Navigating Mental Health in the Gaming Industry: Breaking the Stigma With Kate Edwards

January 16, 2024

Navigating Mental Health in the Gaming Industry: Breaking the Stigma With Kate Edwards

Kate Edwards is the CEO of Geogrify, a niche consultancy providing geocultural and geopolitical content strategy to help clients reach a global audience. She is also the Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer of SetJetters, which aims to revolutionize the film tourism experience with its location-based app. An award-winning gaming industry veteran, Kate’s career spans over 30 years working with premier companies, such as Microsoft, the International Game Developers Association, and Global Game Jam.

In addition to serving on several boards and advisory roles, Kate is a geographer, corporate strategist, and writer. She’s been inducted into the Women in Games Hall of Fame, and in 2021, Forbes named her one of the 50 over 50 in the Vision category.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Kate Edwards shares her career trajectory
What attracted Kate to cartography and how she started her consultancy
How Kate’s path led to the nonprofit sector and heading IDGA
Why did Kate become a target of Gamergate?
An overview of Take This and the resources it offers
Kate’s guidance on managing mental health challenges
How Kate survived imposter syndrome
Inclusivity: How has the gaming industry evolved?
Kate explains her company SetJetters and its mission

In this episode…

In the fast-paced and immersive world of the gaming industry, where creativity and innovation thrive, there's an often-overlooked aspect that deserves attention: mental health. Why is it crucial to acknowledge the prevalence of mental health challenges within the gaming community?

Individuals in the gaming industry face unique challenges that can impact their well-being. Seasoned industry veteran Kate Edwards reveals that addressing mental health is one of the first steps in the process. Open conversations about mental health help normalize discussions, making it easier for individuals to seek support without fear of judgment. However, creating supportive work environments involves implementing policies that prioritize mental health. This can include flexible work hours, mental health days, and access to counseling services. The gaming community itself can be a powerful source of support. Initiatives that promote mental health awareness, such as support groups like Take This, can provide a sense of community for individuals facing similar challenges. By sharing experiences and coping strategies, gaming community members can strengthen their collective well-being.

In this episode of the Here’s Waldo Podcast, Lizzie Mintus welcomes Kate Edwards, CEO of Geogrify, to explore mental health challenges in the gaming industry. Kate talks about Take This and its resources, the importance of addressing mental health issues, and how she survived imposter syndrome.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by Here’s Waldo Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in the video game industry that prioritizes quality over quantity and values transparency, communication, and diversity. We partner with companies, creatives, and programmers to understand the why behind their needs and provide a white-glove experience that ensures a win-win outcome.

The industry evolves. The market changes. But at Here’s Waldo Recruiting, our commitment to happy candidates and clients does not.

We understand that searching for the best and brightest talent can be overwhelming, so let our customer-first staff of professionals do the leg work for you by heading over to hereswaldorecruiting.com.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Here's Waldo podcast, where we sit down with top visionaries and creatives in the video game industry. Together, we'll unravel their journeys and learn more about the path they're forging ahead. Now, let's get started with the show.

Lizzie Mintus: I'm Lizzie Mintus, founder and CEO of Here's Waldo Recruiting, a boutique video game recruitment firm. This is the Here's Waldo Podcast. In every episode, we dive deep into conversations with creatives, founders, and executives about what it takes to be successful. You can expect to hear valuable lessons from their journey and get a glimpse into the future of the industry.

This episode is brought to you by here's Waldo Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm for the game industry. We value quality over quantity, transparency, communication, and diversity. We partner with companies, creatives, and programmers to understand the why behind their needs. We provide a white glove experience that ensures a win outcome.

Before introducing today's guest, I want to give a big thank you to Tim Cullings and Eve Crevoshay and Wallace for all pointing me towards Kate. So many mutual connections. So thank you for being here.

Today we have Kate Edwards with us. Kate is an award winning 30 plus year veteran of the game industry. She's doing a lot of different things. She is the CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, a consultancy which innovates content culturalization, as well as a CXO and co founder of SetJetters., a film tourism app. She is also the former executive director of the International Game Developers Association and the Global Game Jam. In addition to serving on several boards and advisory roles, she has a geographer, writer, and a corporate strategist. In 2021. She was included in the Forbes 50 over 50 vision list and was also inducted into the Women in Games Hall of Fame. Congratulations on everything. Excited to have you on the show today.

We have a lot to cover, but first of all, can you share a bit about your background and how you ended up in games?

Kate Edwards: Yeah, so my path, like a lot of people, I think of my veteran status is a bit convoluted because back in the day, we didn't have game schools. The game industry was not really seen as a, as something that you actually go into.

So in my case, to try and make a very long story short, my original aspiration out of high school was to be an astronaut and I did aerospace engineering. And then I switched my major to industrial design because I wanted to be a conceptual artist for Lucasfilm because I wanted to work on Star Wars really bad.

You'd probably tell him a Star Wars geek. And so I really improved my artistic skills, which I had. But really got it in that style that I wanted for doing conceptual art, but then I got a little disenfranchised with that program. I'd always thought about minoring in geography because I love travel. I love maps. I love culture. And so it dawned on me one day.

