EVE CEOing: Corp Programs Continuity

I hear there's a brouhaha happening over on r/eve and the EVE Online forums. I spent five minutes the other day skimming one of the bigger threads and closed it; haven't looked at reddit since. I am in a place with EVE where I am content to not worry overmuch about what CCP does or doesn't do. I log in, I play the game in front of me, and adapt as necessary when they change stuff. Should the time come where I'm not willing to adapt any further (and that would have to be a very far stretch), I'll just quit. This is not to say I don't think players shouldn't express their opinions; I do. I have done so myself quite often and quite intensely (particularly when I was on CSM 5). It's just that to engage in an informed way requires more mental energy and time than I have or want to give to EVE these days.

So, I focus on my corp and its needs almost exclusively during my allotted EVE time. Signal Cartel takes up every minute of that most days, and often a bit more. :P I was speaking with my friend Matterall today (Talking in Stations podcast host, Imperium News Network Creative Director) about the level of effort we put into our respective EVE projects...for no clear return. Except, we both agreed, there IS a most valuable return: the satisfaction of building something meaningful, something that has value to others as well as yourself. For me, that something is Signal Cartel.

To help ensure its success, I bring as many of my real-life business, management, and creative skills to CEOing as I can. Maybe I sometimes go a little too far for an internet spaceships game but I care deeply about doing my level best to serve my corp wisely and with foresight. I am always thinking, "What can I do today that would minimize the disruption in Signal Cartel if I fell over dead tomorrow?"

What's been on my mind lately in that regard is continuity for corp programs. In our 2.5 years of existence, Signal Cartel members have developed programs which have value both to the corp and often to the community. Some have come and gone, some have flourished, others have languished (often due to a key player's departure).

We differentiate between corp programs (which are designed to benefit the corp in some way, are financially supported by the alliance, and subject to leadership oversight) and initiatives (projects run by individuals within the corp on their own and usually funded by them, not the corp). Initiatives sometimes evolve into corp programs if they are well-organized and well-run, and there is sufficient benefit to our members.

The Signal Cartel Anoikis Division (AD) is a subscription program within Signal Cartel for those who want to live in wormhole space. More than a year ago, the AD was floundering and we were going to shut it down. Merk stepped up with a fantastic proposal to turn the whole thing around. He was very successful, expanding the AD and offering even more wormhole opportunities for subscribers. He managed literally every facet of the division and did it *very* well.

For the most part, the AD was off leadership's radar except for Merk's semi-regular status updates. But all the experience he got from running the AD predictably gave him the itch to start his own wormhole project. So, he gave a generous notice, handed off the necessary info to me, and set sail into Anoikis to establish his corp, Lux Permanet. While always bittersweet to see such a trusted and key member leave, we are excited to see how Merk carves out his own space in the sandbox and wish him well.

Meanwhile, I was pondering how best to replace him. The solution had to be one that didn't involve myself or Johnny Splunk running the AD and one that wouldn't fail-cascade if a key person decided to take a break from EVE. Johnny and I are of one mind on corp programs: if our members don't want to invest the time and energy to keep programs they enjoy alive, then we will cheerfully let those programs die. But I knew we had a number of long-time AD members who were invested in the division. There were also a few enthusiastic newer members. Believing that many hands make work light, I coasted the idea of a council to some of them and got a positive response.

So I implemented the AD Council and gave them free rein to self-organize and manage the division as they see fit (within the context of our neutrality and Credo, of course, and their subscription- and donations-supported Anoikis Division fund). It is already working better than I expected. The inaugural council of Alexej Burovshcenko, Ismael Caleb Echart, John Young, Kobo Motsu, Mushroom Greene, Piwakawaka Wakasu and Vladimir Gengodov jumped right into the wake of Merk's departure and kept the AD boat firmly on course. They have written a council charter, updated various documents, and taken on management of membership and other record-keeping tasks. They even already expanded some of the services available to AD members. This bodes well for the AD's future and thankfully has gotten me out of the loop far sooner than expected, so kudos to them!

