Welcome to the first interview with President Anumia during his first term. In this interview we talk about GAP, the Patron Program, the media, and a host of other issues. The interview is available in audio format, as well as a text transcript which is provided below. If you have any of your own questions for the president, just ask below in the comments.
President Anumia Interview #1
Transcript:
Kraken: Welcome ladies and gentlemen, recording live from the European Broadcast Centre's luxury recording studios I bring to you an interview with the president, Anumia. How are you today sir?
Anumia: I'm good thanks, Krake. It's good to be here.
Kraken: We're about halfway through your term, would you say you've accomplished what you'd hoped to accomplish so far?
Anumia: Well, I think we're about a third of the way through. We're definitely well on the road, the Great Architecture Project(GAP) is now in the public discussion. I'm looking fairly shortly to start drawing what conclusions we can from those dsicussions and begin working on compiling a final document on what we're intending to do so we can start courting regions to see which ones are interested. That obviously is my big personal project, we're also doing pretty well with our Interior work. We're looking at making several new themed telegrams. We're looking at expanding the Mentor program, which is now a Patron progam. But yeah, I think we're doing pretty well so far. We're on track certainly.
Kraken: You mentioned the GAP, what do you think that final document is going to look like?
Anumia: Well, I know what it's not going to look like. It's not going to be a hard, set in stone rulebook of exactly what we're going to do. It's going to be a living document for a while I imagine, but it's going to be something to give us good, solid ideas of exactly where we need to go at the start, and we'll work on it from then on as we gain experience working with newer and smaller regions we will adapt as necessary. The point is, it will give us a good foundation to begin with.
Kraken: Yeah I think with this you don't really want an originalistic type of approach, especially when you're going to be dealing with a number of diverse regions. Do you have any regions in mind, or any that you've already extended the olive branch to?
Anumia: There's none that we've actually approached yet. A few people, not myself, have begun looking at regions. The official directive to do so hasn't gone out yet, but obviously people are excited, so that's okay. I specifically wanted to avoid courting regions until we knew we had this document, sort of an idea of what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. But I don't mind that people are already sort of privately looking at what they might think will be a good idea. So no, we haven't yet established contact with any regions that we'd be interested in, but I think that's coming very shortly. Probably we'll start to put feelers out as we're compiling the document together over the next week or two, and then actually begin.
Kraken: Excellent. You mentioned Integration, which was my next question, and was a vital part of your campaign, so I'll move along. What's working with Malashaan as vice president been like? And the rest of your cabinet?
Anumia: The cabinet's been good. I've been quite pleased, you obviously included in that. You've been pretty active most of the time, and I quite appreciate that. CSP with foreign affairs, regarding particularly the ending of the treaty with Lazarus, was very helpful. Others in the EAAC were very helpful, but he and I were discussing it before it went to the EAAC, so he's doing a good job there. Artimis unfortunately has had a bit of real life complications, so he's been less active than I know he wanted to be. I won't hold it against him though. In his absence a few of the cabinet ministers, and Malashaan and myself, have tuned in on discussing Interior matters, but now that he's back I know he's excited and interested to get straight back in to it. I know he's already looking at the expansion of the Patron program. Seven Deaths is doing an amazing job, I was really happy with how well the Zombie Event went-
Kraken: It turned out really well.
Anumia: It did. I think our forum activity from that has to be up there with some of our best April Fool's Day's. I think in terms of pure nations of the region to members of the forum conversion, I think it's the single most successful event ever. We had something like twelve people in two days. It was amazing, so that was fantastic. And now we're having the TNP event, which is awesome. The guys over there are really cool, I've been able to chat privately with McMasterdonia and he's awesome. So it's good, we're getting close with him. Cerian's been doing a good job with the military of course. We're looking at training new people so that we have a broader command. That was sort of a problem in the last term or two, a problem which was partially on me. We had a dearth of officers basically, we suddenly had a lot of high ranking people who needed to retire or step down or get a bit quieter and we had a huge crop of relatively new recruits, and we're looking at training them. Malashaan, I haven't had a great deal of time to talk with him in the last week or so, this is more on me than anything else. I went back to work in the real world a fortnight ago, and I had my first on fortnight, which was pretty hectic, and I'm just catching up on everything that was going on, and what's coming soon, so I haven't been online quite as much. Actually, just before this interview Mal popped online and we're going to catch up immediately after this interview, and sort of begin phase two of this term. I think we're going to re-focus again and get on with it. He's been doing well, even without the two of us keeping in direct communication. On days when I haven't been here he's been leading the Interior discussions, while CSP or Cerian are leading the external ones. On days when I am there we're always working on the forum, even if we're not able to talk on Skype, but we will be immediately after this interview. I'm really happy with this cabinet, it's doing a really great job.