Why are you running around geography? Why don't you just embrace it? And so I did. I changed my major and ended up getting my bachelor's degree, worked for a year as a cartographer. Then I decided I wanted to go to grad school, which is what took me from Southern California to Seattle, where I'm still based.

I did my master's thesis on using VR for cartography. This was way back in 1991 when VR hardly even worked. But I've always had a keen interest in new technologies and how can they basically make what we do better, especially something with an art form as old as cartography.

Then as I was starting my PhD, that's when Microsoft called our geography department. They needed a cartographer to work on this new product, which was Encarta Encyclopedia. And so I ended up going over there. I thought it was going to be a six month contract. And, I helped make all the maps for Encarta way back when.

And a lot of people probably don't know what Encarta is. But it was basically the last digital encyclopedia on a CD ROM and DVD before Wikipedia showed up online. Microsoft used to sell it like with every version of Windows. Everybody would get a copy of Encarta. When they got a new PC. So there's a certain age demographic where people are like, Oh my God, I grew up with Encarta. That was really fun to work on, but then they kept renewing my contract and saying, we need your help on this. We need your help on that.

So I ended up taking a full time job there after a couple of years and the job was to basically help them navigate the complex geopolitical issues on their mapping products. How do you show Taiwan? How do you show Kashmir and all these other complicated disputes around the world? And that dovetailed very nicely with my background knowledge that I got in my geography degree. So I started doing that work at Microsoft, but then as I was doing that work, I started getting questions from like all over the company. Is this gesture okay? Is this flag okay?

So we actually had an internal alias called Dr. Where. So it was Dr. Where at Microsoft. com. So I was Dr. Where, and I answered all these random geography questions. And some of the very first questions I got came from the Flight Sim team. So that was my very first game I worked on in 1993, was Flight Sim 5.0. Because they had some questions about some of the cartographic issues in Flight Sim. And I was able to help them with that.

Eventually it evolved where I created this new internal team at Microsoft called geopolitical strategy, because I saw this kind of open risk issue that was happening between product teams who had no reason to talk to each other. For example, we made a big mistake in South Korea in Cardinal World Atlas, and then 3 months later, the very 1st age of empires came out and they repeated some of those mistakes in Age of Empires.

Those 2 product teams have no reason to talk to each other. In fact, Age of Empires was being made in Dallas with Ensemble Studios, whereas Encarta was made in Seattle. That gave me the idea that we really need to coordinate some kind of program around this type of risk that a lot of people were not really thinking about.

So I got my team created and basically managed that effort for seven years before I left Microsoft in 2005. And that's when I really started diving deep into working on games, because when I created the geopolitical strategy team, that gave me a mandate to basically help all products at Microsoft, including all the games, navigate these complicated issues of cultural representation, geopolitics, and other things.

So that's how I ended up working on pretty much all the Microsoft stuff back in those days, like Halo and Fable and Age of Empires and Forza, and just on and on the list goes. And that's when I found my true calling. When I was doing what I call culturalization work, but on games, That's when I knew it's like this is it.

This is what I love. This brings everything together a confluence of all these things that I love and I basically found my perfect job. Congrats.

Lizzie Mintus: What was the most personally fulfilling thing that you did during your Microsoft?

Kate Edwards: There was a lot of great things. Among all of it, is just working with phenomenal people. Just so many great people I got to work with, including Phil Spencer, who is now the lord of games at Microsoft. Great guy. I loved working with him and Kiki Wolfkill and Shannon Loftus and a lot of the other people who really built the games division back in those days.

I think for me, one of the biggest achievements, though, is just prior to my departure from Microsoft, and it was actually one of the reasons I left, was I was able to get into this master checklist that every product at Microsoft must follow. In order for any product to release at Microsoft, they have to follow everything on this checklist. A lot of it is technical or legal requirements to make sure you do all of this stuff before your product goes out. I was able to negotiate with the release team, getting a line item in that checklist that included accountability for geopolitical and cultural issues in every product.

Once that was inserted into that checklist, that meant the work that I was doing was now completely institutionalized across the entire company. And that was a pretty proud moment because that was basically what I had set out to do when I created that geopolitical strategy team. so when that happened in 2004, that set the clock ticking for my departure because I felt my job is done here time to move on.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, congrats. That's a huge accomplishment. And then you went to the IGDA next, right?

Kate Edwards: No, actually, that's when I forged my new path. I created Geography, my consulting company, because I basically felt like I love doing this culturalization work and I love doing it on games. So I left with the intention of being a consultant.

The first couple of years as it is with any self employment was rough, ups and downs trying to grab clients and whatnot. But the first major client I had was Google. So one of my good friends at Microsoft, who was the head lawyer for Microsoft China, had met someone at Google and at some conference in Beijing.

The person at Google was complaining how they're getting all these complaints from people about their maps, because at that point, Microsoft's maps were no longer the thing. Now it was all about Google Maps and Google Earth. They were getting all the attention, and so they were getting a lot of heat, too, from a lot of different governments because of the way they were showing different boundaries and everything.

