Archive for the ‘Building A Business Empire’

Design of the Day: My New Business Card and Plans for 2008!12.21.07

So life has been good for the past few days. I’ve been really preparing for my trip to New York and to move away from the house in Los Angeles. VV and I are off to a 10-day silent meditation retreat beginning the day after Christmas, and we’re both really excited about the chance it’s going to give us to sink in to ourselves and relax before the windstorm that we are both sure 2008 is going to be.

With that said, I decided that I wanted to make a business card for myself. Here it is:

Front:


Back
:

I want to have this for a few reasons. When I’m street performing, I want to be able to give out the card to encourage people to go to the website and subscribe or buy things. Second, it’s about time for me to have something to give people when I meet them. Third, I designed the card to be the card I have always dreamed of receiving. I’m so over the question “what do you do?” but at the same time, I’m really fascinated by people and what they do and what they’re into. But it can take so long to get it out of them, or in my case, to explain all the different things I do and that I’m into. So the card is a great way of answering the question. The person can then pick up on any of the things they are interested in and the conversation can proceed from there.

So, that prepares me for 2008. A big, momentous year of really going for it.

My priorities are 3:
1) Street Performing
2) Theater Performing (one man shows)
3) Ordinary Miracles movie

My primary focus is money. I want to make a lot of it and I want to spend it freely and I want to have a savings account and I want to give it away. Primary focus is something that Steve Pavlina writes about so eloquently it hurts. My primary focus for 2007 was women and relationships and that worked out pretty well!

And my goals in New York are as follows, in no particular order:

  • Write “One Sun Salutation A Day” eBook with tips and exercises and philosophy of the idea
  • Perform my existing one man show “Bite Scratch Claw” over and over and refine and update it
  • Add a video element to “Bite Scratch Claw”
  • Write “Breakdancing Aliens and God: Sixty One-Minute Freakouts”
  • Do instructional lessons while street performing–dance, social, juggling, etc.
  • Write transformation of consciousness lecture
  • Work on popping routine with a group
  • Develop a street performance SHOW with dancing, beatboxing, juggling, hat tricks, singing, and an audience interaction. Tell a story about creativity and how I knew a guy who thought he couldn’t be creative but he just keep trying and how the guy is me and how he was scared of people but now he’s OK.
  • Make movie with VV
  • Keep making music
  • Do some kind of project with my friend Tony
  • Do some kind of project with my friend Andrew
  • Do some kind of project with my friend Todd
  • Perform in my apartment
  • Perform at the Bedford L stop and all along the L line
  • Learn waaay more about After Effects
  • Go to After Effects New York user group
  • Take dance class with Jazzy J and Archie
  • Battle Jazzy J
  • Work with Buddha Stretch on party dances
  • Do some kind of project with Cruxy
  • Compete at the House Dance Conference Battle
  • Take Boxing Lessons
  • Learn to Beatbox
  • Take Vocal lessons
  • Learn the Piano
  • Go to Figure Drawing Classes
  • Do the “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” exercises
  • Do Consciousness Transformation/Psychokinesis Lecture Workshops
  • Teach dance at a club like they do with Salsa
  • Get in a fight with a guy and win
  • Work on Ordinary Miracles with VV
  • Work on After Effects FX for Ordinary Miracles movie
  • Get a show with Next New Networks
  • Make dance music videos
  • Make dance lesson videos
  • Make vlogs
  • Make dance interview videos
  • Seal the deal with Alex
  • Become a better actor
  • Hang out at Chapel of the Sacred Mirror
  • Have some Adam Apollo/Miranda/Commander type of friends (i.e. amazingly awesome people)
  • Snuggle with VV a lot
  • Take VV out regularly
  • Live more abundantly than ever!
  • Make money from ebooks
  • Make money from videos
  • Make money from music
  • Make money consulting
  • Make money doing psychic readings
  • Make money performing
  • Make money lecturing
  • Make money teaching dance
  • Make money on Ordinary Miracles
  • Make money dancing
  • Make money street performing
  • Make money on eBay
  • Make money on software instructional videos
  • See art in small venues–local galleries, local theaters

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Lessons Learned From a Professional Design Gig12.11.07

So I’m just putting the finishing touches right now (meaning, uploading the DVD to kunaki) on my first real professional design gig.

