My GDC lecture, MBA Lessons, Applied, has been scheduled for Thursday, March 26 from 9:00am till 10. This lecture will be nearly identical to the one I gave at the IGDA Leadership Forum, so if you attended that talk, it is safe to skip this one. Otherwise, please come! The IGDA talk received high marks so I’m feeling extra-confident this year. 🙂
Session Description: This lecture will summarize, and make relevant for the game industry, the key lessons that I learned when getting my MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. This includes takeaways from classes on marketing, strategy, finance, and organizational processes. This session will not be a thinly-veiled attempt to glorify business school. There won’t be any spreadsheets or equations — just frameworks for thinking about very real challenges. For example: how you should think about potential game development projects; are they worth starting or continuing? What is the best way to motivate employees and customers? Etc.
Takeaways: MBA marketing and strategy lessons, applied to the game industry (for example, how anchoring and the compromise effect can be used to drive higher price points for games and virtual items.) MBA finance lessons, applied to the game industry (for example: examining the concept of sunk cost, and how failure to understand it can cause companies to over-invest in dying projects, or mistakenly kill good projects.) MBA organizational processes lessons, applied to the game industry (for example: what are the best ways to compensate employees in creative, white collar industries? To motivate and hold them accountable?)
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