Establishing Company Gears

Good Evening Gears!

You nailed it! I called you a 'Gear'. Not a gearhead or, for those of you too lazy to look it up: 'a person who pursues mechanical or technological interests (as in automobiles or computers)', but a Gear. What is a Gear you might be asking?

Don't worry. It's totally a compliment. You see, to me, gears are an absolutely beautiful creation. By working as a team, even if the gears come in different shapes, sizes, colours, and designs (sounds a little bit like people, no?), they still work together. While you could make the argument that a single gear out of place (a rebel) ruins the whole machine, you'd be absolutely right. I'm going to let you get away with saying that because I haven't devised a clever explanation for this aspect yet.  Feel free to share your thoughts below. 

Today...? Today is a company update for BioGear Studios.

Lately, I've been working on our employee handbook and defining our workplace culture. Really, really hard stuff. Trust me.

Many entrepreneurs will tell you that creating a startup company is (edit: can be) expensive, takes a ridiculous amount of time + dedication and guess what?!?!? They totally, absolutely, absurdly even, know what they're talking about. As I mentioned, for the last few days, I've been trying to decide how I want employees to feel while they work for us, how projects will be decided upon and most importantly, what our workplace culture will be like. This task is both incredibly daunting, and incredibly fulfilling.

My reasons for doing this so early are simple. 

To me, a company's brand starts with the employees & culture. Not the logo, not the website, hell, not even the product. While all of those aspects of a company perpetuate the brand, they don't create it. Before the first product or service ever came out from any company, they had employees and the birth of a culture. Perhaps it was one person, or a few. It doesn't really matter because before the public even sees you and your company, your brand has started. Even now, before we have a prototype in the works, the brand for BioGear Studios has begun. It starts with every misplaced period in my post that makes you think I'm an idiot. It starts with every snarky remark I just made that brings a smile to your face. This. Is. Branding. 

For BioGears, the brand I want is worldly, creative, open, and caring. I want to focus on erasing bureaucracy from the creative process, much like Valve does with their 'flat' corporate style. I want to focus on representing the world: bringing in talent from all other countries including Egypt, Britain, China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa. I want every developer to have a face for the public if they want: to eliminate the need for 'gaming' hero's (single developers who become the face of a company ie. Cliffy B, Peter Molyneux) and to help the public know who makes their games. I want our process to be transparent, involving, but still maintained and viable within the scope of our means and dreams. Most importantly, I want BioGears to remain strong, to stay on course always, no matter what storms may be hurled at our ship. Even more importantly than most importantly, I want our customers to be first, their enjoyment + fulfillment from playing our games and utilizing our services to be paramount.

This. Is BioGear Studios.

Welcome to our brand.

~ Storyteller

Question: Where do you believe a company's brand comes from? Which company represents your favourite brand? Also, if you read through the whole post, say yes. Because I find this extremely amusing! Last time though, for serious.

P.S. A funny thing: The question I just wrote before I wrote this sentence was "will this happen?" and the answer, without a doubt in my mind, is yes. It will. You may doubt me. I may doubt me. The world may doubt me. The world may even beat me down, wanting to force feed the seemingly horrid nature of people and business to me but it doesn't matter. I believe in people: I believe in Gears working together to make something work. And in this case, that something is a beautiful work of art that will be ready to be enjoyed the world over. 

Gearing Up

Gearing Up: An ingearduction

Who am I? Why am I here? What is this blog for?

Honestly, only time will tell. In the beginning, my goals for this blog are simple: 

~ I want to tell compelling stories. 

~ I will fight tooth & nail in order get better at writing & telling stories. 

~ Exploring Game Design Theory and gaming topics are a priority.

~ Integrity reporting to readers on political topics I'm passionate about.

~ Updates on creating businesses without revealing said businesses.

~ Random gears & other junk. 

