Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with strategy

Dominion for iPhone alternative

Brent Parker — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:48:20 -0800

Dominion (the card game) doesn't seem like it's ever likely to come out for iOS. What are some alternative iPhone games that riff on Dominion style play that are can be played thru game center and are turn based (able to take hours to make a turn.) Thanks!

what kind of job is this?

round_four — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 09:53:17 -0800

Hi Everybody, I'm new here. I'm trying to identify my next steps in life and am looking high and low for options, ideas and answers. I'm still working, but have also taken on more than a couple volunteer roles to try out a different industries. I found MetaFilter a few months ago and tho I haven't posted much, I've been reading and I thought it would be a good idea to put it to you. I want to apologize in advance for any newbie mistakes. And say thanks in advance for taking a minute to read this. Here goes. Its hard to find what you want when you don't know what to call it. So, here's a brief description of what I'm looking for, maybe one of you will recognize it.

- something uber social. I'm great with people and I love being social. Not 'lets get a coffee' social, but let me interact with 100+ people a day kind of social. In person. Not behind a desk or on the phone. But, out and about. I have no problem in new or different social/ cultural/ status circles and can easily and happily navigate that water. I am particularly good at initiating relationships, establishing rapport, identifying key issues, assigning specialists or pairing individuals of complementary strengths.

- my brain sees big picture. I can do details, but keeping the full-project in mind, staying on task and operating within that structure is where I excel.

- I have an excellent mind for strategy. I can see obstacles or potential problems miles before other people. A super handy asset to my co-workers as we're always prepared and/ or a step ahead.

- I am competent with operations and have decent administrative skills.

- I am at my best when I'm working with a reliable team of people who all love their job. I'm thinking either a small company or a tight, autonomous group within a large corp.

- new and different keeps me sharp, so projects that last 3-8 mts would be ideal. I want to make something and then totally shift gears and move onto something else.

- I want to have a positive social impact. This is non-negotiable. There has to be purpose and meaning beyond making money (although making lots of money is also important).

- I thrive in environments that are ever-changing and where I am regularly tasked to learn something new.

Okay, so, what do you think? What job is that? In what kind of work would those skills be valued? I've been looking at sales jobs, recruiting, etc, but they're not quite it. Any suggestions?

Again, thank you for reading. Hope you have a good day.

PC gaming veteran, returning to creating Rollercoasters & Civilizations

0bvious — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 05:38:03 -0800

I used to play a lot of PC games, but in the past 10 years moved towards console gaming. I realise I've missed a whole era of games that only really work with a mouse and keyboard. My absolute favourites were creative, engaging, long play games, such as Rollercoaster Tycoon and Civilization. I never really played to win. I played for creative ends. The best times I had playing Rollercoaster Tycoon was in sandbox mode the only limits being my imagination. Those were the days. What (PC) games offer the equivalent of this now? I know that if I was a 15 year old today I would be a Minecraft obsessive. It sings to me. But I don't have the patience to wander about dropping blocks into place, one by one. I want the old Rollercoaster Tycoon rush, the open-world creativity, and a dip-in-every-so-often sensibility.

What should I play?

(P.S. I already have Civilization V)

Love is a Hot Tub (apparently...)

vivid postcard — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:26:08 -0800

I may be, literally, the worst person in the world when it comes to finding and booking hotel rooms and vacation rentals. Can you help me figure out how to better my search processes, what sites and search terms I should be using, or how I can better understand the U.S. hospitality industry? Oh my god, this is actually pretty funny, but I do need help. Here's the deal: every time it is my responsibility to find and book a hotel room for my partner and me, I inevitably end up choosing a place that is the kind of seedy sex hotel you might see as a gritty-ironic setting in some indie movie scene. I want to stop doing this.

Background Info (skip if bored):
When finding a hotel room or condo rental in our state, my beloved has a real knack for finding places that are comfortable, relaxing, and romantic, but that won't leave us wondering whether we caught something from the bedding after we leave. This is due to his familiarity with places here, or his ability to get good recommendations from friends, but even he is at a bit of loss of how to look for places in cities we have zero connections to.

Whenever I look for hotel rooms, though, we end up finding ourselves in places that make for great stories later, but that aren't at all what I was aiming for when I made the reservation. Best example: I once booked us a room with a jetted tub in it, because that was sort of the thing in that tiny resort town. I knew it might be kind of kitschy, but I was absolutely not expecting that we would be staying in a place where not only could you rent a room in half-day increments (great for local mayors looking to secretly schtup their secretary!), but the rooms came complete with a toilet. In the room itself. With no walls or doors. The toilet was just hanging out, exposed, in the middle of the room, right next to the romantic jetted tub!