Kraken: Excellent. So what can the average Europeian do to help out, regarding any of the programs you mentioned, or just in general? Besides the usual "join the navy" and all that stuff.
Anumia: I guess two main things really. I would really like to see more people in the media. Seven Deaths has been doing a really cool thing with his "Seven Minutes with Seven Deaths." McEntire, the couple of articles he's written in his new paper, have been really awesome, I wish he was writing more. I really hope that he gets back to more activity there, because obviously he brings a very intelligent analysis of events, even if we don't always agree, he always writes very well. We might not always have the same opinion on things, but he always has a very strong appreciate of both situations, which is very good. I'd like to see others as well. Plus, my personal preference of seeing others doing non text media things, like this interview for example, would be cool. I really want to see someone who does like a comic strip, or a video blog or something. It's tricky to say "you, go there and do this." I don't really want to do that, so it's hard to say "I want to encourage you guys," but I don't want to tell someone they have to do it. It would be cool though if someone did, someone who's artistic. I'm not, I can't draw to save my life, so I can't spur this one on myself. I'm doing the radio interviews, and the radio speeches but there'll be no visual, no comic strips from me. If someone else can do that, that would be really cool.
Anumia: Secondly, before we do wrap up the discussion on the GAP, I'd like to see more people getting involved. I understand that some of the topics are dwindling naturally. We've discussed things as far as people have thought of. If there are no new ideas that's fine, but it'd be nice in the next week or so to see a renewed interest in that forum as we're looking to compile a final document. Just get everyone back involved, talk about anything else we think is left unsaid, and we'll get it done.
Kraken: Excellent. So, before we wrap this up, is there anything else you'd like to mention or talk about that we haven't already?
Anumia: Well, a couple of ministerial things. We're always looking for patrons, the new form of mentors, Artimis is going to be compiling a list fairly shortly, but just as a general shout out to anyone interested, if you have experience and are friendly, that would be nice. Actually, if we have friendly, that would be good(laughs). Basically from now on, it's going to be every new comer receives a patron. If they don't want to have someone to chat to, that's fine, they don't have to, but we're going to have every single person contacted by a patron now, so they don't miss the opportunity. A lot of people are saying "no, I don't want a mentor," but then a lot of these same people also go "oh, how do I get involved in this?" Just from talking to nations in the region who telegram me, I know there are a lot of people who don't really understand what they're doing. Even then they sometimes still reject having a mentor. I think we're going to remove the formality of the system. It won't be "would you like apply for a mentor," it will just be you show up and get signed up on the forums and someone is automatically allocated to you behind the scenes, who will come and send you a message or two saying "Hi, I'm ____. Can I help you with anything?" I think it will engage them better than asking them if they want someone to reach out to them, we'll just do it. The worst that will happen is they'll still not want to have someone with one on one contact, and they can go their own way. I think we'll get more people interested that way.
Anumia: The second thing is very shortly we're going to be looking for architects, obviously. This is a call out to the more experienced members of the region. I realize we may have some newer members who are interested in it as well, but I think in the beginning we really need to exit the gates running fast here. We need to get the first few in the GAP right. It would be a good idea I think if some of the most experienced people in the republic are spearheading the project. The more experienced people who are out there, if they're interested, and application to myself, or to CSP, or just let us know you're interested, because very shortly we're going to be looking for people to be there for when the time comes to start adding regions. It'll be a fantastic thing to have on your resume, and if you're looking for something new to do, it will be fun and it will be really really cool I think to say "I was one of the first architects, the first people who embarked on this massive new building project that we're working on."
Kraken: The best part of this is that you get to claim to be an architect and you don't even need a degree.
Anumia: (Laughs) Yeah that's right, qualifications? What qualifications? Don't look at the building that's leaning over there.
Kraken: That's art. You've seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Anumia: I have. I don't think that was intended.
Kraken: You wouldn't know about the building if it wasn't leaning.
Anumia: That's exactly right. I'm looking forward to what we can do though, we're certainly looking at maintaining or establishing early relations with the big power players of the world. This is going to be a cool thing that we can do helping to raise new, younger, smaller regions, to help them develop their themes. To make the next generation of regions, and hopefully if we do it right, they will all be friendly with us as well. It will give us a much greater place on the world stage, and it will be increasing activity in the game, and it will hopefully increase activity on our forums. Everyone will benefit basically, as long as we do this right. There aren't really any downsides, even if we do it wrong it's pretty hard to have a downside. It's good, I'm really looking forward to it.