And so my friend David said, you have to talk to her. She can help you with this. Trust me. So that's how I got connected with Google and they became my first major client. I ended up creating a geopolitical team similar to what I did at Microsoft. I created it for Google that was focused on Google Maps and Google Earth. And so I was helping them navigate a lot of those issues. So that was my first big client in addition to just like little stuff I was doing, getting a toehold in the game industry, because I had made a lot of connections while I was still at Microsoft. But honestly, the first big workload that I had was not games related, after I left Microsoft.

Lizzie Mintus: That makes sense. Did you have a lot of employees or was it you consulting?

Kate Edwards: Just me. And even to this day, 18 years later, it's still mostly just me. I do outsource chunks of work as necessary because obviously there's a lot of representation that I need to verify. So I have a lot of people in my network around the world from different demographics, different cultures. As needed, I reach out to them.

For example, one of the projects I'm working on right now is the Indiana Jones game for machine games. Part of my job was to source a couple of archaeologists who are working with me to essentially verify the authenticity of the sites that are going to appear in the game. It's just been super fun. I love working with the external experts because I get to learn a ton from them.

Lizzie Mintus: That's really fulfilling. I can tell that you love what you do so much.

Kate Edwards: I do. I tend to be a very curious minded person. I love learning and so that's one of the things that I just really love about my work. Even though I do carry a lot of knowledge around just because I've been doing this for so long, every project demands some level of new learning and new research. That's part of the joy of doing the work, is that you get to learn something new.

Like for example, a few years ago when I was working on one of the Dead Rising games, I had to do a deep dive on Japanese wrestling culture. I don't mean sumo, the Japanese wrestling culture that they have there, which is somewhat similar to the luchador wrestlers in Mexico. I didn't even know Japan had a wrestling culture like that. I had to do like a deep dive on that culture and have an understanding of it. Now the knowledge is, there it is. If I ever need it for a trivia game or something, I'm ready.

Lizzie Mintus: I was going to tell you that you must be excellent at trivia.

Kate Edwards: Yeah, give me Trivial Pursuit. I will do pretty well at that. Especially if we land on the geography category.

Lizzie Mintus: Oh yeah. Game over. Talk to me about your segue there from into nonprofits.

Kate Edwards: The thing that led me down that path, by the time I left Microsoft, I had already been working on games for 12 years already. So I'd been working hand in hand, side by side with game developers, and I love these people. They're incredibly talented. I just love them to death. I really admire the people I work with. So when I left Microsoft, I was determined to focus most of my consulting work on games, but I had to rebuild my relationship with the game industry.

I felt that the one of the ways to do that was to join the International Game Developers Association. So I did and hung out in the background. Seattle here had a chapter that I went to, although it was flagging at the time. Eventually I created the Localization Special Interest Group in the IHDA because there wasn't one. Even though I don't do localization, which for me is language translation, the localization people tend to be the people I would hang out with more. I would hang out with them and a lot of times I would hear people complain that nobody cares about Loke. Nobody knows what we do and I just said, let's change that. Why don't we do something to change their perception of what we do?

I created the HDA. We wrote white papers. Our basic mission was to educate non localization people on why localization is important. I got really involved in that and then I helped revive the Seattle chapter of the IGDA and by that point, the board of the global IGDA was taking notice of what I was doing.

I don't like sitting around. I don't like people complaining about things. I like action. Complaining about something is fine, but what's next? I don't like that whinging. Even though a lot of people have a very valid reasons for doing so, I'm not complaining about that. It's just, I like to see action. So that's where I would tend to be a more action minded person. And then at one point, the IGDA board reached out to me because they were looking for a new executive director of the global organization. They said, Hey, your name came up. Would you be interested?

And I actually at first was not interested, but I was interested in having the initial interview because I had a lot of complaints about the organization. I was not happy with the way it was going. And so I said, this would be a great chance for me to give some feedback directly to some of the board members.

I got on the call with them, which was like a subset of the board. And I basically let them have it. I had some very clear points that I raised that I said, here's why this organization was created. This is what we should be focusing on, et cetera, et cetera. And the moment I got off the phone with them, the recruiter called me and said, Oh, I know you're on the short list because nobody talked to them like that before.

So anyway, I eventually was selected to be the next executive director. This was in 2012. And while I initially didn't really care about taking the role, between the time I did that initial interview and I did the final interview, it actually really grew on me. I felt I can still do my consulting work on the side, which I've done all these years, but I really feel like I want to try and make a difference for these amazing people I work with. I want to see, can we make their working conditions better? Can we improve inclusivity and diversity? All of these things that keep playing the industry, I felt like I'm going to give it my shot and see if I can make a difference. And I felt like running the IGDA might be the way to do and that's why I took the job. They be became my next major client because my work with Google after six years had started to wane. My job there was done. The IGDA basically became my main job focus. And it was great. I really enjoyed my time there.

I really was trying to make a difference. It was difficult because two years into my tenure as executive director is when Gamergate exploded. And so as a woman in a leadership role in the game industry, I became one of their primary targets. So I would wake up to death threats and harassment on a regular basis for two years straight. I was in touch with the FBI on a regular basis because of it, but my personality is a defiant personality.

I'm just like, bring it. Bring it, seriously, I'll even give you my address if you want to make the attempt because I know how they operate online. None of these threats were really tangible or serious. I even would tell people, look, I'm willing to have a dialogue with you about any differences that you think we may have.

