Category: Post
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The Double Standards in Recruitment
A friend of mine from Copenhagen lost his job in November last year and has been searching for a developer role since then. Every time we talk, it always goes down to how weird the recruiting scene is recently. The thing that caught my eye is that he has to find a smooth way to…
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I was not writing for my blog because I was writing a book
Yes, that is correct – I finally self-published my fiction book called “CineMagic”. In fact, the book contains two stories: “CineMagic” as the main course and “Mechanism” as a dessert. Russian version. English version. If you are sitting there surprised with this twist, below is the story of its creation ⬇️ I enjoyed writing stories…
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How Crunch Reminded Me of Boundaries
When I joined a new company recently, I found myself in a classic newbie situation that often happens with me when I end up in a new environment: I try hard to leave the best impression in the shortest time possible. It’s like a personal tradition I never fully outgrew. I don’t change jobs often,…
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Demystifying Communication Biases
Or “The best thing you can learn from the diverse teams”. The thing I am going to write about is only one of many things you can learn by working with people of different backgrounds, cultures and areas of expertise. It’s not technical insights, hard skills or “How does Let It Go from Frozen sound…
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How to Support Growth With Skills You Build
Targeted learning – one piece at a time. There is no doubt that AI is reshaping how we approach work so knowing how to get the most out of it is important – that’s why in 2024 I took the Prompt Engineering Specialization at Vanderbilt University. It helped me to improve how I interact with…
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Why Brainstorms Fall Short
This post was inspired by this toy I saw on the web. Apparently, some old people were buying it for their grandkids 🤣 But it suddenly got me thinking about brainstorms and here we are. Brainstorms Aren’t Always a Storm of Ideas Brainstorms are often named among the best idea-generation tools, but the thing is…
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Read This and Your Meetings Will Never Be The Same
There’s nothing as bad as a manager obsessed with meetings. We’ve all been in those slow and useless meetings, with hours wasted in endless discussions that seem to go nowhere. Many managers pack their schedule with meetings to appear ‘busy’, but if you’re not one of them and genuinely want to step up your meetings…
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Failing to Plan = Planning to Fail
Many of us begin each new year with resolutions, and despite their mixed success rates, they symbolize a powerful moment of renewal. Even smaller naive things like “I will quit smoking… starting Monday” have a proven psychological effect of higher success of kicking off a new habit with the beginning of a new period (week,…
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F.A.Q.: Producer In Video Games
“But what exactly are you doing?” – a question I get a lot from all kinds of people, from grandmothers to industry peers. I started my journey in the video game industry with a small company, where, as in most small companies, managers have to wear different hats. I’ve been a lawyer/legal consultant, business development…
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When Learning Becomes a Problem
“I love learning something new!” is a trend in modern society. With information becoming so accessible and the flow of it being unstoppable, people try to be effective and adopt the growth mindset. While I enjoy learning new things myself, I would like to talk about learning processes in general and discuss when (and why)…
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Six Lessons I learned in Tactile
In 2021, I left my hometown behind to move to Denmark and work for Tactile as a Penny & Flo producer. I knew a lot about management already from my previous jobs, and I also was pretty deep in the mobile F2P industry but never worked in an international company or story-driven game. My previous…
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Killing Communication With Kindness
In our efforts to be “kind and polite”, we sometimes create more problems than we solve. This was clear in a story my wife shared about a colleague – let’s call her Kate – who was let go by a CEO of the company because of poor performance. Despite her struggles at work, Kate’s manager…
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Why I Love Diversity In Creative Teams
You definitely noticed that diversity in management and hiring lately became a topic as debated as pineapple on pizza. Some think it’s a modern must-have, some think it’s a fashion choice of agenda, and some don’t really get it. Tactile Games is a company with 50+ nationalities, 40% women, many LGBTQ+ people, and a kaleidoscope…
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Hello There!
Do you remember that wonderful feeling of starting something new, and learning through trial and error? I do. In fact, my job consists of bathing in this feeling to 75%… Hello there, reader, and thanks for stopping by! My name is Murad Musakaev. I’m a producer/project manager in a game development studio, and this is…
Retrieving Thoughts 