Ireland VonVicious wrote:Adding to previous advice:
Choose a style of government/leadership.
It should be number one thing you do and it should be in your corps description.
Don't choose the style based on what you think other players want.
Base it on what you're willing to manage.
If you don't it will drive you crazy. It will make you work harder or in ways you never wanted to do.
If your a dictator be a dictator. If you want to lead a democratic group with votes then do it.
If you join an alliance look for something you can deal with personaly. Confederacy, fuedal, republic?
You can try to ignore all this and go for the pure blob mentality but that group already has a lot to chose from.
This. 10x this.
OP - if you have never been in a leadership position then you are about to learn a
lot about yourself.
I've learned that I'm more of a dictatorial leader than anything else. And I've learned that, unless you can brainwash your group, the dictatorial leader style needs to be tempered with goodwill towads your people and a willingness to be a bastard or a saint in
their best interests. You need to take a "Hippocratic Oath" to "do no harm" to your corp. These are
your people and they are looking to
you for security and guidance.

Whatever happens, the welfare of your people comes first. End of story.

Do not just tell your people what to do. If you're telling them what to do, or what's going to be done, tell them
why it's being done. Keep them
in the loop with as much as you can afford to keep them in the loop on.
Groom your membership. You will reach a point where you will need "2nds in command", even if it's only 1 or 2. Learn to identify members with leadership qualities and see if you can encourage them to develop these skills. You will also begin to identify players with certain interests and talents - help them cultivate these interests and talents. Strong members make for a strong corp because the corp
is it's members.

Develop
personal relationships with as many members as you can, even if it's on the most rudimentary and casual level. Ask your members how they're doing
and care about the answer.

And last but certainly not least:
trust your members. Members who are trusted by their leaders become loyal. But be
smart about it - only trust your members with access to what they created to mitigate damage if someone does go postal. You have to protect your people, and part of this is making sure that one person cannot hurt everyone in the corp if he betrays you.
As far as the logistics - that's already been covered. Get perfect refining and refine for your members @ 2% tax. As time goes on, let someone else take over that job - they keep 1% for themselves and give 1% tot he corp. Buyback minerals at a fair value - if you have an orca + boosting, it's fair to buyback at 90% Jita value, because your people will be mining 50% more than they would solo. You can also do mineral sell-backs: Since you bought the minerals at below Jita value, you can sell them to your manufacturers at below Jita value. Let people use the POS remotely (from the corp hangar) but charge half the operating cost of the POS to rent a line. This will generate some income and it's fair because they don't have to wait 30 days at a public station and they're paying to keep the POS running. Have some public BPOs locked down in a hangar. Offer free ships and reimbursement for corp operations - if you want someone to scout a null-sec or lo-sec system, give them the ship to do it in. Let the corp absorb the member's losses, because the corp will be absorbing a % of member profit - it's only fair.
And remember a good ecology of money: Whatever the corp takes, it must give back.