Here's all the conferences I'm speaking at, it's on my website. If you want to show up and have a face to face with me, I'm more than happy to do and who do you think did that? Nobody.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, because they just want to talk to you online.

Kate Edwards: Yeah, exactly. That's not their agenda. That made it a little more challenging to do the job, but at the same time, I think we still did a lot of good work in raising aWhereness about crunch and the damage of crunch. Raising awareness about the lack of diversity and inclusivity in this industry. Gamergate to me, we just punctuated the latter point and so I thought in the end, we were basically fighting the best fight we could.

Then eventually after five years, I had already told the board when I took the job, I said, if I basically don't feel I can move things along where I want them to be in after five years, then it's probably best to find somebody else to take the takeover. And so I bowed out almost at five years. It was basically time. I started getting a little bit disenfranchised as well. I felt maybe, the change that needs to happen in the industry is not going to come through this mechanism, but there's other mechanisms that might be more effective, so I basically stepped down from IGA.

I joined the board of TakeThis.org and one of the reasons that was so important to me, being an organization focused on mental health, is because in all the travels that I do during my time running the IHDA and since I talked to thousands of developers all around the world and in all kinds of places, I felt that the mental health part of it really must be emphasized to a greater degree. That's where I got connected with Take This and they asked me to be on the board and I've been on the board ever since. I believe that their mission is very critical.

Lizzie Mintus: Can you share a little bit more about Take This? I've had Eve Crevoshay, who's the executive director on the podcast, and that's a really great lesson to hear. But for people that aren't familiar, can you share about the resources that Take This offers and where people can go to find them?

Kate Edwards: Yeah, absolutely.

So Take This, which is at takethis.org, it was started several years just over 10 years ago. And it was started as a resource really coming out of a tragedy that happened with the original founders, knowing a friend who unfortunately took their own life and the resulting mental health struggle around that really highlighted for them that we need a resource.

Something needs to exist to help people to where they can reach out and initially Take This was well known because they do what's called the AFK room, away from keyboard room at PAX events. So they had a partnership and they continue to have a partnership with the Penny Arcade Expo events in which they would have kind of a quiet space, a safe space where people could go because for people with any kind of mental wellness issues or neurodiversity, and being in a place like PAX is just the cacophony which can be overwhelming for some people.

They have this amazing safe space where you can just go in there. Have peace and quiet. There's even a member of staff there who can help them. They're not necessarily a person who can provide therapy, but they can at least help somebody if they're having a moment and they need some help.

So in a way, it was almost like a mental health first aid station. That's how Take This, I think, initially got its notoriety. But then, over the years, they've done an amazing job with their staff of creating white papers about all kinds of topics.

Even now, with all the layoffs that have been happening in the industry this year, they've got a great resource on the Take This website about how do you cope with layoffs and how do you deal with this and what, where do you turn for help, and not just practical help, but also with your mental wellness, because obviously it's a major blow to go through something like that.

They provide a lot of different resources, podcasts, and other things that they provide. I just really highly recommend to people that if they're curious about the mission of the organization or they want the resources, they should definitely go to takethis.org and check it out.

Lizzie Mintus: I like that they help companies as well. And Eve was just interesting to chat about the implications that your team's mental health has on your game and your community. Everything is correlated.

Kate Edwards: Absolutely. Yeah, and fortunately I think we're getting to a stage where society is starting to realize to some degree. That it is important. It's definitely been more elevated than it was even 10 years ago, but we still have a long way to go. The stigma about talking about mental health is still very real, I think for a lot of people.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, do you have any input as to the best way to approach it if anyone listening is having issues and wants to be able to be heard?

Obviously, Take This has a lot of resources, but you're on the board. I'm sure you have expertise.

Kate Edwards: Yeah, I think for a lot of people, you have to realize, obviously, that the first thing is that you're not alone. that's the thing that is most striking for people who go through a mental health crisis is that there's that sense of isolation.

And that just completely doubles down on the feelings and all of the anxiety around it. The reality is that more people are dealing with mental health issues than not in society. In fact, the statistics have shown that the over the lifetime of any person, one in two people are going to have some kind of mental wellness issue that they're going to have to cope with of some degree.

That basically makes it a human condition. It's not an outlying condition. It's something that we all deal with to a certain degree. And I think that's really important for people to understand that it's not abnormal to have these kind of issues and to have it weighed down on us, it's far more normal. It's just, we don't talk about it. That's really part of the importance of it. And as you'll find, with a lot of friends, if they find out that somebody is having a mental health crisis of some kind, they will be very open. Why didn't you say something, I'm here. I want to help you.

But I understand it's difficult too, because for some people who are going through it, they don't want to feel smothered. For example, if they post on social media sharing, I'm having an episode here. I could really use some support or help. They're asking for help, which is great. And I think that's important that they do but at the same time, they might get like 30 people responding all at once, yeah, what do you need? I can help you. It's just can I talk to one person maybe?

So they have to be a little bit careful about how they do it. It really depends like what state that they're in. But I think more than anything, reaching out for help and understanding that very likely whoever you're reaching out to is or has dealt with something similar to what you're dealing with or they will in their future is really important to realize. That it's just part of what we are as human beings.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, everyone is going through something, although social media may lead you to believe that they're like sunshine and rainbows. And I think that has a part of mental health today too.

