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Monday, August 22, 2011

This Week at ADB, Inc., 14-20 August 2011

Steve Cole reports:

This was a "normal" week at ADB, Inc. The weather remained hot, passing 80F at sunrise and peaking at 100F most days. The spam storm remained about 100 per day.

This week's staff meeting cleared the way for an 25-card expansion pack for Star Fleet Battle Force, agreed to review a proposal for a new RPG product Mongoose suggested (the alternative would have been to kill the project based on little more than the name and the game engine, but we LIKED the idea and thought it would be great fun), and decided to use the existing box wraps for F&E (we forgot we had these until Mike Sparks found them) rather than printing a new box with new art. Leanna also approved the publication of a full set of 16 new Ship Cards in Boosters 31-32-33 after working out a deal with the printer that means we no longer have to print Ship Cards in batches of 16. She also approved the inclusion of "about 30" new Ship Cards for whatever Federation Commander product is picked for 2011 (Reinforcements Attack or Borders of Madness Attack, plus boosters). Leanna rejected a customer who asked to be allowed to pay money to sponsor the selection of the customer's favorite ships, saying that this was just tacky and crass to solicit bribes or provoke a bidding war. (For the record, nobody liked the suggestion but we did promise him that we would actually vote on it.)

Steve Cole worked on the current projects (Marines, Fed Admiral, Boosters 31-32-33) and reviewed new 2500-series minis by Mongoose, started work on the Vudar ePack, did several Federation Commander scenarios for the "bank" file, did a couple of new FC Ship Cards, exported the Captain's Log #40 update for S8 so Joel could post it, did a few minor things for the Omega Master Rulebook, created the provisional list of ships for Reinforcements Attack, and killed a few thousand obsolete posts on the BBS (which is almost out of room). We were contacted by another game company which wants to print one of their games under our Paramount contract but (while talks were cordial) our lawyer says we have done enough deals for 2011.

Steven Petrick spent most of his week getting the updated Omega Master Rulebook read, but he also checked Mongoose minis, did battlegroups for Captain's Log #44, made the mail runs, and operated the book trimmer.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel did website updates, chased pirates, did a demotivational poster for Jean, and helped Mike. He also quickly learned how to archive BBS topics, killing thousands of obsolete posts that had to be kept in some form.

Jean returned to work mid-week and managed our page on Facebook as well as did some marketing.