Paradoxically, that hotel was also a family hotel, so not only were we serenaded at night by mayoral moans, but we were awakened every morning to the screeching sounds of delighted children who were cavorting around the grounds...

The Situation:
Usually, I search for hotel rooms using a combination of sites like Tripadvisor, Venere, Travelocity, etcetera. I'll sometimes look at the tourism board or chamber of commerce sites associated with whatever town we'll be visiting.

It has dawned on me, though, that by using the "romantic" or "getaway" filters on those websites, I am not finding romantic hotels. I am finding respectable sex hotels for parents (and politicians).

This is not what I want! I need help figuring out how to find the type of place I am really looking for. Because, apparently, I lack these skills. I could never be a travel agent.

The features that come to my mind, and that I look for, when I am searching for accommodations:
- Rooms or condos that are comfortable, maybe have some nice feature like a fireplace or good interior design, but they don't need to have that many amenities (like huge TVs, or a masseuse who will come to your room, or turndown service, etc.)
- Seclusion: We often like rooms that have a patio or balcony. Or maybe nice grounds where you can sit out, have a cup of coffee, enjoy the sun, but not be around all the people.
- An interesting natural (or urban) setting: our favorite place has enormous sliding doors that open up to a balcony with a gorgeous view of a mountain valley. We spent all our time on the balcony, enjoying each other and the natural prettiness. Or: I once stayed at a hotel that was built in the 30s. It had no majestic view, but it had lovely grounds. You could have coffee in interior courtyards. There were small gardens you could stroll through. It wasn't formally landscaped, but it was pretty, and interesting. Or: we've also stayed in more rustic mountain cabins/rooms that were fantastic because there were lots of walking paths and streams and areas that you could just wander around and poke at bugs and stuff. I've never been there, but the Post Ranch Inn, which I've seen mentioned on askmefi, looks like a higher end, more luxurious version of what I like - a place that is set in a beautiful area, and that is arranged to take advantage of its natural setting.
- Like someone's house: honestly, we prefer having a kitchen and cooking for ourselves over room service or eating out every night. We like staying at places that are just like staying in another home; it's romantic to putter about and relax, and to do some cooking with local flavors, you know?

Features that I dislike, but inevitably end up booking:
- Hot tubs, jetted tubs. In the room. On balconies. In the bathroom. So, so unnecessary. Sometimes it's nice to stay in a place with a nice soaking tub, or maybe one of those large, walk-in showers, but the whole gigantic whirlpool scene confuses me. And kind of creeps me out.
- Rooms made up to look romantic: Roses everywhere. Romantic, generic landscapes on the wall. Lattice. Seriously, you know you've made a terrible, terrible mistake when you walk into a room decorated with white lattice and flowers.
- Services: I don't need a spa. I don't need a massage. I don't need room service. I don't need someone to bring us bottles of champagne. I don't need anyone to come up to the room to provide a service (massage, manicure, etc), unless it's to bring up extra towels or something. I don't even need room cleaning every day. A cafe on the grounds might be convenient for morning coffee, but is actually not necessary.
- Families: I'm sorry. I support your life decision, and I think it's great when you see happy families actually having a fun time together on vacation, but for some reason, I keep booking "romantic" getaways that are also heavily oriented towards entertaining children. Please don't hate me, but children aren't relaxing.

The Questions:
1. What search terms, sites, strategies, or resources should I be using to find the types of accommodations I am looking for, and avoid the ones I usually end up snagging?
2. Sometimes, it just seems easier to look for condo or house vacation rentals, but where on earth can you find reputable renting resources or listings? VRBO seems limited, expensive, and sometimes sketchy, and I have never been able to book a place through airbnb. Do people have empty condos or farmhouses that you can rent for a couple of days? A couple of weeks? A couple of months? How can I find these people, when they are not in my state?

I am looking for advice for domestic accommodations in the U.S., only. Strategies for international bookings could be a whole other question, surely. Also, I recognize that I would probably have a much easier time finding what I want if I were willing to fork out at least $500 a night. I'm realistic and know I can't find what I want in dirt-cheap hotels, but the budget we're talking usually falls into the $150-$250 range (adjusted for length of stay and location. I know we might not find what we want in NYC or San Francisco, but a lot of our travels revolve around mid-size cities, largish towns, or off-season, outdoorsy recreation places. Essentially, generally cheaper areas, not the major coastal cities).