Kate Edwards: Especially on the point about social media, I'm one of dinosaurs that grew up without any computers or cell phones or social media or internet. To be honest, now I'm really sounding old, sometimes I really wish that younger generations could experience that to some degree, because it was a very different world in how we dealt with things. I'm not saying it was all positive either, but I'm just saying that it was very different. In part of what I find troubling, and what social media does so well, it doubles down on the act of comparison and how we compare ourselves to others and looking at other people's lives.

And there's a great quote that I love from Mark Twain, where he said, comparison is the death of joy. And I've often used that in some lectures when I'm talking about this topic, because I think that phrase comparison is the death of joy for me epitomizes what social media does to a lot of people today.

When they spend so much time just doom scrolling and seeing what all their friends are doing, especially as we're coming up into the holidays with Thanksgiving next week and the winter holidays next month, it's a really tough time for a lot of people and they're comparing.

I'm not going to my family. I don't have anyone to hang out with. That act of comparison can be really damaging, really troublesome and unfortunately social media doesn't help.

Lizzie Mintus: That's very true. I want to ask you a little bit about imposter syndrome because so many people, maybe especially women, have different levels of experiencing it in a different reality.

Everybody has imposter syndrome and everyone's looking at this life, I wish I had this, but you don't really know what's going on. Can you talk about how you've combated or dealt with Imposter Syndrome in your career?

Kate Edwards: Absolutely. That is a very important issues.

I've actually ended up getting lectures about imposter syndrome because like everybody, I have gone through my own episodes of Imposter Syndrome. I can describe how I dealt with it. So I left Microsoft. I was consulting and at this point when I when it hit me, I was already pretty established as a consultant.

I had already had a good career at Microsoft. I'd already been building a reputation for myself, and all of that and I was at a point where every single time I would send an email to one of my clients with the results of my work, I thought, this is the moment where they're going to call fraud, fake, you're wrong, et cetera, et cetera.

I just always felt that anxiety every time I would send them the final result. I'm like, this is when they're going to find out that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It's so irrational because it's like, why would they even hire me in the first place?

If they had even the slightest feeling that I don't know what I'm talking about, especially with the work that I do, which is highly specialized expertise. I had to remind myself, they wouldn't even talk to me if they felt that lack of confidence. But that's how irrational imposter syndrome is. I kept having that anxiety.

One evening I went to a concert at the Seattle Symphony. And the concert was a movie score. It was the Matrix. And cause I'm a huge movie score geek in addition to many other geeky things. I love listening to movie scores and this is where they had the orchestra playing the whole score of the movie and they showed the movie above above the stage. This was special because Don Davis who composed the music for the matrix was actually there to conduct his own score. Super cool.

So I'm watching this movie, I'm sitting there with a friend, and I've seen this movie a hundred times or more, and we get to the point in the film where the mentor, Morpheus, when they're in that virtual dojo where Morpheus and Neo are sparring with one another And that moment when Morpheus says to Neo: don't think you are know you are. That hit me so hard because it was right at that time when i'd been thinking about all this stuff with my imposter syndrome And when he said that to Neo in the film, I just started crying my eyes out as i'm sitting there in the symphony.

And of course my friend next to me is like, it's not that emotional. Did I miss something? But what I came to realize from that phrase is, that was my problem. It's like knowing that I'm an expert, in despite what I think about myself.

I don't call myself an expert because I feel I'm always learning and I want to always be learning. It's part of the joy of the work that I do is to just constantly be learning and improving my skill. In all the years I've been doing my work, the more I know, the more I realize how much I don't know. And I love that because for me, I love the fact that there's always something over the horizon that I may never see and I actually like that idea.

So embracing that knowingness of that I actually am an expert that, comes from external recognition. There's all these people who hire me. There's all these people who give me recognition I just slough it off thanks. That's cool. Thank you.

But listen to them. They're actually telling you that you are. They know that you're an expert, but you're sitting there thinking that you're not. That's why that phrase don't think you are, know you are, hit me so hard.

And that really was the thing that woke me up. It was the epiphany I needed in that moment, at that point in life, listening to that phrase that I'd heard a hundred times before. That's when it woke me up and said, that is my problem is I have to be willing to trust the judgment of other people about my skill set and just go with it and just don't question it.

Stop doubting it. There's a reason people keep coming to hire me. Just go with it. Maybe they actually know something that you don't. That for me was a little bit of an arrogance check as well. That's what happened, and this well over 10 years ago.

But ever since then, I just had this piece about the fact that, it hasn't made me arrogant. I still feel like I'm learning. Sometimes feel reticent to say expert, but I'm willing to say it because I have to recognize that for doing something for 30 years, it does make you an expert, no matter who you are.

You do something long enough, you are going to be an expert, whether you like it or not. And so you just have to embrace it.

Lizzie Mintus: You are the expert. Thank you for your story. I want to talk about being a woman in games. I was going to say there's a lot of progress based on the article this week. There's progress and there's some steps back. But can you tell me about how the industry has evolved and how you hope to see it evolve in the future?