I got the job through VV and it was to design the cover, insert, disc face, and website for her project “Electric Aquarium,” which is this awesomely trippy ambient jellyfish video.

Check a preview here:

This was my first real well-paid professional design gig and I learned a lot from it:

  • If you are good at something, make sure to charge a lot for it, because being good takes a long time. I went into this job in a sort of just rush it through, no problem, no real time involved, very little effort, sure I can do it sort of way. This didn’t happen at all. I was dealing with professional people who expected professional results, the elimination of all minor errors, the best work I could do, and a lot of attention, because they were paying me.

  • Doing a good job at something takes sooooo long. I know that this is basically the same thing as the first one, but let me just re-emphasize. Wow. It takes a long time, way more than I would have ever expected, to do that last 10%. The people who came up with that cliché about how the last 10% takes 90% of the time were not kidding. I spent so much time fixing up minor errors, reuploading, re-encoding, re-emailing, and on and on and on. I thought it was going to be one draft, upload, get check. Not hardly.

  • All the talent in the world is only going to get me so far. It is just hitting me more and more everyday that (I’m loving percentages this post) it’s 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration. I had all these dreams about how talented I was and how the world was going to be blown away by all I was capable of. These days, I have all these dreams about OH MY GOD it’s going to be so much work to make something that is even halfway presentable!
  • Get really clear with a client at the very beginning of the job. I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants on this one and just kind of took things as they came. But dealing with email after email about little things and having to hold hands through different processes was both draining and made me realize why it’s important to charge a lot! In the future, I would get a very clear understanding of what exactly the job requires and will entail, in writing, and if the client was unable to give me such, I would add that to the price.

  • With all that said, experience is payment in itself. As my good friend Bashar says, the only thing SUBSTANTIVELY REAL about reality itself is your experience of it, and so the experience is its own reward. I learned so much from this project about what it means to be a professional, I got clarity on how I want to move forward in my life and my career, and I got the opportunity to work on something and forge bonds with people that could last a lifetime. Not to mention networking and referrals and before you know it, it seems like a pretty good deal indeed.

This feels like another step in my direction of growing up and being an adult and taking care of myself and handling my business, both literally and figuratively.

And after that mouthful, here’s the work I did:

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It’s Easy To Be Productive When You Stop Trying!11.27.07

So, I’m feeling chipper this evening. The past week has been an unmitigated success. I have gotten up around 9AM regularly and am going to sleep earlier. I found out my friend could channel and that’s amazing. Also, it appears that Elastic Illusion has completely fallen apart. I think that whole post on shining was a little prophetic if you know what I mean, because it looks like I’m about to strike out on my own and press my luck. I feel good about the whole thing. I find myself being somewhat unsentimental. I don’t know if this is because deep down, I am a hustler a la Jay-Z, always running, always on my toes, ready to make a dash, or if I’m just a pretty happy-go-lucky person. Either way, it’s all good. I’m moving to Brooklyn in January and it feels like the theatre and the street is calling my name. I’m itching to perform again after having spent a year behind a computer and New York is the place for live performance.

Anyway, I wrote that post about realizing I was a talker and it really struck a chord in me. Watching this group fall apart really was like seeing someone die for me. I really thought that was no hurry and that Elastic Illusion was the second coming of the Beatles and that we would be together for 50 years and all would be well and there were no worries and no warning signs and then it all just came collapsing down. The realization that has hit me the most is like “WOW! You’re out here on your own kid! Put up or shut up!” And all I want to do is put up. I have even been doing little productivity things like not reading blogs and only checking e-mail twice a day and things of that nature. I’ve really just been focused on working.

I learned from a little birdie that if you plan something, tell someone about it, write it down, and then do it, it takes four times as long as if you had just done it. Now, this logic obviously doesn’t apply in all situations, but I have found that for things like paying bills, cleaning, updating websites, all the minutia of our lives, not only does it work, but it sets a tone of knocking things out that builds on itself. Just knock it out, just knock it out becomes a mantra of sorts.

