1. What sort of people do you find in volunteer organizations? Well, they tend to be passionate, opinionated, interesting. They also tend to be in leadership positions, or, as Darius might put it, “excellent people,” because the same qualities that allows successful volunteerism help people succeed in other areas. Finally? They’re usually volunteering out of a genuine desire to help. The IGDA is filled with helpful, interesting, well connected people? Sign me up!

2. What is the number one thing (short of the essentials, like competence in your field of work) that someone trying to break into the industry needs? They need to stand out. Volunteering helps you do that. It shows that you have initiative, passion, energy, and an ability to seek out and solve problems. This will help sway anyone, but it will be especially useful at making an impression on other volunteers.

3. A volunteer organization doesn’t ever turn anyone away. Not really. If you have some competence and time, you can and will find a way to get involved. Not only does this mean it’s easy to get involved, but it can be a nice change if you’re going through a job hunt period and getting turned down repeatedly.

4. It gives you something to talk about, and educates you. There is no better way to immerse yourself in the problems, challenges, and pressures of the meta game industry than getting involved in the IGDA. You’ll end up exceedingly knowledgeable about quality of life, events going on, crediting problems, etc.

5. If you’re a social animal and you enjoy the game of politics and drama, then it’s got that, too. Just don’t do anything stupid, and play nice.

I myself decided one summer that I’d start hanging out at the official IGDA message boards. At this point I’d been to a bunch of chapter meetings, helped Jason Della Rocca out with some summarizing at his chapter’s website, etc., etc. Nothing major. Then the Tim Langdell controversy hit. Long story short, there was an incredible amount of drama, anger, and misbehavior going on at the official forum. The moderating team was too disorganized and disjointed to deal with it, and the board was too busy to give it the attention it deserved. Having moderated forums with thousands of users for several years, I figured I knew what I was doing, so I emailed the board a couple pages describing the steps I thought they should take to diffuse the forum situation without stifling the community. Next thing I knew, I was hobnobbing with the board – comprised of company ceos, game designers, people who give talks at GDC, game lawyers, and more – and placed on a “taskforce” to fix the problems. Which we did.

My efforts to reform the way moderators were organized and the way the rules were written were largely destroyed when the new site hit, but hey. The lesson here: you have eclectic skills. Volunteer organizations need those. Find the need, and it’s always there, and offer to fix problems. It can have great results.

Oh, and speaking of betas, can you hook me up with some LOTR Online love? I got a key from E3, but haven’t heard from Turbine at all!

It’s easy to stand out from the crowd in a public beta, because most people are just there to play a game for free.

At worst, you’ll have a developer willing to vouch for your excellent communication skills. At best, you’ll score a job with the developer that you beta tested for. For what it’s worth, that’s (more or less) how I found my way into the industry.