If you can't tell, I have a thing for gears. The possibility exists that I'm merely going through a phase but the fact that I'm older than 20 tells me that I might actually have a thing for gears. Keeping that in mind, I believe there lies a certain importance in ensuring that gears are mentioned at least once, reasonably, in every post. Will that happen?

Your guess is as good as mine! 

The content for :GearFoundry will revolve around personal research that I do on certain topics, opinion pieces on events, recaps of history, thought process on creating games, and many, many original writing pieces by yours truly. 

I figure I'll update the blog two or three times a week with one big research article about a political topic of my choice coming once or twice a month. Since one of my goals is to get better at writing stories, I'll be doing both fictional and non-fictional work. You'll see lore snippets from games I'm working on (not much. Don't get excited), examples of design documentation, and my absolute best attempt at unbiased reporting. 

Oh... You wanted to know more about me? Well... Alright then. I thought the blog was the star of the show!

My name is Ben. I won't tell you my last name but honestly, it probably won't be hard to find. In fact, you'll probably find this post by following a link that displays both my first and last name but make you search for this little nugget of information I will!

I'm older than twenty but younger than twenty-five and I still haven't graduated college, though that will be changing this Spring if all goes according to plan! I was married in September of last year to the love of my life (whom I'm sure you'll learn much about over the life course of this blog) and I honestly couldn't be happier! I attend the University of Utah and will graduate with a bachelors in Communication. 

My current employment is Apple Inc (Yes, that Apple. No. You don't get a discount. Seriously). Don't ask me anything about rumors or when the next iPhone is coming out because I don't know. I really don't. Really. I. Don't. Know. I also won't be talking about my job 'at all' on this blog but I'll be honest, it felt really, really gratifying and awesome to say that I work for Apple and some people might actually read this one day!

I'm also working on two startup companies. Both will be owned by my wife and I though they are focused on completely separate industries. I won't say anything about my wife's business but I'm in charge of BioGear Studios, a new gaming studio that hasn't quite found it's focus yet (I'm working on it... At least the name is sweet!). 

As I mentioned before, I'm attending the University of Utah and plan to graduate in Spring of 2014. Wish me luck!

I've been writing off and on for a lot of years (hehe, yea, I've totally been writing...) and this blog is an attempt to refine and practice my voice both written and verbally. My purpose is to find a voice that I can use to brand myself, my company, and my future: both online, and offline. 

As a beneficial side perk of having a blog, I figure that I'll learn how to prevent placing my value on all your snarky, pathetic future comments that are meant to troll and make me feel like a shitty person. I don't mind feedback. Not one bit. Yes, it usually makes me cry but I have some serious ego issues that aren't any of your concern so please, bring on the feedback! CONSTRUCTIVE Feedback, not this "Your writing sucks my donkey's balls man. Get better". Actually, on second thought, go ahead and bring on those comments if you want because I need to learn how not to take them personally. Much obliged future trolls! (Those of you reading this first post, I'm willing to bet this 100% does not apply to you.)

The amount of topics and subjects and stories I want to tell you all is amazingly diverse and deep. I've got stories on Absinthe, World War II, in-game Lore, Gaming reviews, Problems with the bees, gay rights, childhood obesity, everything! I want to share what my little tiny experience is with the world and hopefully, you all will be slightly better for having given me some of your valuable time. 

I promise that in the future, I will try my absolute hardest not to ramble on like this and will instead, use your time wisely. Time is money and I want to make sure that both of us get our money's worth when interacting with each other. 

In the spirit of generating interaction, I'll try to ask a meaningful question at the beginning or end of every post. I'm still trying to decide and find out if you'll actually read to the end or not... Which gives me an idea!

Questions: Did you read to the end of my post? Answer with a simple Yes so everyone else will be confused. 

Question2: Did you enjoy this first post? What feedback do you have for me right away? Do you have any questions for me?

That's it for now! I believe that's a nice ingearductory post for tonight!

~ Storyteller Out.

P.S. I'm fully aware that the title joke is absolutely horrible.