Chicklettes
As I was slipping back into real life I found myself sitting down to write on my book. It’s been a while so I chose to re-read a few sections to get my mind back in the game. I’m out of practice so my mind was wandering rather staying on the topic at hand. I thought I’d share the results of that wandering with you.
- I wonder how many officers a typical guild/clan has? Do you think it scales with number of members.
- A lot of these sections remind me of the functions of a Human Resources department, is there room for a post drawing comparisons between the two? Is there a benefit to this comparison?
- That guy that said I write about guild leading like it’s a small nation, should I lighten up in my presentation here? I find most of my writing takes an air of professionalism for the topic. Why would someone bother to read something that it didn’t seem like I’d addressed the matter as something of import?
- I wonder what the comparative age of guild masters to the average age of their guild is?
- Why can’t I see the google notebook Matt sent? I wonder if it’s just me or everyone he sent it to.
- You think anyone is really going to buy a book about guild leading? Maybe no one has written one before because no one wants one.
- Tonight’s the last raid before the weekend for the guild… I wonder how it’ll go tonight. I need to go over our twins strat this weekend….
- I should use the polls on the blog to get some informal statistics about the things I wonder about general guild leadership…
- hmmm this will be another post without pictures, I’m pretty sure that means Matt’s going to hyjack my blog and get Wyn to retroactively add pictures to these posts.
- My pug has put my legs to sleep, how can something weighing 25 pounds keep me weighing at least 10 pounds more than that (=P) in place?
- I should move the dog, and go to the kitchen for lunch…. what should I have for lunch, I think there’s a leftover wrap in the fridge, mmmmm wrap…..
- I still have over a thousand entries on my blog reader, maybe I shouldn’t try to go back to working today maybe I should take a day to catch up on that and rest before putting myself back to work, clearly my mind is not on topic and you have to be a good reader to be a good writer….
- Oooo I still have to work on the new guild website… I was going to use that to write my chapter on guild websites and the series I wanted to write for the blog about websites… I think that technically makes it count as work on all three things…..didn’t I have a guild that said I could use their website too for that blog series… have to check my blog idea notebook… you know I haven’t checked that thing since before I stepped away, it doesn’t do me any good if I don’t use it..
And with that, I beg your leave to go work on the new guild website. Let me know if you guys liked this format or hated it. It’s atypical of my writing style, but like the chicklette said maybe I need to lighten up some and try new things.
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September 11th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I actually really enjoyed this style. The stream of consciousness style gives a unique insight into the busy mind of a GM and writer.
September 11th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
- I’d read your book.
- We have 7 officers and the GM. I was happier when we had 5+GM but we incorporated another guild.. and offered officer positions to their old GM/Co-GM. This is not including the “Class Leads”.
- wrt old entries in blog reader, cut and run. Start with a clean slate. Otherwise it’s just a dreaded task.
- If you want a guild website you’re welcome to use ours. I’m pretty sure we’re doing it all wrong.. and at time the free hosting service is atrocious.. but it’s what we have. http://westkingdom.guildcafe.com
See also: http://www.thehuntersmark.net/2008/08/10/your-guild-web-site-sucks/
A pic:
September 11th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
If you can’t find the website you were looking for, you can use ours if you want. (Click on my name I think.) If you’d like to know more about it, you can reach me thru the contact email address you find there.
I like the mix of post styles. I enjoy both and it’s fun to swap between the two. Variety is the spice of guild leadership, I always say. (Ok, maybe not.)
Just because something hasn’t been done, it doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea. There’s tons of business books, but it’s daunting trying to manually convert all that info into something that applies to guilds. It’s a completely different organization model.
Happy lunch!
September 11th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Like Valyre said, Auz, I like both styles… and I’ll buy your book.
Currently, my guild has 9 officers and that number has only increased by a couple since the guild has grown from 20 accounts about (4 officers) to it current 75 accounts (9 in total).
Bring on the polls and the stream of thought!
September 11th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I really like your style and presentation… the formal posts show the amount of thought (and meta-thought) behind your successful guild, and the informal ones help to understand where you’re coming from and how we get there.