And so I think that this is a part of my own maturation. I was always the smartest kid. Everything in our society has come easily to me. I was always the best in school and I didn’t even have to work hard to do so. And this set up some pretty bad work ethics. School makes everything about getting by. Hey, why put in the extra effort, I already have an A in the class. I’ll just let it slide. The problem with this is that in life, as an artist, there’s no A. You can’t let something slide because the only person you’re hurting is YOU.

Our entire socialization process encourages us to “get by.” To be a pretty good student, to show up and do the work, get a B, get a job, get by, maybe get a promotion, just show up. Well, that ain’t workin’ for me no more. I have so many things I want to do, so much I want to express, so much I want to share with the world. So much encouragement and love I want to give. And I am fully awake now. By this, I mean that all of the illusions I have had in the past about shortcuts and easy money and quick fame and being discovered and being entitled to an easy path are dispelled. I am down for the cause and I am willing to work my ass off to make this all happen.

And I am finding more and more everyday that the more I stop thinking and stop trying and stop worrying and just start doing, just MAKE the damn video, just MAKE the damn song, just WRITE the damn article, just TAKE OUT the damn trash, just PAY the damn taxes, just keep your nose to the grindstone and focused on the one thing you are currently doing, that it all happens more quickly than you might have imagined.

As Abraham (the channel, not the OG circumciser) says, relax. Realize you’re NEVER going to get it done. You are ALWAYS going to be evolving. That’s the whole point. That’s why life never stops being interesting. Because it’s always changing and you’re always changing and there’s always a new opportunity to explore something new or face a new challenge or expand yourself in a new direction. So you can just stay focused, one thing at a time, and keep on keepin’ on.

Now that’s gangsta.

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Difficult Realizations: I’m Just a Big Talker11.22.07

So, it was revealed to me tonight that I’m just a talker. My biggest pet peeve. The thing I dislike most. And it’s what I do. I talk and talk and talk and talk. Big plans, huge things going on. Making this, creating that. Lots of writing, lots of words. Lots of meetings, lots of discussion. Lots of costume purchases, lots of ideas. Lots of website designs, lots of catchphrases. Lots of dreaming, lots of visualizing. And when it all comes down to it, I’ve made 1 robot video. That’s it.

Granted, this is far more than many people ever make, but you know what. Big whoop. I thought I was a visionary, a luminary. Doing big things, walking the walk. And yet, here I am, writing again. More talking, more words. Wow, this one just hit me so hard because the truth was written all over the place.

In most ways, whatever Elastic Illusion was supposed to be has for the time being completely fallen apart. Over a year of dreams and it’s quite possible that nothing will ever come of it. So much talking, so much planning. And in one sense, it amounted to nothing. Yes, I learned a lot. Yes, it was a good experience. Yes, I grew. But at the end of the day, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot to show in terms of action.

So, I renounce it. Time for doing. Time for some real action. And when I think about it, I realize how scary it is to actually do things. I made a whole hour-long one man show and performed it all of twice. Spent six months making it, slaving day in and day out, and less than 100 people have ever seen it. I mean, good for me, I did it. Big woop. More talking. I learned After Effects and Photoshop and Illustrator and Ableton Live in the past six months. What have I got to show for it. A DVD case and some random designs. Wow. I am what I despise. Just another talker, talking about all the things he is going to do. How special he is. All his great ideas.

And so I admit it now. I am terrified that my ideas actually suck. That I won’t be able to bring them to fruition. That they will be derivative and formulaic and just kind of average. I am so afraid of being mediocre that I have done nothing at all.

Well, here goes nothing. Time to fall flat on my face, over and over and over. Let the games begin.

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Monetizing Online Video The Old-Fashioned Way: Selling It11.20.07

There’s so much talk these days about how anyone is ever going to be able to monetize online video. YouTube continues to burn up the charts, with more people watching it than watching TV at this point. But very few people, other than Google, are making any money off all this watching.