The model of a shared job or council approach has great appeal. It is robust, proofed against the departure of key people, lightens everyone's workload, and ensures that multiple perspectives factor into decision-making. (Sort of like EVE Online's own CSM, go figure.) In addition to the AD Council, we've implemented a similar "co-leaders" organization for smaller divisions in Signal as well as two key staff positions (Recruiter and Office Quartermaster). Of course, it only works if the appointed people are communicative, responsive, and able to collaborate. My experience is that most who want to do the actual work involved in assisting corporation or alliance operations in EVE tend to be inclined that way anyhow. The team/council approach has alleviated my concerns about whether these programs can maintain momentum. Good teams seem to generate an internal energy that they then pour into their programs. When one member of the team flags, the others take up the slack. That is a much less risky approach than relying on the energy and availability of a single lynchpin player.

The other piece of the continuity puzzle is project resource ownership, access control, and documentation.  As one example, some of our projects' in-game mailing lists and reference documents were owned by players who are no longer with Signal Cartel, which can create intel or management issues. How I wish CCP would let a mailing list owner assign a new owner (if this is possible, it's not apparent to me). Anyway, I've been drafting some policies about these matters as they come to light. The issues are all solvable, it's just hard to think of them all in the crush of a transition.

Always a work in progress, this CEOing thing! Signal Cartel has evolved into something I never envisioned and could never have really prepared for, despite how much work we founders did pre-launch. (Interestingly, the Credo has changed very little and continues to serve us well.) As usual when thinking about CEOing challenges, I find myself wondering how other corps our size handle these types of things, especially if - like us - they are fairly risk-averse and extremely restrained about giving out roles or wallet/asset access.

My CEO Life. How About Yours?

I logged into my "space job" this morning to do two quick admin tasks: reimburse someone for a corp expense and award a medal. But as always, one thing led to another and this is what I actually ended up doing in the course of an hour:

• Checked in in Alliance chat and bantered a bit with my Signaleers; always my first step. 
• Briefly reviewed Corp wallet transactions and Corp Assets (for new 'inherited' assets from biomassed members, which I funnel back into the corp office inventory and wallet).
• Reviewed War Reports associated with active war decs. Not that we care if our members lose ships, but I like to keep an eye out for loss trends which might suggest a need for more mentoring of our members.
• Updated the corp description to fix an error spotted by a sharp-eyed member.
• Updated their membership level for a couple of eligible requesting pilots.
• Reimbursed an Anoikis Division member for a fuel purchase to feed the citadels.
• Responded to a nice note from a departing Signaleer.
• Reviewed applications submitted via our Web site, picked a new one at random to process; declined it for being improperly filled out, sent a note to the applicant to re-submit with brief instructions on how to do it right.
• Reviewed notifications related to pilots who left corp and updated their application records accordingly.
• Checked the Medal Nominations spreadsheet and awarded the SuperCacher medal to a member who has sowed/tended over 100 rescue caches. Created a new medal, MegaCacher, for members who've sowed/tended over 300 rescue caches and awarded it to two pilots.
• Concluded a kill inquiry by annotating the killmail as self-defense. Reviewed the killboard to see if any Signaleers owe me a kill report (required in Signal Cartel when a member kills another pilot).
• Spoke with potential applicants in our public channel EvE-Scout and answered questions. That little video we released this week has caused an uptick in interest from prospective members.
• Updated a couple of spreadsheets.
• Responded in writing to a proposal for a mentoring program from a delightfully ambitious and very experienced Signaleer who has great plans to help our new members find their stride more quickly.

I haven't even looked at our forums or Discord yet today. Think I'll save that for tonight. Maybe I'll be able to undock tomorrow. Or the next day. Or maybe next week. 

I don't know how other CEOs of capsuleer corporations in New Eden spend their time, and I'm kind of curious. If you're a CEO, what's your typical day-to-day activity like?

