FRONT - A Strategy, Design and Technology Studio

With this in mind, I’m very proud to be part of Cross Creative; a 9 month programme that brings people together from the media, web and gaming industries to learn, share experiences and perspectives, develop new ideas and form partnerships.

This month’s session was themed around Collaboration and featured talks by Yvonne Dunn of Pinsent Masons (OutLaw), Steve Lawson of Sleepydog, David Thomson of Denki, and Luke Barrett of ThoughtWorks.

Yvonne Dunn - Pinsent Masons

Yvonne covered some fundamental topics such as copyright and trademarks, but the core of her talk was about the legal complexity that can arise when people are collaborating, either online or offline.

Yvonne talked about the risks associated with defamation in online forums/blog comments and gave us some pointers on approaches to moderation, community management.

She also talked about the various legal frameworks which can be put in place to make sure that working partnerships run smoothly - allowing two or more companies to work together on projects with a shared understanding from the outset. With several iPhone developers in the room, she also dissected the terms and conditions associated with the iPhone developer programme; pointing out some of the more interesting clauses. All in all, Yvonne’s talk was really practical and helpful; she’s not the scariest lawyer I’ve ever met by a long way.

Steve Lawson - Sleepydog

Steve Lawson of Sleepydog discussed the (multitude of) things Sleepydog do from game development, IP licensing through to consulting, and his own work to facilitate conversations in unexpected places/venues; bringing people in financial services together to discuss questions of ethics, or government agencies together to talk about transparency and sharing.

David Thomson - Denki

My favourite speaker of the day was actually from one of the Cross Creative participants. David Thomson talked about the philosophy of play and hard work behind computer games development at Denki.

Denki’s work is underpinned by a simple set of shared values and an approach to computer games that places experimentation, pleasure, fun, creativity and quality (“plussing”) above photorealism, complexity, release now & fix later common in other companies. David used the principles behind Denki’s forthcoming game Quarrel to highlight how and why the company decide on what’s a good idea, and what isn’t - what players might want to do, and what they definitely won’t want to do.

It was an exciting talk, it’s clear that Denki do what they do because they love it, and along the way they’ve developed a clear sense as to why people like to play games.

Luke Barrett - ThoughtWorks

Luke Barrett is Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks, a global software consultancy who deliver, and help others to deliver software using the Agile methods. I’ve seen a number of “Introducing Agile” talks before; but Luke’s was by far the most practical - I’m half thinking of getting him to come over to Belfast for some coaching. We shall see!