Kate Edwards: Yeah, certainly for the length of time I've been in this industry, it has improved. There's no question about it. When I started in the 90s, it was a very different world, very still dominated by this kind of macho bro thinking IT world. Yeah, that still exists in some pockets here and there. But generally speaking, it is a lot better today. I do think the industry has had to go through some punctuated moments of realization that they need to do better.

Gamergate was one of those, even though I really don't think the industry learned as much as they should have during that time. We've had other moments like Black Lives Matter three and a half years ago, which I think was another watershed moment for waking up the industry, and not just the game industry by the way, but many industries to realizing that representation truly matters.

And it was unfortunate that it took that incident to wake them up because there have been many incidences that could have woken them up for decades prior, but it happened. It was a cultural moment, and I think it was an important moment for a lot of content creators, including game creators to realize that representation really matters to people and you need to get it right. You need to do the work to do it right.

And I think that all has provided a better foundation now than what we had, I would say even 10 years ago for keep building on the idea that representation matters. Not only does it matter, but you can only truly do it if you have a staff and a company that is diverse, inclusive, and how it approaches these things.

And so I do think we're on better footing, even though we still have a long way to go. And especially the biggest challenge of all, I think, is even though there has been an improvement in recruiting marginalized people, including women into this industry, the problem still lies in getting those people into leadership roles.

That to me is the issue. You can have people in these, in, in the companies. And I think several companies are doing a much better job and how they recruit, even they still need to do better, but getting them into leadership roles is the biggest challenges industry faces, hands down, to me. Big problem.

Lizzie Mintus: There's companies that just don't care, companies that say they care, and companies that really care. I work with all sorts of different companies, but for the ones that truly care, there's something about caring to hire diversely, but then woman or under person from an underrepresented marginalized background is here, but you have no plan.

Kate Edwards: Yeah, exactly. It's really hard. Yeah. And especially, and to put them in a role which is non typical. So basically they're not the head of diversity in HR. They're not the head of marketing. Those are good positions too. Don't get me wrong, but I'm saying put them in true leadership roles that oversee the direction of the company and the creative direction of the products and so on.

And I think that's really what needs to happen. We are still a ways from that in terms of getting these companies to really reach out. There's countless times that we have all seen, I know I've seen it, I'm sure you have as well, where men are put in a position of authority and leadership when they don't have all the requisite experience, but they're put in a position anyway.

Hey, we're going to give them a chance. Why not do that with the marginalized person? Why not give them a chance as well? Maybe they haven't completely proven their leadership capabilities, but most people never have when they're put into that role. Even people get put into a CEO position or a VP position are not truly proven in that role.

The people who put them in the position are taking their best guess that the person's going to succeed in the role. There needs to be more, i'm not going to say it's risk taking because I don't see it as risk taking, I just think opening up the opportunity and allowing that person to flourish in the role, giving them the chance to flourish, that alone is what's not happening enough. Even giving the people a chance to get into the role and see how they do.

Lizzie Mintus: What do you think the answer is?

Kate Edwards: There still has to be substantive education at the C level in a lot of these companies because let's face it, a lot of the game companies today, it's still a lot of white dudes. I'm not saying they're bad white dudes. The fact that they're white dudes doesn't instantly make them bad. That's not what I'm saying, but at the same time, along with that, because culture is my work, I look at things from a cultural lens. And so if you have a C suite that is mostly white and mostly male, then it comes with a certain kind of culture that dominates the decision making and the thinking in that company.

And so it's really about how do you enact cultural change within a company when you have a very limited viewpoint that's dominating the decision making. There really has to be a push and pull going on where there needs to be a certain level of enlightenment that happens for those people who are in the C suite, which that's a harder ask, to be honest. If it was easy, then we would have seen better progress by now. But to me, the other side of it, if you can't get that happening, then it has to come from bottom up. The employees have to speak up and they have to take that chance that speaking up might actually affect their job.

But that's where, to me, the importance of, organized labor comes in, and the importance of having a voice and having leverage as game developers. I think that's all very important because the people who are actually doing the work need to be able to express themselves and they need to be heard.

There is risk in doing that. Let's face it. We see it all the time. Not just in games either. But if we want to see progress happen, then somebody's got to push somewhere. And that's what I was trying to do when I was running IGDA and even Global Game Jam to a lesser degree. Being in that role outside of a game company, I had nothing to lose.

Lizzie Mintus: So if you're a person working at a game studio and you want to advocate for yourself as a marginalized person, or as a male non marginalized person, if you want to advocate for your colleagues, what steps could people take?

Kate Edwards: I think the first step that needs to happen is you need to find your allies. That's the most important thing because again, you're not isolated in your feelings. I'm sure that you are not isolated at all. So you need to find your allies. So basically, other marginalized people who are in the company, however you want to slice that from your perspective.

Ban together with a single voice or have even your own informal employee resource group in which you talk to each other about these issues. Then maybe formally write up concerns that you can elevate to the C suite in a very constructive way.

You're not trying to be antagonistic. You're not trying to burn the place down. You're just trying to say, hey, you we're concerned about this. We like working here. We love the work we're doing but this can be a better place and here's how it can be a better place. So here's some suggestions we have.