So everyone sits around pontificating. How are we going to turn the eyeballs into cold-hard digital numbers that flash across our screen, allowing us to waive cards through scanners that allow us to receive goods and services (i.e. cash)? And everyone talks endlessly about online advertising. It’s the way of the future in case you didn’t know. It’s the second coming of Jesus. And to this I say, I agree.

But.

There’s another way. A good way. A way that I am currently using to make a living and a way which is growing every month in scale, scope, and possibility. And that is, charging for digital downloads of online video.

This has been to many people something left unconsidered. I mean, who in their right mind pays for something they can watch for free? To which I say, over a thousand people and counting. Now, to a record label, a thousand people might as well be no one, but to me, that’s rent money plus some Thai food to boot. And like I said, it’s growing.

So I think about this a lot. Monetizing online video. And I think I’ve come to some pretty exciting new understandings about how to make it work.

It involves a few basic prerequisites:

1) You have to be selling something that people would at least *consider* paying for. This rules out most comedy videos I think, but most other things, including instructional videos, short films, and music videos, are all kosher.

2) You have to foster an environment where the potential buyer thinks of you as “one of them,” as an artist trying something new, just trying to share your work with the world.

3) You have to make it *really* easy to buy. No long checkout screens with a bunch of login forms. Think, paypal.

4) You have to make buying seem fun.

5) You have to make things that are good, at least to someone. And that part’s pretty easy, because with 6 billion people, it’s not hard to find a thousand who think just about anything is good.

With these in mind, we come to my little coup de grace. The thing that makes it all work nicely.

You create extended versions of your content. All your content.

If this is a music video, the extended version includes an mp3 of the song as well as the video.

If this is an instructional video, the extended version contains an extra lesson, an extended section, or more in-depth info.

If this is a short film, the extended version includes a commentary, or behind-the-scenes footage, of bloopers, or a longer sequence.

So let’s sum that up in this way.

6) You have to make the people feel like they’re getting something *extra* to JUSTIFY their laying out money for something that many people would consider an unnecessary purchase.

When you put all these things together, and you combine the technical expertise to actually implement these ideas, you’re well on your way to turning YouTube videos into a career. Add online advertising to the mix, and you’re gonna surprise the haters mang!

Let’s ride.

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5 Reasons to Discuss Your Spirituality on Your Blog07.14.07

I’ve been realizing that the people behind most of the blogs that I read are in some way spiritual people. They have certain beliefs about the nature of life, the state of the world, the idea of creator, why things happen, what happens when we die, why life is the way it is. But rarely do they write about these beliefs on their blog. They should:

1) It Makes the World a Better Place

Spirituality, on a personal level, is generally about your feelings of love, connection, faith, trust, and protection. It is usually positive, optimistic, forgiving, and generous. Simply the discussion of positivity, hope, forgiveness and generosity makes the world a better place. Simply seeing those words make the world a better place. The more that we are out in the open about the HIGHEST common denominator rather than the lowest, the quicker our path to a happier, more evolved planet.

2) It Makes You Feel Free

Spirituality, again, on a personal level, is one of the things that people often discuss least. This is a deeply personal place, where all of your deepest beliefs, hopes and fears reside. Discussing such things is a wonderful way for you to feel free and alive.

3) It Fosters a Strong Connection

When expressed in a genuine, honest and open way, your spirituality is disarming and touches people in a very real way. It fosters a real connection between you and your readers. It really feels like someone speaking to you directly, which is especially powerful as that level of openness is not yet common.

4) It is Something that We Almost All Share

More than 80% of the world believe in something that they call God. It is interesting considering that such a common belief is rarely discussed in the media or in entertainment. So even though it may feel as though people won’t understand, it really is something that we almost all share.

5) It Fosters Understanding

In addition to being a very personal subject, spirituality is an EXTREMELEY individual subject. Meaning that people’s views, even among people of the same faith, vary widely.

It often feels like there is so little understanding between faiths. One reason for this is that very often, people of one faith have never really heard a person of another faith describe their personal beliefs and feelings about God. The similarities, yet again, on a personal level, so far outweigh and outnumber the differences that this done en masse on blogs would really serve as a way for all of us to understand each other.

