Things I Swear I Will Never Do To Someone Else

Back in 1999, when I started my new job with my customer in California, I took a couple of hours and wrote a list of everything I learned while I was on the supplier side of the desk so I wouldn’t forget now that I was on the customer side.  The list had both the things I swore I would never do to someone else as well as some of the best practices I swore I would never forget.  By making that list I started to define for myself who I wanted to be in my new role.  Although I had only intended that list to be for myself, I did eventually pass it on and from there it took on a life of its own.

Over the past  couple of years I have been developing a few new managers.  We were having a philosophical conversation about how we learn from our experiences – both good and bad – and I mentioned what I had done so many years ago.  After a few requests to see the list, which I no longer have, I thought it was a good time to create version 2.0 and the idea for this talk was born.

This talk was originally presented at the Montreal International Game Summit in November 2009.  I have modified it from its original format to publish it on slideshare.net.  Eventually, I plan on either presenting or publishing the Best Practices part of the list.