For companies that don't listen, basically what we end up seeing is that the talent, especially talent that is from marginalized people, leave. Because they're just like, we're not going to stay here. I'm not going to tolerate this. So I'm going to find a job somewhere else.

Lizzie Mintus: Absolutely. What if you're a leader, what could you do?

Kate Edwards: I think for leaders, they need to listen. They really need to wake up and listen, because to me, leadership is all about service. That is the whole point of leadership. You are a shepherd of your flock. You are basically serving the needs of your employees. It is not the other way around.

You are not a pharaoh. You are not a dictator or a czar. It's like your role is to support and elevate the people who work for you and to make them succeed. That is the whole purpose of leadership in my view. And so I felt I really learned that from my parents. They have been very giving people and who have been in leadership roles. I saw them model constantly a leadership as service. They're the ones on their knees picking up stuff and cleaning up stuff and doing what has to be done in order to serve the needs of other people around them.

And that I really felt like that is how I emulated my leadership style as I've run different groups and run the IGDA and Global Game Jam. How can I help my people, so to speak, my people, not meaning that I own them. It's the other way around. I belong to them, so how can I help you?

And I really think framing of your leadership is really necessary to do a good job. If you think that it's all about you, then you should not be in that job.

Lizzie Mintus: I saw a great post the other day about just different phrasing that you can use. For instance, instead of saying, hey you guys, you could say, hey, everybody, or hey, something else. Instead of saying someone that works for me, you say someone that works with me, which I really liked.

Kate Edwards: Yes, exactly. It's that's why I don't like really using the term coworker. I often say colleague because I like that idea that we're we're together as colleagues. We're working together. It doesn't matter what our levels are or anything. They're a colleague of mine, and we're in this together.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, that's a really respectful and open ended term. That's great. I want to talk about your other company, The SetJetters.

What a good name, by the way, too.

Kate Edwards: Thank you. It's funny because my one of my hobbies that I've had since I was a teenager growing up in Southern California. I love visiting filming locations. Because for me, TV shows or films that I really love there, there's that emotional connection that comes alive when you visit the actual place where it was filmed.

I know so many people who do set jetting. They do film tourism and they feel the exact same way. There's just that emotional bond you have. For example, being a Star Wars fan, I've been to many Star Wars locations. I've been to Tunisia with the original Lars Homestead where they filmed the original Star Wars, way back when I've been to Skellig Michael, the island off Ireland, where they filmed the more recent Star Wars films.

I've been a lot of different places. When I went to Lars Homestead in Tunisia, it was like a religious experience because Star Wars was so formative for me. I saw it when I was 12 years old, and it was just so mind blowing and really changed my life in a way that to be there at the very place where they film. I was weak in the knees, I was tearing up because I could not believe that I was there. I was actually there at that place. For many people who do film tourism, that's what it's about. It's about that joy of bringing to life something that they really, that has brought meaning to them, or they just really like.

Right before COVID, I had partnered with four other people, and we were talking about doing this project. But then COVID hit, and three of my co founders are from the film industry, so they were suddenly not working. So basically we banded together and said, why don't we create an app for film tourism? So we did.

We raised some funds a couple years ago, and we were able to get a developer to build the app for us, and we got it launched over two years ago. It's been out on iOS and Android for a while now. And now it's becoming a going concern.

It's a business that we're growing. We're building all these partnerships with film commissions and tourism boards. The amazing thing is that there's a lot of places where films have been made that even to this day are still very special for that community. For example, in Astoria, Oregon, every year they have Goonies Day, because that's where the Goonies was filmed.

And so thousands of people go to Astoria from around the world to celebrate the Goonies. Every year even though that movie is like over what it's almost 30 years old or more or no more than that More than 30 years old. Or in Brownsville, Oregon this tiny town north of Eugene That's where they filmed the movie stand by me and every July 23rd is Stand By Me Day because that's the day the film came out. So again, they have a big celebration. Thousands of people convene on Brownsville.

For the communities where the filming takes place, this is a really big deal. It drives tourism. It drives business. We're connecting that side of it with the tourists who want to go there and visit and it's just been super fun to work on. This is a pure passion hobby of mine that has now turned into a business.

Now, I do my geography consulting work, which I love, and then I still travel and speak a lot. And then now there's SetJetters.. The other thing that is basically taking up any time I have left over.

Lizzie Mintus: I think that you like to be busy though.

Kate Edwards: I do. There's no doubt about it. I do like to be busy. I like to be engaged. I like to do things that I love. And I can honestly say that everything that I do is an act of joy. I really do love what I do. If I can keep on something else that is also something that I love, that's great. But then I also have to realize I only have so many hours in the day.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah. How do you think you've always been really clear on your passion and your direction? Or how did you really discern what it is that your calling is or what brings you the most joy?

Kate Edwards: Yeah, I can't say that I have been clear. I know back in high school and early college, they're usually like, you need to set up a career path plan or set goals. I never set goals. I had never set any goals. I'm going to be this by this date, or I'm going to be an astronaut by this year, right? I never did that.

For me, it was always following a string of passions. It's what do I find interesting? What is exciting? What is really cool? What really piques my interest? And I think the one thing that has been driving me, if not setting specific goals, it's the idea of confluence.

