  They are known for the common board games turned Facebook applications (Scrabble, Risk, Battleship, etc). Recently they have begun iPhone application development releasing a popular version of Texas Hold’em poker.

Zynga was founded in… uh, 2007?… by Mark Pinkus, the entrepreneur behind support.com and Tribe.net.  Zynga is one of the leading developers of social network gaming and has recently entered the market for iPhone games.

I think more than one person would agree with my assertion that the key to a successful start-up is the right management team, which is why the most striking things I noticed was their kick-ass upper management.

Do you know Bing Gordon?  Uh, Hello!  Bing Gordon!? Having been one of the first employees at Electronic Arts, the largest game publishing and development company on earth, He’s only considered one of the founding fathers of video games.

The point is that these managers were credible enough to secure $29 million from Bing Gordon’s Kleiner-Perkins venture capital group.  If Bing is in, so am I.

Casual gamer – a misnomer?

Although casual games are easy to identify, casual gamers are not.  The accessibility, simplicity, and addictive qualities are what make casual games so damn appealing to investors.  There really isn’t one demographic or psychographic that spans all types of “casual gamers,”  this is what is so nice about their product.

1. Lower budget
2. Wider appeal

An early study published by PopCap games, another groundbreaking casual games developer, shows a number of very interesting facts about casual gaming.  The soar thumb of the study:  Women play casual games more often and for longer periods of time than men.

That’s right, games are not just for 17-year-old billy the kid anymore, grandma is playing too.

In reality there isn’t much reason for me to do an analysis of the product “casual games.” Look at Nintendo.  They bet their company on casual games and are reaping the benefits of it.

Zynga is really on the right track to deliver some cereal ROI to all the VC’s who took part in their start-up.

Looking forward to returning to the game industry,
~Sean Royce

(Check for updates on this post! Right now I need to start studying for my exam at 12:00 :D)

More interesting articles about casual gaming:
Analyze This: Will ‘Casual’ Games Dominate the Future of the Industry?
More Than Games, a Net to Snare Social Networkers
The Article That Started My Assignment… (I heart you, Economist)

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New Venture project: Team Recruiting Day!

Although I only made my poster the morning of recruiting day, I was still a little butt hurt that I couldn’t form a creativity consulting group.  It was stiff competition though! How do you beat custom cake design or square tacos that prevent backside spillage.  I just don’t know anymore.

What went wrong…

1) I did not present the product in a way that people could easily understand

The other products were concrete and easy to envision.  All college students have been to Muchas Gracias at 4:00 am only to wake up with hot sauce and guacamole stains on the cloths they wore that night.  They can ENVISION a square taco; a creativity consulting group isn’t something that college students engage in on a weekly basis.

Props to anyone who can identify this movie quote (from one of my favorites),

“Congratulations! Seeeeriously…”

“Thaaanks.  I wish it didn’t require the seriously.”

“Well, I just don’t think they got it.”

2) The cost structure was probably too high

Really, I didn’t give any thought to how much it could cost to start a “center for innovative inspiration.”  My imagination was running loose about top architecture, sound systems blairing Baroque classical music, entire rooms filled with toys and finger paint, anything that involves returning to your inner child.

I only realized how much that would cost about 5-seconds into my elevator pitch to the class.

3) I didn’t come prepared to SELL

I was tired and just couldn’t get excited enough.

In the end…

Not all in vain though, I ended up on a decent team.  Everyone seems like performers.

What’s the venture?  (Wo)man’s Warehouse, a franchise for female professional attire.  Simple, concrete, scaleable, solid.  I think it will work out.

~Sean Royce

Two Entrepreneurship Class Upates: Team Recruiting and Venture Capitalist Profiling

New Venture Project Update

Classes go pretty quickly on the term schedule, sometimes leading to spotty or incomplete ideas being rushed out the door.  Tomorrow is the day we present our posters for our business proposal in my entrepreneurial management class.

Truth be told, I am just getting started on the proposal poster, and I don’t think I’m going to do the full blown Illustrator project I ambitiously set my eyes on.  It is supposed to visually and succinctly communicate a business idea.  I will focus on those two words in the simplest ways possible.

I’ve decided that for my project I will try to recruit a team of people who are interested in forming the creativity consulting center.

Consulting seems like easy money if you have a good marketing plan.  The goal for tomorrow is to sell four other students on the idea that we could come up with a program that would “Inspire” designers to produce more innovative and interesting products for their companies, then sell that to their managers.  That’s simple enough, I think I’ll use that as my product description.

Entrepreneur Profiling Assignment… only not.

I got an early jump on a project that I’d normally put off until the last minute.  Alan wants us to work on a profile of an entrepreneur in the community at large.  I inquired as to whether he minded if we looked at it from the investment side.  Not a problem since it was an interesting twist on the assignment.

Yesterday David Korus, cousin and colleague, got me in touch with a high profile Venture Capitalist.  I couldn’t be more excited to do this part of the class, look at this guys credentials for Christ’s sake!

The assignment isn’t due until February 24th so I will try to make a trip up to Seattle to do a follow up interview, get some face time, and do some shadowing to check out the world of investment as it relates to entrepreneurship.

Studiously,
~Sean Royce

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Life Update: Tradeskills + Graduation + Real Life

I talked to my academic adviser on Monday and (somehow) I’m on track to graduate this upcoming summer.  Thank you Jesus!

Undergraduate degrees are overrated.  Sometimes it’s really great to set aside months at a time to read about theory and big pictures, but good lord I am ready to make some money.

But what does that matter? As soon as I’m of school I will only replace the time I do homework with alternative forms of learning.  I already spend the majority of my free time teaching myself about SEO, web development, design, art, and industry.  Lifelong learning is just part of who I am.

The reality is  that the most useful things I’ve learned in college I’ve taught myself. 

I am motivated by career development, creating value, improving organizations, and eventually bettering the world.  There’s you’re daily dose of idealism.

ready to graduate,
~Sean Royce

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Entrepreneurship in the LCB: Scheduled to Innovate

This term is another round of amazing classes through the LCB. The concentration that is growing the quickest seems to be Entrepreneurship.  This term I have a couple classes that happen to fall under that umbrella and I will be keeping tabs about them through my blog to add more on my ideas about SME’s, which will be a much needed piece to rebuilding our economy.

This term I’m enrolled in MGMT 335 – Managing New Ventures.  Our professor has asked us to keep a journal of developed, simple and even outrageous start-up ideas as a way of fostering the entrepreneurial spirit.

Today, i’ve been reading an article about 23 student innovations that are winning award around the country. Very interesting stuff so I thought I woul share it with you.

If any people reading my blog have start up idea’s, I’m always willing to hear them.  It’s always refreshing to try to see how enterprises are formed.

Studiously,
~Sean Royce

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