Now an Empire Avenue Consultant

As some readers may have noticed I have joined the Empire Avenue team as a consultant.

After I left BioWare I decided that I would only spend my time working on projects that I thought were interesting and fulfilling… which primarily meant my writing career but I remained open to the idea of contributing to worthwhile endeavors that I felt have relevance.

Why Empire Avenue?

I was writing my first novel last winter when I joined the family and friends beta for Empire Avenue. I figured I’d take a look at it and provide some feedback — I like to help out former colleagues when possible. But I got hooked. Not just because the gameplay was different (and fun). Not just because it helped introduce me to the world of social networking in a way that I hadn’t experienced with Twitter or Facebook. But also because of the many parallels Empire Avenue had with the fictional social networking system I created as the underpinning of my main character’s rise to political influence in my novel. Seriously! The entire system I had imagined as being vital to the far-future sci-fi universe I was creating was already in development!

As I interacted with users from across the world on Empire Avenue I started to realize just how useful a tool it could be. Far more than I had initially imagined for my novel. I’ve written other posts on this in more detail but in a nutshell Empire Avenue is the only social network I’ve been on where it has been easy to meet new people in a safe environment while also being introduced to new concepts, new brands and new movements. All while playing a fun game.

Now, as a consultant, I get to help out Empire Avenue’s development a bit and have some guidance in terms of how it grows!