Kraken: I'm looking forward to it too. Just from my own personal conversations with a lot of the members in the region, almost everyone in Europeia is looking forward to it and are on board with the project.
Anumia: It's created a lot of excitement.
Kraken: Definitely, it's created something new for the region to do, which is a wonderful thing really, instead of just going stagnant and having an active spam forum. So, if there's nothing else you'd like to say I guess we shall conclude our interview for this time. Hopefully we'll start recording more constantly and we'll get more in depth as the GAP takes off.
Anumia: I've just raised a discussion in cabinet to look at helping to further expand media in ways like this which will hopefully be cool. As for the GAP, we're not at the wrapping up stage yet but we're getting pretty close to trying to transition towards beginning this thing, so if there are people out there who still want to contribute ideas or join in the discussions please get involved. It's pretty hard to say a wrong thing here, and everyone's ideas are very welcome. This is something where newcomers can give good ideas too. While the more experienced people have good ideas about how to run a region, the newcomers, or the newer members, have a good idea on how to engage the smaller regions to begin with, perhaps because they obviously are relatively new players who might have come from small regions, or have been invited to them. I know a lot of the people who have been leaving have been leaving for smaller regions. I know this because when a nation leaves I send a telegram to figure out why, and the number one answer from those who reply is that they are going to small regions with their friends. If we can figure out a way to reach out to them, we can help them grow, ane we will keep them in the fold as well, which will be good. So, newcomers, older experienced members, everyone should get involved in the last week or two of the GAP discussion, and then we're going to go forward.
Kraken: Well, like I said before, it was definitely a pleasure talking to you, and I look forward to seeing how the rest of your term plays out. Earlier you mentioned media forms, and I wasn't going to talk about this during this interview, but you mentioned you mentioned it a couple of times. The EBC, I was actually planning to have a multimedia contest, generally visually based, to foster interest.
Anumia: Ah, that's clever.
Kraken: There really won't be a prize, besides bragging rights.
Anumia: The prize will be attention I guess, that's what media's there for.
Kraken: I guess that's what artists generally look anyways(laughs). From what I've been told.
Anumia: That's really cool, I like that.
Kraken: Yeah, I thought it might move things along. Anyone listening to this interview, look out for that in the coming few days or week. It will be coming soon.
Anumia: Awesome.
Kraken: Anyways, it was a pleasure talking to you Mr. President.
Anumia: Thanks Krake, bye.
President Anumia Interview #1
Transcript:
Kraken: Welcome ladies and gentlemen, recording live from the European Broadcast Centre's luxury recording studios I bring to you an interview with the president, Anumia. How are you today sir?
Anumia: I'm good thanks, Krake. It's good to be here.
Kraken: We're about halfway through your term, would you say you've accomplished what you'd hoped to accomplish so far?
Anumia: Well, I think we're about a third of the way through. We're definitely well on the road, the Great Architecture Project(GAP) is now in the public discussion. I'm looking fairly shortly to start drawing what conclusions we can from those dsicussions and begin working on compiling a final document on what we're intending to do so we can start courting regions to see which ones are interested. That obviously is my big personal project, we're also doing pretty well with our Interior work. We're looking at making several new themed telegrams. We're looking at expanding the Mentor program, which is now a Patron progam. But yeah, I think we're doing pretty well so far. We're on track certainly.
Kraken: You mentioned the GAP, what do you think that final document is going to look like?
Anumia: Well, I know what it's not going to look like. It's not going to be a hard, set in stone rulebook of exactly what we're going to do. It's going to be a living document for a while I imagine, but it's going to be something to give us good, solid ideas of exactly where we need to go at the start, and we'll work on it from then on as we gain experience working with newer and smaller regions we will adapt as necessary. The point is, it will give us a good foundation to begin with.
Kraken: Yeah I think with this you don't really want an originalistic type of approach, especially when you're going to be dealing with a number of diverse regions. Do you have any regions in mind, or any that you've already extended the olive branch to?
Anumia: There's none that we've actually approached yet. A few people, not myself, have begun looking at regions. The official directive to do so hasn't gone out yet, but obviously people are excited, so that's okay. I specifically wanted to avoid courting regions until we knew we had this document, sort of an idea of what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. But I don't mind that people are already sort of privately looking at what they might think will be a good idea. So no, we haven't yet established contact with any regions that we'd be interested in, but I think that's coming very shortly. Probably we'll start to put feelers out as we're compiling the document together over the next week or two, and then actually begin.
Kraken: Excellent. You mentioned Integration, which was my next question, and was a vital part of your campaign, so I'll move along. What's working with Malashaan as vice president been like? And the rest of your cabinet?