A Look Back, A Look Ahead

At the start of a new year, it's nice to take stock in the past year's accomplishments and think about what's next. You may notice that this blog has a new name, a new URL, and a new look. Given how comfortably I've settled into my role as a peaceful explorer and CEO of Signal Cartel, it seemed fitting.

A Look Back 

The most notable event of the past year for me was the launch of Signal Cartel. A lot of the reasons why are touched upon in the end-of-year State of the Signal recording from the Signal Cartel leadership team. The summary of topics addressed is here and the audio (about 50 minutes) is here.

Fostering a peaceful exploration-based service corporation with an upbeat, friendly, and nice corp culture may be a counter-culture idea for New Eden but it has succeeded beyond all expectations. It is a delightful home for not only myself but many, many other like-minded folks including LOTS of new players. The first several months were intense in terms of the leadership effort required but Signal Cartel now runs like a fairly well-oiled machine so the burden is minimal these days. We are blessed with so many awesome members who step up to welcome and help new players, run fleets, fill Staff Positions, assist leadership with various tasks, and initiate their own ideas as programs that benefit the corp. It's been amazing to see what our members come up with and pour energy into to help their fellow Signaleers and the wider EVE community.

With Signal Cartel ticking along nicely, it means I get to do more of what I love best: wandering and exploring in New Eden's more dangerous places. Late in the year, I bought and fit up my first cloaky Loki, "Okie Dokie". I am not sure why I never flew a strategic cruiser before; I've had the skills trained for literally years. This is fast becoming my favorite exploration ship. While I still love the beauty and nimbleness of the Astero, the Loki offers more versatility plus bubble immunity so it's become my ship of choice in Venal where I have a null sec exploration base.

Over the last year, I began to use reddit since our leadership team collectively decided that a private corp subreddit was an easier start-up option than installing and administering traditional forum software. The experience has not endeared me to reddit. I generally dislike how it is structured and how posts are automatically archived. Reddit was an okay option when Signal Cartel was just starting but its inherent limitations are unacceptably constraining now. I'll be glad when we launch Signal Cartel's official forums and wiki, which is in the works.

Otto Bismarck Portrait

To earn some ISK, I offered a character portrait service and ended up painting 18 character portraits over the year. I'm pretty proud of this body of work. It earned me a nice pile of ISK but commissions are closed for now while I catch up on RL work. Unless I find myself in need of ISK, I suppose...but one of the nice things about being a peaceful explorer is that my ISK needs are low--I pay for my account subscription with real money and only rarely have to replace a ship.

(Edited to Add) In October, I attended EVE Vegas. It was my extreme pleasure to meet and hang out with Johnny Splunk, several other Signaleers, and many other EVE players. The details are in this post so I won't repeat myself here but it was definitely a fantastic time and one of my year's most memorable events (EVE-related or otherwise).

Without reservation, I can say that 2015 has been the most rewarding and satisfying time I have spent as an EVE Online player.


A Look Ahead

My head is full of ideas and projects for Signal; it would be easy to dive in and lose myself in them. However, the amount of time I choose to invest in EVE Online activities has to be balanced realistically against the demands and enjoyments of real life. I try (and usually fail) to do EVE stuff no more than a couple of hours a day. So in prioritizing the possibilities, I must limit myself to the things I feel will most benefit the corp and still permit me to enjoy time in my spaceships.

With that in mind, I expect to focus my EVE time this year on:

• In-space activities (solo exploration, Signal Cartel Birthday Treasure Hunt, Hugs Fleets, Dark Hugs Ops, and tag-along mentoring)
• Development of a corp LP program for mentoring activities
• Supporting the launch of our corp forums and wiki, including repurposing a lot of content from the corp subreddit to the new venue
• Forming a Training Content Team tasked with producing a series of infographics on topics that are most asked about by our new players 
• Ongoing corp admin stuff
• Maybe a limited number of EVE character portraits

I can't wait to see what interesting challenges Signal Cartel faces this year and the creative ways we discover to address them!

