Community management is coming into its own as online communities become the norm in our modern world. Businesses are discovering the value of committed, coherent communities and the skills to appropriately manage these communities are critical to business success. This session will lay out the elements and strategies of managing communities and raise the call-to-arms for a professional society of community management to share best practices and develop a code of conduct that supports the growth and development of online communities.

Takeaway: Attendees will come away with an appreciation for how seminal Community Management is to building communities of players that can be sustained and monetized. They should also see the need for a Community Management organization designed to drive the education of Community Management professionals.
Intended Audience: Community management professionals, management, producers, designers and anyone with an interest in online gaming communities.

Gordon Walton has been authoring games and managing game development since 1977. He is currently VP and Exec Producer at Playdom Austin. Prior positions include VP and co-Studio General Manager at BioWare Austin working on Star Wars®: The Old Republic™, VP, Executive Producer and Studio Manager at Sony Online Entertainment in Austin, working on an unannounced product and Star Wars Galaxies at Sony Online Entertainment, prior to this he was VP and Executive Producer of The Sims Online at Electronic Arts/Maxis, and in the same role for Origin Systems managing Ultima Online™; He also served as Senior VP and General Manager of Kesmai Studios, where he oversaw the development of several MMOGs including Air Warrior™ and Multiplayer Battletech™. Gordon has owned and managed two development companies and was development manager for both Three-Sixty Pacific and Konami of America, Inc. He has personally developed more than 30 games and overseen the development of more than 200 games.

Gordon has been a speaker at every Game Developers Conference since its inception in 1988. Gordon has also been a featured speaker at industry events such as E3, Austin Game Developers Conference, East Coast Computer Game Developers Conference, Kagan Conference, Japan Personal Computer Software Association Conference and Jupiter's Conference.

Gordon is a founding member of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and a member of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS). He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Texas A&M University with a minor in electrical engineering.