And I am keeping this deliberately open, and not specific to any city/state, because this is a recurring issue, and because I need some underlying strategy that can I use regardless of our destination, as this is a recurring issue, no matter where we go.

Trying to remember a strategy turned base video game

922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:19:15 -0800

I once played a turned based strategy video game on my PC. You built buildings, mined minerals, set up defenses. The buildings could be upgraded from mud hut to small building to apartment building. There was a university you could do research in that gave you more things to build. If houses became too crowded, their might be riots, so you had to build more quickly.
Between turns the other alien races would taunt you with 'You are filth, and shall perish' type taunts. I think one of the races were Tauregs, or something related, however a Google search brings up nothing related to a video game.

It was on a CD of other games, and was I think shareware. I'd saay around the mid to late 90s.

Any ideas.

Help me become a social media marketing expert

pwnguin — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 19:34:48 -0800

I want to transform my department's social media team into the campus experts on social media. What are the books, workshops, tools, websites and communities I should be looking into? The person who managed this stuff left a year ago, and it's clear that our student team that was hired in the lurch isn't getting enough attention or guidance. What I'd like to do is learn enough to mentor this team, partially to help build my own niche within the dept, and partially to become competent enough to relieve our director of the duty of managing this team.

I know how to use most social media (except maybe Pinterest) on a personal level, but I'd like to figure out the 'srs bsns' side of it. For example, Twitter. We have a few accounts, with a total of around 3500 followers. I'd like to have some guidelines on what / how much to retweet, when to use a hashtag, and what relevant metrics (other than the obvious, followers) to track.

I'd also love to have some software (preferably open source) to queue up stuff and release it over time, to help compensate for variable student schedules. You can tell which days our social media student employee is in, for example, because we get five to ten tweets / posts that day, and none on the others. I think having a buffer will help smooth things out, and let us focus on reaching goals.

I know there's a lot of sketchy advice on SEO and social media, so I'm turning to the metafilter for advice!

Getting off on the right foot with a new boss

rpfields — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 09:35:19 -0800

Any tips on getting off on the right foot with a new boss? The new person has delayed her transfer date a few times, and is coming into a government office where budget cuts mean reduced services to clients and less prestige for the office--and for her as its head. Although she won't arrive until February, she's started to take an interest in things from afar, and this has annoyed the management team, who have been filling the gap left by her predecessor. Plus she has made a few promises she won't be able to keep, and this has me nervous despite her positive reputation. People say she is bright and humane, but has trouble being strategic and saying "no" to requests from the public and her own bosses. I am worried that this could mean work overload for me and my team, who are working extremely hard with fewer resources than we had last year.

As her deputy, I want to be positive and helpful but realistic without being a naysayer. Has anyone dealt with this, or better, been on the other side of the situation? If so, what did you appreciate, and what drove you nuts?

What casual, pretty strategy game is a good gift for my brother?

Triton — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:58:30 -0800

I'm looking for a visually appealing strategy computer game as a gift for my mid-twenties brother, preferably casual, hard sci fi and without DRM. He is a casual gamer and works in design. He likes reading non-fiction books about economy, energy and future scenarios.
We both talk a lot about what the earth might look like in 50, 100 or 200 years.
He also likes hard-ish science fiction books, especially military. (Old Man's War and Forever War are two examples.)
I'm yearning myself for a realistic and beautiful hard scifi strategy game, but haven't found anything like that.
He has a mild fascination for the W40k universe, but doesn't play the tabletop game.

For a long time, he played hardly any games at all, but bought Anno 2070 for himself a month ago, partly due to my recommendation.
This didn't work out so well, he liked the graphics but was annoyed by the cumbersome DRM. The game itself put too much emphasis on trade and number-crunching for his taste and didn't run properly on his computer.

Games he liked:
- Casar 2
- Shogun: Total War
- Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary
- Stronghold 1
Games I like and he doesn't:
- Civilization (any version): The units are too big and destroying the suspension of disbelief.
- Fate of the World: He tried it and very much liked the idea, but the learning curve was too steep.
He owns a laptop, maybe 2-3 years old. Anno 2070 didn't run properly, anything with comparable or higher hardware demands is out of the question. He also owns an Ipad, of I think the 3rd generation.

