Darius’s slightly tongue-in-cheek advice about shutting up says to me: take some time to see how things work here. By definition, you’re new to this community.

That doesn’t mean the community is hostile to outsiders, just that it’s not what they’re accustomed to.

Who decides what you’re good at? Good is a relative term. A newcomer to a community does well to shut the #$&@ up as you suggest. That’s not to say the newcomer is a newbie even if they don’t mind the term.

The newcomer who knows more and is more skillful than those in the community entered, does well to also shut the #$&@ up. That way the passwords and culture, strategies and protocols can be learnt – things the newcomer is not good at in the beginning.

Like the Trojan horse, enter the gate by invitation, always learning the new. When in Greece, do as the Grecians do, and know that it doesn’t work in Rome.

Catchya later

Darius’s audience is probably edgier than mine (certainly edgier than me), but he’s serious about his business and how to work satisfyingly with his peers.

If you follow the link to his blog, you’ll see in the sidebar a big list of posts on effective networking in the game industry. (Hint to others: you don’t have to be a game developer to profit from his ideas.)

My list is far shorter; it’s worked for me. Bob Powers (author of Instructor Excellence, one of the least-read and most-useful books for trainers) taught me that acknowledging your discomfort dispels an awful lot of it.

It’s not ignorant blundering; it’s trust. And sometimes you have to trust that your own shortcoming are no more fatal than those of others.

I’ve always enjoyed Garrison Keillor’s observations on shyness. Shy people are always being told to “get over” their shyness. He’s not convinced shyness is necessarily something that always needs getting over.

In fact, many people in the world could use a lot more shyness than they have.