IC: Mud and Mountaintops

She meanders on a mossy stone path that curves gently to follow the perimeter wall of the combination warehouse and office space. Her fingertips brush a wall of live foliage to her right. Her eyes gaze across pristine mountain vistas displayed on the curving video wall to her left. A small fountain gurgles somewhere behind her. She is lost in thought, meditating on all the matters under her purview. As those matters relate to herself, they are dead simple. Magnified through the lens of 700 pilots, they become much more complex. Somewhere between the two extremes is a manageable balance. If only she can find it.

The door chimes. "Johnny Splunk", informs the room AI. "OK", she says.

Exiting the path, she crosses to a comfortable lounge area where Johnny is already seated and unpacking something that smells delicious.

"Hey, what's all this?!" she asks in surprise.

"Dinner! You have to eat, you know!" he says, smiling. Always smiling, this one, she thinks and can't help but smile herself. He jumps up to give her a friendly hug before sitting back down to continue setting out food on the low table between the sofas. She sits across from him.

"Smells and looks great! Yeah, um...I think I forgot to eat today. Thanks!" she says. Her stomach is rumbling with hunger, she realizes. When did she last eat?

They tuck into creamy fish curry, fruit and cheese, fresh-baked (!) bread, and a crisply sweet Gallente white. "Gallente wine, best wine," she declares after the first sip. "Agreed...and I admit I conned the corp AI a little bit to find out which one you favor at the moment," Johnny says. They both laugh. If anyone could con an AI, it was Johnny Splunk.

"So, want to talk about the wars, the spies, or the wormhole search services thing first?" he asks.

"Oh gods, let's save the war talk for last. Whatcha got for me on the spies?" she says, and so they launch into a wide-ranging discussion on fresh intel, observed activities, reports from members and actions being taken. The discussion moves onto corp program changes, tools to support the ever-increasing number of wormhole search requests, EvE-Scout service coverage, corp financials, member initiatives, staff positions needing filled, personnel matters, recent fleet ops, Helios Anduath's latest update from his brief sojourn planetside, and finally the current wars and how to best help new pilots cope with them.

"I just have to stop getting so mired in the day-to-day worry about the ones who insist on flying in high sec during the wars and lose ships because they don't know what they're doing yet," she admits.

"Right...look at it like this: we provide the information they need, they can choose to use it for their own benefit or not. Either way, they get the experience of learning about war firsthand. Trial by fire for some of them. It's their choice. And if they keep making the same mistakes, they're probably not going to stay anyway. So why worry? It'll sort itself out." Johnny shrugs melodramatically and signs their inside joke #freeshrugs by crossing the first two fingers on each hand across each other. They laugh in recognition that they are both prone to worrying and obsessing overmuch about corp things.

"Ok, lady, one last thing before I go get ready for the Vulfpeck fleet." He narrows his eyes at her. "When's the last time you undocked just for the joy of wandering through space to see the sights?"

"Errr...", she mutters.

"Mynxee, you need to go...and I got you something to take with you to help keep things in perspective!" He grins, handing over a small wrapped package.

"Uh oh," she says as she begins to unwrap it. And then she bursts into laughter seeing what is inside.

"Okay, okay, I get the message. It's all about the fun! I'll get the Astero prepped and head out for a few days," she says, still laughing. "You nut!"

"You know it!" says Johnny and with that, he's out the door. Vulfpeck business is serious business.

Smiling, she sends a prep order to her Hangar Chief, gives the bobblehead a tap, and closes every spreadsheet, every email, every Galnet post, and every comms channel before heading to bed with a good book and one last glass of wine.

The Engine of Interesting Experiences

In 2007 when my first EVE character was a two-day old newbie mining her little Gallente heart out in the rookie system Bourynes, a friendly 2003 pilot named Edohatrem Inur struck up a conversation. He convinced me to join his corp along with a bunch of other newbies he'd recruited. The opportunity to harvest knowledge directly from a veteran player fast-tracked my EVE experience in many valuable ways. 