In old mefi questions, I've found some games interesting to me (AI wars, for example), but not quite right for him.
Games I considered:
- Sins of a Solar Empire
- Crusader Kings (similar problems as in Civilization, the units are too big)
- Tropico 3
- Stronghold Crusader
- Caesar IV
- Star Ruler (interesting, but not pretty enough)
So far, none of the games in my list satisfy the science fiction and the aesthetics angle, but I guess that's very difficult to do.
Does anyone have an idea what games could fit or where I could look? If someone knows a movie fitting perfectly, I'd like to hear about that as well.

A Conservative Classic Lost to Time

dhartung — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:03:52 -0800

Does anyone know where to obtain a copy of Pat Buchanan's memo to Richard Nixon, "Dividing the Democrats"? Back in 2008, George Packer published in the New Yorker a copy of a memo given to him by Pat Buchanan, which had been written for Richard Nixon in 1971 and titled, informally at least, "Dividing the Democrats". He included some brief excerpts in this piece. There were a few short excerpts that promulgated to Daily Kos at the time, but in a site reorg or whatever, the NYer has apparently disappeared the PDF that Packer put up; it didn't make it onto the Internet Archive, either. I recall glancing at it at the time but I don't have a copy any longer myself and determined googling hasn't turned up one, only regurgitation of the Packer article itself or the quotes Packer pulled from it. It seems to be of some interest given conservative talking points in the pursuant era.

Left counterparts to ALEC?

univac — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 14:28:41 -0800

What are US Left counterparts to ALEC? I mean this ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Any national or state organization that coordinates efforts in multiple jurisdictions would interest me. Actually, I would be interested in non-US examples too.

Total Annihilation

mnemonic — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:45:26 -0800

Is it possible to play the original Total Annihilation online (on e-WarZone etc.) on my mac? It's a recent model MacBook Air running OS 10.8 (Mountain Lion). Or would I have to install Boot Camp + Windows?

Help me to stop making simple errors

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:20:11 -0800

I am making stupid mistakes at work and I need a strategy to help myself overcome them. Sorry for the length. I have a task that I do at my job. It is a big part of my job that I enjoy doing. I can (and will) literally spend hours upon hours doing this task which I enjoy doing because I have a LOT that I need to do and I like being able to see progress in the numbers of things I'm knocking off my to-do list. I also like the hyper-focus mode that I get into and I don't like to stop when I'm on a roll. If it helps, the tasks are a specific sort of math work on accounts, of which I have around 1000.

As with most tasks there are several different things that need to be taken into consideration/done for the thing to be done properly. Some aspects are more important than others. I tend to get very focused, almost hyper-focused, on doing the important things right that I will sometimes overlook a smaller aspect. The thing I overlook is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but that I have overlooked it several times is starting to look bad. I have ADD and am taking medication which helps me a lot. I used to have a similar problem at a previous job where I was writing reports for clients that often contained a lot of complex financial information. I would spend so much time calculating and recalculating the numbers and ensuring not only that they were correct but that they made good sense to a client who might not understand the more obscure concepts and also that it made sense in the bigger scheme of all of the client's history and dealings that I would miss simple typos in the reports.

It didn't help that I was writing the reports myself and using a very similar narrative (on the non-numerical stuff) across all reports. So it was basically a narrative that was mostly memorized. I would read each report a few times before I sent it but because it was so familiar to me my eyes would skip over simple misspellings. I was doing this again and again to the point where it was a problem because my boss was noticing it. My solution was to read my reports UPSIDE DOWN on the final proofread, which would sort of force my eyes to slow down and read each word separately. This helped considerably though it did slow me down tremendously. I was not on ADD meds at that time.

The task that I am doing now is not a reading one, but is really just forgetting to consider a small aspect in each task, which causes a small error and too many of these can affect certain coworkers for whom these errors make up part of their performance review.

The thing I am overlooking only comes into play for about 1/3 of my accounts and on those 1/3 I am probably remembering it and getting it right 90% of the time. I work on such a large number of accounts though, that the ones I miss have added up to about 5-10 times this has happened this year so far. This is more than it should happen for such a simple thing.

