Okay there are two things on my mind today that are bothering me.

1) Chris Daughtry has a really freaking weird beard. Am I the only one who notices this guy is like, way overwaxed?

2) The recent posts about CF administration as it pertains to marketing, staff development, playerbase shrinkage and immortal/mortal relations.

Honestly, I don’t know why I’m bothered so much! As a business person I feel like, why should I waste my time trying to talk to people who (I feel like) just want me to shut up? Why not use my energy thinking about my own stuff, instead of worrying about CF? Frankly, I don’t have a good answer for that. I guess I just -care-, you know? My first character was a warrior before warriors had specs… and I don’t even know how many years ago that was. So I’ve probably played this game for 10,000 hours, maybe more. I’ve made friends here, some online, and some in my area that I’m -really- close to now. One of them stood up in my wedding.

So I kind of feel like you guys are all my extended friend network, and that includes even you administrators that frustrate me. (Valg) I’m not trying to pick fights. I’m not trying to point and laugh. -Honestly- I want to -help-. Maybe that doesn’t come through in my posts, but that’s how I feel. I have volunteered not only my input, but my time as well. There is no reason for me to become immortal. I’m not a fiction writer, I can’t make areas for ####, and I’m probably not 50th percentile for interaction. But I -am- good at running organizations, and I -am- good at bringing people to a product or service. I would even say I’m very good at it.

I keep pointing out my credentials because I don’t what else to do to keep from being thought of as just another squeaky wheel with no face. I think that if Mr. Valg pulled into my parking lot in the affluent town of Northville MI, walked past my chrome wheeled, windows tinted, 12 speaker Bose, nav system, dvd playing RX8. (Or to a lesser extent my now more family oriented Explorer that I just paid cash for) Told Wendy (My PA) that you wanted to see me, and got a “Do you have an appointment?” Then got walked through my 4,000 square foot building to my office and sat down across the desk from me -- to ask for advice that I bill out at $500 an hour, for FREE… and I smiled and said, “I’m happy to help,” -- I think if that were the case you’d be listening to me a lot differently. Which, hey, while I’m at it… if you want to COME to my office, your welcome to. Call Wendy and make an appointment!

You guys are fond of saying that CF is different. That because it’s a volunteer organization, or that because it’s internet based or that because it’s free, it’s somehow exempt from the rules that every LLC has to play by to be successful. I know your Sunday School teacher said that your unique and special… but you aren’t that unique. (That’s a consulting joke.) Business owners are always fond of talking about how THEIR staff is different, how THEIR customers are different, how what we tell them won’t work in THEIR town. They fully admit it would work great somewhere else, but for whatever reason they are unique and special, and it won’t work for them. Just not true. *shrug*

This is a serious question - do you really care if there are only 50 or so people that play? I mean… if your happy with the current small playerbase dwindling to that, fine. I mean really… you can choose for that to be the way you do things. Not a wisecrack… if that’s what you want to do, do it. You probably have years left before it totally dies. Stop reading right here.

Okay, if not… let me try to gently and lovingly explain to you what CF’s problems are, so that they are off my chest and don’t keep popping up in the back of my mind all the time. In no particular order.

#1 Poor delegation.

In an ordinary small business you start with an owner who initially does everything. He’s product development, customer services, sales, marketing, janitor, receptionist - everything. From here he makes a decision to focus on what part of the business he would prefer to focus on, the product side or the “business side.” In CF’s case the product side would include area development, quests, code maintenance, skills, classes and all that. Basically the running of the game. On the business side of things you have the website, the customer service or player/imm relations, and marketing/sales. In CF’s case the ownership has decided to work on the product side, and totally ignore the business side.

This is not at all uncommon, and sometimes it works well as it did in our case. Sometimes the product is good enough to attract a customer (read player) base - but without focus put on the other side of the business it’s always temporary. It’s kind of like an engine that doesn’t fire on all cylinders… it can chug along for a while, but eventually if the other cylinders don’t come online, the engine will fail. This is what we are experiencing right now. ***The only reason that CF hasn’t collapsed is because people are literally psychologically addicted to it.*** It’s players are willing to put up with just a tremendous amount of crap, and still keep coming back. But even that is starting to fail.