Anumia: The cabinet's been good. I've been quite pleased, you obviously included in that. You've been pretty active most of the time, and I quite appreciate that. CSP with foreign affairs, regarding particularly the ending of the treaty with Lazarus, was very helpful. Others in the EAAC were very helpful, but he and I were discussing it before it went to the EAAC, so he's doing a good job there. Artimis unfortunately has had a bit of real life complications, so he's been less active than I know he wanted to be. I won't hold it against him though. In his absence a few of the cabinet ministers, and Malashaan and myself, have tuned in on discussing Interior matters, but now that he's back I know he's excited and interested to get straight back in to it. I know he's already looking at the expansion of the Patron program. Seven Deaths is doing an amazing job, I was really happy with how well the Zombie Event went-
Kraken: It turned out really well.
Anumia: It did. I think our forum activity from that has to be up there with some of our best April Fool's Day's. I think in terms of pure nations of the region to members of the forum conversion, I think it's the single most successful event ever. We had something like twelve people in two days. It was amazing, so that was fantastic. And now we're having the TNP event, which is awesome. The guys over there are really cool, I've been able to chat privately with McMasterdonia and he's awesome. So it's good, we're getting close with him. Cerian's been doing a good job with the military of course. We're looking at training new people so that we have a broader command. That was sort of a problem in the last term or two, a problem which was partially on me. We had a dearth of officers basically, we suddenly had a lot of high ranking people who needed to retire or step down or get a bit quieter and we had a huge crop of relatively new recruits, and we're looking at training them. Malashaan, I haven't had a great deal of time to talk with him in the last week or so, this is more on me than anything else. I went back to work in the real world a fortnight ago, and I had my first on fortnight, which was pretty hectic, and I'm just catching up on everything that was going on, and what's coming soon, so I haven't been online quite as much. Actually, just before this interview Mal popped online and we're going to catch up immediately after this interview, and sort of begin phase two of this term. I think we're going to re-focus again and get on with it. He's been doing well, even without the two of us keeping in direct communication. On days when I haven't been here he's been leading the Interior discussions, while CSP or Cerian are leading the external ones. On days when I am there we're always working on the forum, even if we're not able to talk on Skype, but we will be immediately after this interview. I'm really happy with this cabinet, it's doing a really great job.
Kraken: Excellent. So what can the average Europeian do to help out, regarding any of the programs you mentioned, or just in general? Besides the usual "join the navy" and all that stuff.
Anumia: I guess two main things really. I would really like to see more people in the media. Seven Deaths has been doing a really cool thing with his "Seven Minutes with Seven Deaths." McEntire, the couple of articles he's written in his new paper, have been really awesome, I wish he was writing more. I really hope that he gets back to more activity there, because obviously he brings a very intelligent analysis of events, even if we don't always agree, he always writes very well. We might not always have the same opinion on things, but he always has a very strong appreciate of both situations, which is very good. I'd like to see others as well. Plus, my personal preference of seeing others doing non text media things, like this interview for example, would be cool. I really want to see someone who does like a comic strip, or a video blog or something. It's tricky to say "you, go there and do this." I don't really want to do that, so it's hard to say "I want to encourage you guys," but I don't want to tell someone they have to do it. It would be cool though if someone did, someone who's artistic. I'm not, I can't draw to save my life, so I can't spur this one on myself. I'm doing the radio interviews, and the radio speeches but there'll be no visual, no comic strips from me. If someone else can do that, that would be really cool.
Anumia: Secondly, before we do wrap up the discussion on the GAP, I'd like to see more people getting involved. I understand that some of the topics are dwindling naturally. We've discussed things as far as people have thought of. If there are no new ideas that's fine, but it'd be nice in the next week or so to see a renewed interest in that forum as we're looking to compile a final document. Just get everyone back involved, talk about anything else we think is left unsaid, and we'll get it done.
Kraken: Excellent. So, before we wrap this up, is there anything else you'd like to mention or talk about that we haven't already?
Anumia: Well, a couple of ministerial things. We're always looking for patrons, the new form of mentors, Artimis is going to be compiling a list fairly shortly, but just as a general shout out to anyone interested, if you have experience and are friendly, that would be nice. Actually, if we have friendly, that would be good(laughs). Basically from now on, it's going to be every new comer receives a patron. If they don't want to have someone to chat to, that's fine, they don't have to, but we're going to have every single person contacted by a patron now, so they don't miss the opportunity. A lot of people are saying "no, I don't want a mentor," but then a lot of these same people also go "oh, how do I get involved in this?" Just from talking to nations in the region who telegram me, I know there are a lot of people who don't really understand what they're doing. Even then they sometimes still reject having a mentor. I think we're going to remove the formality of the system. It won't be "would you like apply for a mentor," it will just be you show up and get signed up on the forums and someone is automatically allocated to you behind the scenes, who will come and send you a message or two saying "Hi, I'm ____. Can I help you with anything?" I think it will engage them better than asking them if they want someone to reach out to them, we'll just do it. The worst that will happen is they'll still not want to have someone with one on one contact, and they can go their own way. I think we'll get more people interested that way.