Is it possible to devise a strategy to remind myself to remember to do something when I work on these tasks? I could slow myself down considerably and only work on, say, five accounts per day, but I can't really do this over the long term. There are days when I need to maybe look at 50-60 accounts and I do tend to get in sort of a lull and pattern when I'm doing this, which is why can I forget to look at this minor aspect. I do not need to do this task every day, though I do need to make progress on how many I get done over time.

I'm sorry for the length of this but I wanted to be thorough because of the anonymity. Any strategies you could give me would be appreciated. These are errors of omission (which cause a bigger problem) rather than actively doing something incorrectly (which I never do). This is not the type of task that I can run before a second pair of eyes before I complete it or I would have considered doing that.

Ideas from one field leading to innovation in another?

StephenF — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:04:43 -0800

Examples of ideas from one field leading to innovation in another? In a training I run at work broadly related to strategy and innovation, we used the example of the LZR racer swimsuit to illustrate how ideas from one field can lead to breakthroughs in another. The swimsuit was apparently developed from research on how sharks' skin helps them move through water, but that now seems to be in doubt and I'm looking for new examples.

Essentially what I am looking for is any example of how an idea from one field has lead to innovation or a breakthrough or advancement in another, with no restrictions on the fields involved. Suggestions for places I could find such ideas also welcome if you don't have any directly.

I need a special snowflake game recommendation!

kbanas — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 08:51:40 -0800

Diablo is starting to wear a little thin. I need a game. I need some suggestions. I'm feeling a little... world war-ish. Please read on for my snowflake game requirements. I've been reading through William Shirer's excellent Rise and Fall of the Third Reich lately. What a great read! It's making me want to play something... World War 2-ish.

Requirements!

A) I have trouble finding value in older games that lack a certain graphical polish, so, unless it's a hum-dinger, I'd like something made in the last 3 - 5 years at the outside. PC only, please.

B) A FPS is fine, I guess - and feel free to suggest them! But all this talk in the book about Axis and Ally troop movements and strategy and so on have me kind of champing at the bit for something with a little more "high level" view of the military campaign.

RTS? Sure. Turn-based? Sure. I'm down with that. Some wacky hybrid I've never heard of before? I'm done with that.

C) I guess that's it. CIV 5 kind of scratched the itch a little, but it seems so dumbed down that it gets kind of boring after awhile, and also is not specifically a WW2 game at all.

So, I'm taking any and all comers for WW2 PC games of all shapes and sizes that might scratch the same itch as I get when reading through this book about the various military machinations of the world powers on the board at that time - from grunt in the trenches all the way out to the "big picture"...

Help me out!

We know how the pieces move. What's next?

alms — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:31:23 -0800

We know how the pieces move. What's the next step for a dad and six-year old learning chess together? As discussed previously, my young son loves strategy games. Now he's started playing chess. We play together sometimes and I'd like us both to get better.

We understand certain little things like forks and trying to think a few moves ahead and remembering to pay attention to the whole board. But I don't know where to go next to get a better overall grasp of the game, including strategy and mechanics. While I understand individual moves, I don't have a good grasp of how to shape the board as a whole.

Would a good approach be to learn some openings? Is there a book that would take me (us) through some openings and use those to explain the advantages and disadvantages of certain positions in depth?

Alternatively, is there an introductory book that provides a good general introduction to chess strategy that goes beyond individual moves and individual pieces?

Or do we really need to just focus on those individual moves and pieces, and wait for the bigger picture to emerge?

Seeking two-device iOS turn-based games.

alms — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:54:21 -0800

I'm in the front passenger seat with my iPhone. My six year old son is in the back seat with an iPad. What turn-based games can we play, each using our own device. The iPad does not have an Internet connection. He's not much of a speller but he loves strategy games like Carcassone.

Marketing Plan

pakora1 — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:21:01 -0800

Existing Corporate Marketing Plans Hi

I am looking for a marketing plan of any corporation. I have templates but want to look at the real thing. Does anyone know where I can get such a plan? Doesnt matter if it is older (past 15 years is fine) but it has to be one that belongs to a corporation. Most likely the source would be something that was part of a student learning program etc.

Thank you!

I wish there was a new Starflight game.

Sticherbeast — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:41:18 -0800

What good video games are reminiscent of Rogue-likes (viz. Incursion), Risk-likes (viz. Lux, Advance Wars), and Starflight, especially in the fact that they can be stopped and started at any time? Bonus points if said video games are either for OS X or can be easily emulated in OS X.