And this goes back to even way back to my high school days. I remember back in those days hoping that whatever I end up doing in life, I hope it's a confluence of things that I love. And so when I look back now, that is exactly what happened. I guess the idea of confluence, which for me means bringing together technology and the interest in technology, interest in creativity in the creative media and creative arts, the artistic side, the scientific side as well, which, broaden in the aerospace, broaden in the geography, the cartography- all of these things that I really enjoy I remember thinking, how can I find a job that lets me do all of this in a concentrated fashion?

And that's basically what I ended up doing. I could say that it was subconscious, but if I really think about it, I think it was probably more consciously directed than I really thought it was at the time. I can think back to when I made certain decisions that were key to my career. I wouldn't say that I'd like, yeah, I knew exactly what I was doing cause I didn't. But I think somewhere in the back of my brain, I knew what I was doing. That realization only came many years later.

Lizzie Mintus: Who has your biggest mentor been in your career? And is there any piece of advice that they've given you that has stuck with you?

Kate Edwards: That's really hard. I have had so many great people who I think at the time I didn't really see them as a mentor. Again, I saw them as a colleague who was just being helpful. But when I look back on many of the interactions I had, especially I think in my Microsoft days. These people were definitely mentors to me. I mentioned Shannon Loftus, for example. She was someone I worked with very closely for years. And she was fantastic. It was just a friendship.

I realized that there were a lot of things that she had taught me in my interaction with her that were very powerful and useful for my career. There's other interactions I had, for example, Ricardo Adame, he was the head of international PR at Microsoft, and he was so awesome in the soft education dropping little nuggets of wisdom that I didn't really pick up as being mentoring. But later I realized that's exactly what he was doing. I don't know if he was intentionally doing it or not, but he did because I had to interact with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer several times in my work, having to tell them why did a product get banned somewhere.

In my whole interaction with them really was coached in and framed by Ricardo because he had to deal with them all the time. His ability to help me deal with them and really set me up for how do I deal with people of importance, or people who are perceived as important, whether it's politicians or actors or who I've dealt with a lot of those kind of people. I think his insights helped me feel like they're just another person. Don't let it freak you out. Just do what you need to do.

Be normal. Don't get all jazzed about it. Just, do your thing because they're doing the same thing. They're not treating you like you're any celebrity because you're not. That's just another great example of how I got a lot of gentle mentoring over the years. And I've tried to pass that along. I mentor a lot of people. I get a lot of people coming to me for advice and I'm more than happy to pass it along and to help them out.

Lizzie Mintus: Wonderful. Yeah, I had Jenny on the podcast and she told me you're such a mentor to her.

Kate Edwards: She's awesome.

Lizzie Mintus: She is awesome. She's really, she's doing a lot of things as well.

Kate Edwards: She is. Absolutely.

Lizzie Mintus: I have one last question and I get it from WIGI, which is another, maybe this is a non profit in your future. You haven't been to wiki.

They have a whole program about, I wish I knew X at Y stage of my career, like a cheat code. Do you have any cheat codes that you would like to share?

Kate Edwards: Yes. My biggest one, which is probably related to the imposter syndrome conversation that we had is the biggest thing I wish I could have done sooner in life is- don't care what other people think about what I'm doing. Just let it go. Just don't think about it. Don't compare. They don't know any better than I do what's best for me. And I think if I had realized that a little bit sooner, I don't think the outcome would have been much different, but I do think I would have reached this place of that inner peace sooner than I did.

" I don't think that's the right thing for you to do". How do you know? How do you even know what's right for you, let alone for me? It reminds me of a quote from Marcus Aurelius way back but he basically said, how better it is for us to basically mind our own business and focus on just being better ourselves than worrying about what other people are doing around us. That's a horrible paraphrasing, but that's what he said. And I'm just like, yeah that's that's the advice that I wish I would have embraced sooner.

Lizzie Mintus: So if you... it's not even my last question. A follow up, if you will, if you do have to make a really hard decision, then, you want to do ultimately what's in your heart, but how do you find that? How do you make the decision?

Kate Edwards: For me, it really comes down to my values. I'm clear on what my values are and what I stand for. And that really, for me is the litmus test. Is this going to reinforce or not reinforce the values that I have? It really has to come down to that.

What do I stand for? What do I believe in? And if I'm going to make a decision that is not consistent with my values, then I'm like, I'm then I'm not going to make the decision. Or I'll make the decision in, so that I'm not contrary to my values. Ultimately to me, that's what we have as human beings. It's what we stand for. And it's what we're willing to fight for from a sense of right and wrong. And I feel I have really good clarity on that for myself. That's really my compass direction on how I make those decisions.

Lizzie Mintus: Thank you. We've been talking to Kate Edwards, who does many things. She's CEO at Geogrify and CXO at SetJetters. Kate, where can people go to hire you, learn more about you, listen to your talks?

Kate Edwards: I do have a website, geogrify. com. It's currently under construction. You can easily find me on LinkedIn as well. I'm also on Twitter, or what is it, X now. I'm Geogrify on Twitter.

So I'm pretty easy to find if you want to hunt me down.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah. You might even give your address. Thank you so much.

Kate Edwards: Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. To catch all the latest from His Waldo, you can follow us on LinkedIn. Be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.

We'll see you next time.

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