What goes around, comes around...in more ways than one. Not only do I now find myself leading a corp doing the very same thing for exploration-minded newbies, but in full-circle fashion, Edo recently joined Signal Cartel. A self-styled glittervet (kind of like a bittervet but with more optimism and an interest in helping new players), he is still up to his old tricks in Bourynes and elsewhere engaging "adorable newbies" (as he calls them) with his special brand of tough love and carrot-on-stick recruiting tactics.

Edo is fond of pointing out contradictions and questioning assertions. I learned long ago to be amused rather than annoyed by this, since it can lead to interesting discussions and reflections on how we change and grow as players. Case in point: I grumbled recently about the time demands that leading Signal Cartel imposes on me. He immediately pointed out the contradiction of the situation with assertions I posted just over a year ago upon my return to New Eden regarding what I wasn't interested in, to wit:

• Leadership responsibility
• Restrictive corp rules
• Non-PvP, non-low-sec corps
• Newbie corpmates

HA! Guess I'm eating those words now, as my peaceful, credo-bound corp is at 275 members not quite 3 months after public launch...

The contrast between a year ago and now is amusing. But I can roll with it because I've been around EVE long enough to know that nothing stays the same. Anything can happen. Being open to new things--like EvE-Scout founders G8keeper and Johnny Splunk approaching me to lead a peaceful exploration corp--leads to new friends and new experiences. As I've said before, the Signal Cartel experience has given me a fresh perspective on the game, a sense of purpose, and interesting new challenges. All of that is made even better when old friends like Edo decide to come along for the ride...and he is by far not the only one who has done so. Quite a few friends and acquaintances--many who were or are pirates, amusingly--have joined Signal Cartel and contribute significantly to the camaraderie and success of the corp.

Relationships are clearly the engine of interesting experiences in New Eden. Whether those experiences are dramatic and sweeping (e.g, BRAVE's recent troubles) or result from taking a path less traveled (as in Signal Cartel), they all create ripples--sometimes with far-reaching and unanticipated outcomes. The unpredictable way that those ripples, even the tiny ones, intersect with others and evolve will trump assertions every time!

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM!

My brain cells have finally recovered from the crazy, intense weekend that ensued after the public launch of Signal Cartel last Friday evening (EST). I admit that I wasn't sure how our unusual corp credo would resonate with capsuleers. Prior to launch, I wondered if we'd even get 10 new members over the weekend.

Turns out...that credo resonated with a lot of folks. New member and famed explorer Katia Sae talked about how it resonated with her in her blog post "Can't stop the Signal". We have heard a similar response from new members and it is delightful! We now stand at 36 members, some extremely experienced and even well-known explorers and quite a few very new players. This is not a lot compared to the join rate of larger entities such as BRAVE, RvB, or EVE University. But it is a lot for a new corp that had 6 members at public launch and that is still in the process of getting all its ducks in a row in terms of policies, programs, resources, and so forth. So to say I am thrilled is a wee bit of an understatement!

At any given time from Friday through Sunday evening, Alliance chat was zooming by at the speed of a runaway train while I was in mentoring convos with rookies who had just joined, responding on Twitter, updating permissions on our corp's private subreddit, clarifying and adding corp bulletins and other information sources as the need to revealed itself, resolving various issues with Signal Cartel leadership, processing apps, personally welcoming new members...and on and on. But it wasn't just me doing all the work, so some shout-outs are in order.

First, a huge thanks to my two EvE-Scout partners, G8keeper and Johnny Splunk! Without their original vision, none of this would have happened. I am very grateful that they approached me about joining forces to make Signal Cartel a reality. Two nicer people you could not hope to meet or work with! Thanks to G8keeper for organizing and overseeing our ship replacement and exploration loot buy-back programs which I am sure will be well-used by members. And thanks to Johnny Splunk for the genius behind the EvE-Scout Web site, our Signal Cartel pages, the coding for our Application Form, and making requested feature changes on the fly to improve our recruiters' quality of life and clarify the requirements to apply. By the way, have you followed @eve_scout on Twitter yet?