I can offer a couple data points now about guilds and number of officers; in the cases I’ve seen, I think the GLs tend to hold onto old officers (who’ve quit the game or whatever) for too long, and be too slow and cautious in recognizing new leaders.
Guild 1: (casual guild, I left when it became clear I was the only officer interested in *trying* a 25-man dungeon). GL fluctuated between total absence and almost manic discussion of changes. About 4-7 active officers, probably about 70-100 members. Goal was to have about 10 officers, but I don’t think enough ever got selected; strong partitioning between tasks and friction between officer cliques ended up cutting it down to about 8 officers, but a few were always inactive. About 2-5 “leaders” from the general core ended up covering a lot of holes.
Guild 2: (”progression” guild) GL was very (unhealthily?) active; played 40+ hours per week, led most raids, etc. Had 5 officers, 2 of whom had quit the game, and 2 more who were mostly-inactive. Ended up having to appoint 3-4 “raid leaders” after people pointed out that he was burning himself out; still scheduled and slotted all raids, tried to explain strategy, etc. Finally appointed 1 or 2 raid leads as officers; didn’t want a larger set of officers than that. Membership: about 40, with about 20-ish active raiders. Raid officers didn’t seem to ever seem to have reviews/discussions/postmortems about their raids, and raid scheduling never really had a plan or pattern.
In both cases, it seemed like motivated, hardworking players (not just myself, I can count at least 3-4 from the first guild and at least 5-8 from the second) ended up assuming a lot of “officer” work without any recognition because of the extra work that people wanted (Kara/heroic/PvP events, covering for burnout). My personal guess is that there’s a certain minimum number of people for an officer core, and then the number of additional officers needed grows at something betwen log(n) and 1/n officers needed per additional member. (e.g. a guild of 100 probably needs about 10-12 officers, a guild of 40 probably needs about 6-8)
The polls seem like an interesting way to collect data — I’d love to see some of your results.
September 11th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Lessee, The Purge had nine active adult members at it’s peak, nine of who was officers. Prolly not a ratio what’d scale up well…
September 12th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Theres a thread in Guild Relations on the wow forums about Guild Leader ages..
I’d buy the book - There is no program for guild leading
Another approach to the structure of the guild could be as a corporation - my expectations from officers and Gm’s are similar to what I’d expect from myself as a manager or my managers.. But a nation works as well it brings in political / public works / welfare ect ect
and all that is guild related.
September 13th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Write the book. But I better be allowed to write the foreword!
September 15th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
A good follow up question would be what % of the officers actually take an active roll in guild affairs and pro-actively handle issues.
Read: how many of the 10+ most people have actually do something besides talk in dark green?
September 15th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
1 - ABSOLUTELY, I believe a comparative post between HR and guild leadership would be invaluable. I’ve argued in my guild that we should have no “courtesy” promotions, which unfortunately I do believe has happened. Guild members see it and it doesn’t instill trust and respect when officers promote their “friends” that do nothing.
2 - The professional writing style is what draws me to your blog. Even though this post is somewhat different, I’d have to argue that it is still professionally done in it’s own manner.
3 - Will you have a lot of people read your book? Maybe not, but is that a reason not to write it? And I’d definitely read it.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I would buy a book on guild leadership and if there was an online version I would send most of my guild officers to go read it.
My guild was put together by a group of friends who made all of themselves officers and then they went out recruiting. Personally I think we have a few too many chiefs and not enough indians lol.
Personally I say write the blog in the style you prefer, and if that means changing your style up on occasion if it works for you then its golden.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I’m reminded of author Tim O’Brien. He implicitly stated that once an author is established (i.e. recognition, a fan base, published, etc), the author can write with whatever style he wants and someone (an English teacher at worst) will find merit in the style.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
http://ivv.seglda.com/
September 17th, 2008 at 4:27 am
[...] I used to do these. Wyn does them. Then Auz started it. [...]
September 17th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Hi Auz!
Welcome back to my favorite GM! I don’t know if I’ve offered before, but you can use my guild’s website (www.cdvekguild.com) for anything you like. Briolante is the site administrator and I can get him to help you with anything you’d need or questions you might have. I’m in the process of updating our banner–we’re all still wearing what we had on during the Christmas holidays (T4) and it’s about time we put on our T6 for the website.