I've built it. They're coming. What next?

carbide — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:29:30 -0800

I've started a subject-specific blog and it's going well. What should I be doing to continue building an audience? What timeline is normal for a blog? What should I reading about strategy or expectations? The blog is about a city's architecture. It's my hometown and I'm trained in architecture, so it's a topic I care about hugely and am well positioned to handle. I really love writing, research and taking photographs for it and I hope to build it into a platform for other opportunities.

It's three weeks old and I'm averaging 80-90 views a day, with a good return visitor rate and nearly a two-minute average length of visit. I'm using Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to promote posts (with some other content) and the site itself is on its own domain, running on Wordpress. I am posting M-F consistently, and the weekly visit pattern is very low at weekends, rising M-W, falling T-F. I am involved in the subject-specific networks for it, and it's getting noticed (slowly, steadily!).

(I have had numerous blogs before and have written for publication too, but this is the first time I've had a project that's all my own and getting popular, so I'm better at the mechanics than the strategy, though I'm excited to learn.)

Help me!
- What should I be reading or listening to, to understand and plan? I can't stand self-helpy entrepreneurial or SEO creepery, but there must be some good material by sane, smart people.
- What can I expect in terms of a timeline? I have a six-month period in my mind for building an audience (before I despair about numbers!), is that realistic?
- Other than researching and producing good content consistently, what should I doing to build an audience steadily?

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Best laid plan gets wrinkled

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:02:55 -0800

Headhunter has interrupted my career-change plans, how do I know whether this is an opportunity or a blind alley? I've been a web editor for around twelve years, mostly as a contractor in different organisations. For the past four years I've had a permanent job in a legal firm - it's not my natural environment and was very stressful for the first couple of years but I did well, got promoted and achieved my aim of paying off debt and saving enough for a down-payment on a house. I'm now at a point where I can move on and would like to return to the environment I most enjoyed working as a contractor: museums/heritage-type organisations.

My standard work is editing/content strategy/UX stuff but I've also been moving towards interpretation and narrative design. There is no opportunity to do this kind of work where I am now so I've been taking night classes to build up my portfolio with the aim of jumping ship as soon as an opportunity in 'dream career' presents itself. This might take some time as my desired field is intensely competitive, and the sector is experiencing huge changes due to funding cuts and programming constraints. I'd also have to go in much lower than my current salary/seniority because I don't have the requisite sector experience for jobs on a par with my current role.

Still, it felt like a good plan. Except that I have just been headhunted for another corporate job similar to the one I currently have, just for a more senior management role in the consumer-facing arm of a high profile regulatory organisation, with a 15% pay rise. I don't know what to do.

If I take the offer I'll need to commit to at least 18 months and it will be stressful. My SO is worried - I find the 'corporate persona' of my current job very tiring at times and he sees the meltdowns at homes when it gets too much. Partly this is because of the culture of this specific organisation rather than a general climate but I'm definitely less 'myself' in this environment than when I was working for places I was genuinely thrilled to be. On the other hand, it's an interesting project and I'd be getting more strategic experience whilst retaining my current interests might mean being able to go for management roles in museums later down the line - I have no idea if this is feasible.

So, what to do? I'm 36 now and can't work out the opportunity cost of taking the unexpected job. Can anyone advise?

Easy on bandwidth computer games

infini — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:27:50 -0800

Suggestions requested for computer games that will keep me engaged. Infrastructural limitations and preferences in more detail after the jump. I like playing Age of Empires (or Civilization 3) against the computer at the easy to moderate levels for a couple of hours of relaxation. I don't have access to my desktop or a CD Rom drive while I am here in Kenya until April. While I have a cable internet connection at this service apartment I don't know what I can download or what speeds it might offer - its iffy. Hence I hesitate to consider purchase.

So, I'm seeking some suggestions for what I can play and where and how given these constraints. I have a netbook with about 500 MB Ram (half gig), no CD/DVD player and a reasonable amount of space with Windows XP Lite.

Something like the city building (not SIMs) and strategy aspects of Civ or AoE would be nice but I wouldn't mind suggestions to complex solitaire suites (KDE Patience is nice but I don't have my linux machine here either).

Also, found this old AskMe from 2008 and would appreciate knowing what might be relevant or still online since then.

I'm getting heartily sick of M$ Solitaire.

Please hope me.