I guess I need to know that you guys see it to? I mean, do you think that CFs playerbase is not the smallest it’s been in years and in decline?

Anyhow, no one has ever worked effectively in the -other- area of running CF. You are lacking marketing staff, and we all know that. I am totally baffled at the complete lack of urgency to do something about this. If you want CF to be around for another 10 years, your going to have to.

You are also lacking in customer service. The comments you give players often make me cringe. If I were uninvolved with CF and reading forums and saw some of your posts I’d never start playing. You should delegate staff members whose job it is to deal with the comments/questions/suggestions of players. People who are tactful, nice, and not prone to snotty when people are snotty to them.

I’ll give you an example. Mek recently wrote that post asking if he could contribute his ideas without coding and yada yada. Cyradia took offense (and I’m not arguing the validity of that) and wrote back a nasty post that upset Mek - who was really asking an honest question to try to help. Daevryn responded as well and politely made a good case for the immortal side, and Mek was happy. What Daevryn and Cyradia said wasn’t really very different, the difference was in how it was said. My point is, if Cyradia as a staff member can’t treat a player better than that, fine, just don’t have her respond to peoples posts on ask immortal. Leave that to a customer service immortal who can do it nicely.

What is the point of this? Well a number of quality players leave because they get pissed off at imms. Now be objective, it doesn’t matter whose right or wrong. If you want to retain players, you can’t have them get pissed off at staff. If you delegate that better you can cut down on burned players who quit playing. AND you end up with more polish on forums that potential players might be reading. Also fewer quality players get jaded and become asshole players that we don’t want here.

Right now your system of making staff doesn’t allow for people with customer service/marketing/sales talent to join the team. It is, in fact, built to exclude anyone BUT “product” oriented people.

You have a lopsided team.

Problem #2: staff development.

You can point out that I was heroimm for 11 days, and say I don’t know what I’m talking about, and ignore the fact that I have a staff of people that I train/motivate/retain every day. I have 4 paid employees, and a team of 14 people who not only work for free, but still pay me my fees. Now you can tell me that your Sunday school teacher says that your situation is different than mine because CF is unique and special, or you can just listen to someone who is good at team building.

In the last two years I’ve turned over two out of sixteen volunteers, and never lost a paid staff member. My team functions very well whether I’m there to direct them or not, because I’ve trained them well.

In business we play by the numbers. We don’t go based on our feelings or intuition. You guys have turned over CRAZY staff. Do you even know the % of success for heroimms? I know I keep saying this, and I’m sure I’m coming off like a bit of a prick, but you are not unique and special… any organization who is losing THAT MUCH staff is doing something wrong in the area of staff development.

Something about the way you operate, and I’m not really sure exactly what you’re doing or how to fix it because I’m totally uninvolved, drives away new staff members + mid level staff members (who the players love) and pisses them off. I’m sure you have reasons why, and I’m sure they are totally justifiable in every case, but that’s not the point. The point is your staff turnover is too high, and if you want to grow and to have fresh, unjaded, staff you have to do whatever it takes to change that while maintaining or even raising your standards of excellence. Period.

So I touched on a lot of different things as I vented, but to summarize.

1. marketing
2. staff development and turnover
3. customer service as it pertains to retention
4. appropriate delegation of non-game related things
5. you are not special

Now what will happen is that you imms will find a little point in here that you disagree with, and we’ll have a thread of 15 posts that are all about that one little thing. Let me ask you this, in the global sense is this post making sense to you guys? Do you think I’m talking out of my ass, or do you think I am making valid, professional points? I guess to see my point you have to start with the belief that CFs numbers are dwindling, and it’s a problem that won’t fix itself, and then want to actually DO something about it. That’s why I said, if your okay with the things are, don’t read anymore.

Truthfully, if you’d rather I didn’t give you my input, say so, and I won’t waist my time or yours.