Addendum: I wrote this post this way and titled this post this way because I thought it would be good for SEO. I just realized that I can’t think about SEO when producing creatively. For me, this article feels so stilted, like an essay for school or something. My voice doesn’t come through at all and it’s because for me, the “Top 5 Reasons….” format stifles the creativity.

Whether it reads like that to the audience or not is not so important to me. That was not that fun to write. It felt like an assignment.

And I heretoforth state that I would rather have a readership of 3 and write like me than have a readership of 3 million and write like a r-r-r-r-ro-b-bot. Luckily, they aren’t mutually exclusive anyway :)
So yah. This feels better. From now on, I write like me. If search engines happen to notice, so much the sweeter.

Peace out peoples.

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The Ultimate Web Video Workflow: It ain’t whatcha think!06.23.07

Being a provider of online video content (robot dance and breakdance), I am always looking at ways to tighten up our workflow. Get more things done, and do all of it in a shorter amount of time.

For those of you who just want the end of the puzzle (like me when I’m a read and not a writer), let me kill the suspense. It goes like this:

  1. Sony Vegas
  2. Adobe Photoshop
  3. Apple LiveType

And now to continue with the story…

The Video Editor

When I began, I was told that the holy grail was Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects. At the time, I didn’t have a Mac, so I started exploring other software. I explored Premiere, I explored Pinnacle Liquid, man, I even explored using Nero, and then I came across Sony Vegas. Ahhhh beautiful Vegas. How I love thee.

It was the first time that I had found a video editing application that was intuitive. And not only that, it didn’t crash–and ALLLL of them crashed. And not only that, it was by far the fastest. And not only that, it did everything in real time–and NOOOONE of them did everything in real time. And not only that, it easily took in every format you threw at it.

And I was happy, oh so happy. But then it happened. I saw the light and bought a Mac. I couldn’t deal with the hell that is PC-only anymore–20 years of purgatory was enough. And there went Vegas. So I started searching some more. I got Final Cut and learned that. And the first thing I realized was that it sure is a lot less intuitive than Vegas. And the second thing I realized was that it sure is a LOT less real time than Vegas. And the fourth thing I realized was that it sure was picky about type of file format you used. And the fifth thing I realized was that everything was hidden. You had to really LEARN this software.

And that was that. I decided then and there that Final Cut is too slow, too ugly, and too much trouble for my workflow–where I want to be putting out videos every single day. Because remember, this is a WEB video workflow, and in my opinion, Final Cut is made for the filmmakers.

And then the beautiful thing happened. And it called itself Parallels. And I was able to quickly, easily, transparently run Windows on my Mac. And so I tried Vegas again.

Now mind you, this whole time that I had been using Vegas, I had had a bit of shame about it. It seemed unprofessional. It seemed like an also ran. I mean, in the reviews, it was either Avid or Final Cut or Premiere. People only mentioned Vegas in passing. But at the same time, I kept having this gnawing feeling that it was REALLY REALLY good. So what was the deal?

Well, this was the deal. People are dumb and prejudiced. Final Cut and Premiere’s interfaces were developed by the same guy and they are both designed for people coming out of a background of actually chopping up film with razor blades (this is why they actually have a BLADE tool).

The thing is, not everything translates from analog to digital that well. And more often, there are new and better ways to interact with a computer than there were to interact with film. And this is definitely one of those cases.

Vegas seriously just trounces everything else. It is so much more fun, so much faster, so much more robust. It has advanced compositing, keyframable velocity and position and scale tracking. It can even rotate in 3D. This is something that you can only find on After Effects or Apple Motion or Shake.

But because it comes in a different package, the sheep seem to just follow the herd.

Well, I encourage you not to be a sheep and not to follow herds, because well, you’re better than that.

——–

Our Saga Continues

So there I was, having learned how to do basic to intermediate level video editing. And then I started watching motion graphics designers (read about my journey learning motion graphics). And I saw that there was a whole new can of worms opening up.

