What’s Going On Salons & Melting Silos Present
Creative Entrepreneurship & Social Mobile Games: The survived experience and wisdom of Jordan Weisman
Businesses are often not founded by business people with a plan, but rather by creative people with a vision. Mr. Weisman is one such “right brain” person who has founded, built, buried, and/or sold numerous companies. He will discuss his learnings and observations from his 30 plus year career including his latest ventures in social and mobile games. And he will noodle on his theories of how to identify creative opportunities and how to manage the creative and emotional risk of being an entrepreneur.
• 6:30 – 8:00 PM, Monday, March 12th
• W2 Media Café – Basement (stairs are on the right of the counter), #250-111 W Hastings Street
• Tickets $5 – Please bring cash
Jordan Weisman, CEO, Harebrained Schemes
Jordan Weisman
has been the creative force behind several interactive entertainment companies, including his latest ventures: Harebrained-Schemes LLC and Go Go Kiddo Inc. Along the way, he created MechWarrior, Shadowrun and Crimson Skies, three of the longest running franchises in the game industry.
Weisman got his start in the paper game industry founding FASA Corporation in 1980, where he created BattleTech/MechWarrior and Shadowrun. He pioneered publicly accessible virtual reality at his second company, Virtual World Entertainment, which he sold to the Disney family in 1992.
Jordan founded FASA Interactive to develop his properties for PC and sold the company to Microsoft in 1998. After the acquisition, Jordan became the Creative Director for Microsoft’s Games Division where he oversaw the first two years of all Xbox titles, including the launch of the Halo franchise.
In 2000 Weisman founded Wizkids when he invented the collectible miniature figure game format for MageKnight, MechWarrior and HeroClix. Wizkids grew quickly and was acquired by Topps Inc. in 2003.
After Wizkids, Jordan co-founded 42 Entertainment to build upon the pioneering transmedia experience he created with Steven Spielberg for the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence which spawned the new genre of Alternate Reality Games. As Chief Creative Officer of 42 Entertainment, Jordan oversaw the creation of “I Love Bees,” for the launch of Halo 2, “Why So Serious,” for Dark Knight, “Year Zero,” for Nine Inch Nails, along with many other landmark ARGs.
Weisman is a New York Times bestselling fiction author, winner of the Northwest E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year award, Time Magazines Ten Best Ideas, and dozens of design awards. He is an adjunct professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and co-founder of the Center for Serious Play at the University of Washington.
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The What’s Going On Salons are a series of presentations about specific areas in the rapidly changing media landscape. Designed to be entertaining, accessible, inspiring and above all, informative overviews, each salon helps busy professionals demystify and better define the digital terrain.
Melting Silos is a program to connect local filmmakers and new media talent in a way that educates both parties and facilitates the development of project materials to be ready for production. Melting Silos is supported by Agentic Communications, the National Film Board, BC Film & Media, CMPA BC Producers Branch, and Telefilm’s Canada Skills to Screens.
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