Anumia: The second thing is very shortly we're going to be looking for architects, obviously. This is a call out to the more experienced members of the region. I realize we may have some newer members who are interested in it as well, but I think in the beginning we really need to exit the gates running fast here. We need to get the first few in the GAP right. It would be a good idea I think if some of the most experienced people in the republic are spearheading the project. The more experienced people who are out there, if they're interested, and application to myself, or to CSP, or just let us know you're interested, because very shortly we're going to be looking for people to be there for when the time comes to start adding regions. It'll be a fantastic thing to have on your resume, and if you're looking for something new to do, it will be fun and it will be really really cool I think to say "I was one of the first architects, the first people who embarked on this massive new building project that we're working on."
Kraken: The best part of this is that you get to claim to be an architect and you don't even need a degree.
Anumia: (Laughs) Yeah that's right, qualifications? What qualifications? Don't look at the building that's leaning over there.
Kraken: That's art. You've seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Anumia: I have. I don't think that was intended.
Kraken: You wouldn't know about the building if it wasn't leaning.
Anumia: That's exactly right. I'm looking forward to what we can do though, we're certainly looking at maintaining or establishing early relations with the big power players of the world. This is going to be a cool thing that we can do helping to raise new, younger, smaller regions, to help them develop their themes. To make the next generation of regions, and hopefully if we do it right, they will all be friendly with us as well. It will give us a much greater place on the world stage, and it will be increasing activity in the game, and it will hopefully increase activity on our forums. Everyone will benefit basically, as long as we do this right. There aren't really any downsides, even if we do it wrong it's pretty hard to have a downside. It's good, I'm really looking forward to it.
Kraken: I'm looking forward to it too. Just from my own personal conversations with a lot of the members in the region, almost everyone in Europeia is looking forward to it and are on board with the project.
Anumia: It's created a lot of excitement.
Kraken: Definitely, it's created something new for the region to do, which is a wonderful thing really, instead of just going stagnant and having an active spam forum. So, if there's nothing else you'd like to say I guess we shall conclude our interview for this time. Hopefully we'll start recording more constantly and we'll get more in depth as the GAP takes off.
Anumia: I've just raised a discussion in cabinet to look at helping to further expand media in ways like this which will hopefully be cool. As for the GAP, we're not at the wrapping up stage yet but we're getting pretty close to trying to transition towards beginning this thing, so if there are people out there who still want to contribute ideas or join in the discussions please get involved. It's pretty hard to say a wrong thing here, and everyone's ideas are very welcome. This is something where newcomers can give good ideas too. While the more experienced people have good ideas about how to run a region, the newcomers, or the newer members, have a good idea on how to engage the smaller regions to begin with, perhaps because they obviously are relatively new players who might have come from small regions, or have been invited to them. I know a lot of the people who have been leaving have been leaving for smaller regions. I know this because when a nation leaves I send a telegram to figure out why, and the number one answer from those who reply is that they are going to small regions with their friends. If we can figure out a way to reach out to them, we can help them grow, ane we will keep them in the fold as well, which will be good. So, newcomers, older experienced members, everyone should get involved in the last week or two of the GAP discussion, and then we're going to go forward.
Kraken: Well, like I said before, it was definitely a pleasure talking to you, and I look forward to seeing how the rest of your term plays out. Earlier you mentioned media forms, and I wasn't going to talk about this during this interview, but you mentioned you mentioned it a couple of times. The EBC, I was actually planning to have a multimedia contest, generally visually based, to foster interest.
Anumia: Ah, that's clever.
Kraken: There really won't be a prize, besides bragging rights.
Anumia: The prize will be attention I guess, that's what media's there for.
Kraken: I guess that's what artists generally look anyways(laughs). From what I've been told.
Anumia: That's really cool, I like that.
Kraken: Yeah, I thought it might move things along. Anyone listening to this interview, look out for that in the coming few days or week. It will be coming soon.
Anumia: Awesome.
Kraken: Anyways, it was a pleasure talking to you Mr. President.
Anumia: Thanks Krake, bye.