Can you recommend a forum where management strategy can be discussed? For example if I wanted to bounce ideas around appropriate project metrics?

r2d2 — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:43:39 -0800

Can you recommend a online forum where management strategy can be discussed? For example if I wanted to bounce ideas around appropriate project metrics? I know there are specific PM forums but I am wondering if there is a forum where managers sort of discuss their ideas etc. Something more general than a dedicated PM forum since my questions / discussions wont just relate to project management

Chess Filter: The strangest loss of all

gregb1007 — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:02:58 -0800

Chess Filter: The strangest loss of all In my quest to learn to play chess better, I have many games to look over and think about why I should have played them better. But this past one is perhaps the best example. I managed to get the opponent's king surrounded by multiple pieces and used them to check the opponent for probably about twenty moves. Unfortunately, the opponent managed to defend himself and force exchanges. In the end, he moved his king from one edge of the board to another and hid it behind some pawns and a bishop. But the worst thing of all, the second that I was no longer able to check him, with all my pieces far away from my own uncastled king, he checkmated me immediately with a bishop and a queen. (He only had three non-pawn pieces left by that point after all the exchanges. I had four.)

What should I learn from this game so that I can adjust my playing style in the future? Does taking advantage of my opponent's weaknesses and attacking his king indeed increase the chance of my opponent's victory because my positions are weakened? Is it best to play defense rather than offense?

It really seems I should change the way I play because it's really lame to lose while being on the attack most of the game. Maybe I should adopt his strategy: open myself to attacks and then pounce on the opponent once his attacks run out.

Web world, just you wait!

Violet Blue — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:13:06 -0800

How do I become a content strategist? How do I self-train? What do I need to know? How do I find clients, or better yet, an employer? My professional background includes more than a decade of writing and editing for book publishers and academic presses. I've also studied foreign languages, linguistics, rhetoric. So I know a lot about text, but thus far I've been applying this knowledge to the products of a swiftly shrinking industry. I need to flip careers. FAST.

Naturally, tech beckons.

And caveats emerge. For example, I have barely any samples from all my time in publishing. In the beginning, this was because publishers gave tests, or had me perform sample work directly on their materials. After I got good at it, however, people quit asking. So good references, but few samples. Also, no interest in blogging or tweeting, the modern method of getting noticed. (Is this going to hurt me?) No interest in programming either, and I don't know Visio or Photoshop. (Is this going to hurt me?) And, finally, no money to go to strategy conferences, or to school for professional training.

Still, I soldier on. This is what I've done to make myself more appealing:

- I've joined a local usability group and recently participated in an hour-long critique of a website in need of updating. That was extremely useful--and interesting; I'm good at things like usability analysis!--but they only meet monthly, so it will be a while yet before their next rendez-vous.

- I've joined content strategy meet-ups in the city closest to mine, but they will not be convening for a while yet, either.

- I have considered approaching two or three very small businesses and offering to write/edit their webpages for free, assuming that's kosher. (Whaddya think? I'm talking about companies so small they would never dream of hiring anyone to do it for them.)

- I've done extensive online reading about content strategy: Its journalistic ethos, its brevity, etc. and the main tenets are no different than they were in book publishing, so I don't think it would be hard for me to master this part at all.

Now for my questions:

1. Just how much experience (counted in months?, years?, projects?) do I need before hanging out a freelance shingle?

2. Am I missing any skills, critical or otherwise?

3. Where can I find samples of content strategy resumes?

4. How do I learn enough Web terminology to sound professional? (Does this matter?)

5. What's the breakdown in responsibilities between content strategists and copywriters? Is it only larger companies that employ both? And am I correct in thinking that copywriters are more responsible for page hits, etc., than content strategists?

6. Where can I find jobs? I see no listings in any conventional source (craigslist.com, indeed.com. I've tried looking on twitterjobs, etc. but have only ever happened upon placement service ads, asking for five years experience.)

7. And if I am offered a job, how much does one typically charge for this work?

8. What other steps should I take?

9. Is there ONE must-have reference book for the field?

10. Finally, I'm correct in thinking this is a major growth specialty, right?

Thanks.

How companies make decisions

Marzipan — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:08:46 -0800

I'm researching how the ways companies make decisions can help individuals make decisions. Can you think of examples of famous companies making a radical, transformative decision in the last 10 years? e.g. Cisco choosing to move it's operations to China, or Coca Cola (damagingly) changing it's formula. I'm more interested in decisions with a positive outcome.
Any views on this whole issue (company decision-making vs individual decision-making) also welcome.