Tracer Rounds – Cultivating Cultural Culturism
How does one “create” culture? ~
I was reading an ESPN column about the demise of Grantland, when this exchange caught my eye.
There’s an old saying — attributed alternatively to management guru Peter Drucker and auto executive Mark Fields — that culture eats strategy for breakfast. I’ve always felt that statement was off the mark because culture also eats strategy for lunch, dinner and snacks.
Now, part of what made Grantland the awesome destination for smart writing was the culture that the editorial team inculcated in the staff. Grantland was a perfect example of how a great set of editors can mold already-talented and -established writers into a coherent voice that gives the reader a sense of the culture of the organization.
There are more ways to communicate the culture of an organization than just in the formal presence of that group. There are the rituals they hold on to, the titles used among themselves, the recursive self-references that permeate long-standing organizations, and the attitudes they exhibit toward outsiders. How is dissension tolerated? How are new participants welcomed into the fold? Are there demands for overt displays of allegiance? How about voluntary self-identification?
While many of you are probably still chuckling over the idea that I actually teach a class about interpersonal communication, the idea that I also teach one on Media & Culture probably doesn’t seem too far-fetched. We spend an entire hour on the first night of class just talking about the attributes that can define a culture, from language to food & music to geography to shared interests. But how does it develop, and how does it manifest itself when it does?
This isn’t easy stuff, is it? Continue reading
The impostor phenomenon hits me rather personally. Let’s face it, I’m here helping run a wargaming site, and some people might mistake that for having some level of expertise in the wargaming field. But my track record in the wargaming field has honestly been pretty spotty along the way. I’ve legitimately had wargames in print that I sold through conventions and mail-order, but they were entirely self-published, so I never had to polish them enough to get them through a gatekeeper. I’ve also legitimately had RPGs in print that were sold online and through conventions, and through a few brick-and-mortar stores. But again, they were self-published and self-financed, and I probably lost money overall on them before the momentum dried up and let them languish. Yes, I worked on a wargame project on for the NSA, but I was brought on to coordinate playtesting and tweak variables in an existing game engine, not develop from scratch. We had a contract with NDU to create the GEMSTONE system, but after only a few iterations in use, it fell by the wayside, and I don’t think it’s even in use at NDU anymore with any other contractor. Sure, I’ve written reviews for a bunch of places like Scrye and RPG.net and that other site, but I was never a full-time paid staffer with a regular deadline and set of responsibilities and all the trappings of the professional writing trade. I’ve put together some events and presentations at game conventions (like the 
I’ve written before about 