A million thanks to our lead recruiters Helios Anduath and Ashoka Maurya for being on the ball the entire weekend fielding questions from prospects, processing apps, answering rookie questions in private convos, and more. A special thanks to Helios for somehow managing to have brain bandwidth to write a great instructional guide for members on consistently formatting corp bookmarks for wormholes in Thera.

A big shout-out and thank you to every single one of our new members for coming onboard to share our vision of an explorer's life in New Eden! Special thanks to all of our experienced players who so patiently answered questions and helped others in Alliance chat. It was a wonderful thing to observe the intelligent, civil, helpful discourse in that channel all weekend. We have somehow managed to attract an amazing number of knowledgeable, good-humored, and well-spoken people who are keen to actively contribute to logistics, mentoring, and more. What a foundation to begin with! Warms this old pirate's heart, it does!

Many of us in Signal Cartel who were engaged in handling the influx of new folks were as a result not out scouting signatures in Thera. A big thank you to our friends in Furtherance. and our affiliated EvE-Scout scouts who took up the slack and helped keep the sig data on EvE-Scout up to date.

And finally a huge shout-out to #tweetfleet for Tweets, reTweets, and sharing of information about Signal Cartel in your channels and on your blogs. It was seen and people responded, so many, many thanks for your support and positive encouragement.

Hopefully I've not missed anyone...if I have, call me out and I'll update my post!

Decisions, Decisions...Not Just Yet

I commented on Twitter that I was returning to Eve in a few weeks. Lots of nice tweets welcomed me back and many suggested corps to consider joining (as did a few private messages). I really appreciate this warm response! But the corp decision is one for the future, as I must first discover how Eve runs on my satellite internet connection and whether I will enjoy the New Eden that has evolved since I was last there.

About that internet connection... My little farm is tucked into a rugged corner on the morning side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. There is no cell service here and only one option for internet service: satellite. I used to play Eve on satellite but it was pretty painful for both PvP and voice comms. Eventually, the service I had throttled traffic so much due to oversubscription that I couldn't even log onto a voice server.

Since then, I've moved to a new service on a Gen4 satellite. Overall it is a great improvement but thanks to the laws of physics, the latency in a satellite connection cannot be overcome. With the old service, I had latency and traffic lag; now pretty much it's only latency affecting things. It remains to be seen how much that affects gameplay. It also remains to be seen how Eve performs these days in light of that latency; it is a vastly different game with many under-the-hood changes in the three years I've been gone. Some of those changes may not play well with latency. We'll see.

Assuming the game is playable on my connection (including voice comms latency which seems a little better than it used to be, based on some recent testing), the next consideration is game enjoyment. After I reacquaint myself with the basic mechanics of doing things, sit in a few channels interacting with folks, have flown around a bit, and see whether the old spark ignites again, I will be looking at corp options. I know from four years of previous experience what I don't enjoy in a corp, so any options I consider won't include:

• Rebooting Hellcats; it was fun in its day but I desire zero responsibility this time around
• Corps that impose too many rules, strict ship fits or fleet doctrines, or minimum activity requirements
• Corps that don't have significant pvp activity in low sec
• Corps whose members are on average too young in real life age; I'm old and prefer to hang out with groups that include a majority of older people because it simply makes for more enjoyable and relatable general conversation.

...to name a few criteria :P

This time around, my playtime will be very limited on purpose. Real life is demanding so time for gaming might at best be a very few hours a week. That's enough for me. I'm coming back to Eve because I love flying around in spaceships, I love PvP, and I miss the social interaction with that community in-game. But I don't want any responsibility in-game or out. I just want to fly around, shoot stuff and have a few laughs. Any corp I consider has to be on board with that.

Meanwhile I'm watching posts on Reddit and Twitter from corp prospects on my short list. Who those are, I'll keep to myself. Suggestions for others to consider are welcome on Twitter or in the comments.

Aside: A few people have joked with me that my timing is perfect to prep for a CSM10 campaign. Uh, nope. Not gonna do that again. I love the CSM concept and I really like keeping up with each new council's activities but running for a seat holds no interest for me.