I saw this video and started corresponding with the maker of the video. She informed me that the backbone of her workflow was Photoshop. And that’s when that piece of the puzzle hit me (may be “duh” to some but was “whoa” to me). Motion Graphics is primarily going to be done in Photoshop. You are just animating still images. AHHHHHHHH!!! EUREKA!!!! I get it!

So that took care of that, because basically there are no alternatives to Photoshop. You can say what you want, but if you really want to do stuff that is good, GIMP or Fireworks or Paint Shop Pro just ain’t gonna cut it. There is Photoshop and that’s it.

Last But Not Least

Now, Vegas does have a weak point. I admit it. The titling system in Vegas, especially compared to that of Premiere (which uses a Photoshop derived titler) is WEAK SAUCE! I mean, the sauce is just ridiculously weak. It’s passable, but it’s kind of pathetic. I heard recently–and I haven’t researched so this is just hearsay–that PCs use raster-based fonts and Macs use vector-based fonts, which basically means that PC fonts are pixelly and ugly and Mac fonts are pleasing and beautiful, which sounds right to me because that’s been my subjective experience.

Anywho, the search for a titler continued. I checked out all of Final Cut Suite and was THOROUGHLY unimpressed. Final Cut Pro sucks, Motion is so bad and so unintuitive that it literally made me laugh at times, everything that Soundtrack Pro does is BUILT IN to vegas, and DVD Studio Pro just feels bad. BUT! Then there was Livetype.

Beautiful beautiful Livetype.

The only Apple application other than OS X and iTunes that I have totally fallen in love with. It is amazing this program. You can make titles that look beyond amazing in a matter of minutes. It defaults to exporting with alpha channel transparency, meaning you can drag and drop your Livetype movie into Vegas and it’s already transparent, just like that *snaps fingers*. There is also a series of expansion packs that makes the program even more useful.

The Wrap Up

So basically, what it comes down to is this. What you need to make dope special-effects laden, slick-yet-ghetto, motion-graphicsed web videos as quickly as possible are the following:

  1. Sony Vegas — video editing, compositing, audio editing, visual effects
  2. Photoshop — image chopping, animating, more compsiting
  3. Livetype — crazily good titles galore, crazily fast

I would put this workflow, combined with a good Hard Drive camcorder and a Mac Book Pro, up against anything.

Well, anything except an After Effects/Maya/Combusting render farm with a whole lot of designers with a whole lot more experience than me. But those guys are busy making movies and making Hollywood run, so I’ll let them stick with that.

Good luck and good night kiddos!

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The Art of Getting Shit Done aka the turtle and the hare aka just do it06.07.07

I have turned a new leaf when it comes to creative output. I have decided that my only goal from here on out, Monday through Friday, week in and week out, is to do something. One thing. One finished thing. Whether it’s an article, a design, a web site, a marketing plan, a video, or a song, I just gotta get one thing done each day.

The beautiful thing about this is that there is always something I’m interested in doing each day, oftentimes something that I’ve wanted to do for a while. And as it sinks in that doing one thing is really quite doable, I find the momentum beginning to build. I’m finding myself taking on bigger day-long projects, stretching the limits of what I can do in just one day.

In the past, I had a lot of big plans (I still do of course). These big plans were of course well outside the scope of what could be done in one day. These big plans seemed to always be hanging out with my homie procrastination. One day I will get that big idea done. One day I will make it happen. Now, what’s new on youtube?

Not no more. You got 24 hours and the clock is ticking. You better find something that’s doable in that time frame and get it done. And the amazing thing is that when you are only focused on one thing, you can actually do an awful lot–a whole project from beginning to end–in just one day.

Now I will certainly agree that this idea in some way limits the scope of undertakings, but I have two counterpoints that have become increasingly compelling to me.

  1. Limitation is creativity’s best friend. Much like necessity is the mother of invention, certain limitations force creativity into a shape. Creativity is such a huge thing, the stuff that life is made of, the stuff of infinite possibilities, and I find that imposing some sort of limitation allows me to more readily crystallize that infinity into form.
  2. I can always take on projects that are larger in addition to a daily project. For instance, since something like writing this article counts as a daily output, and takes less than 30 minutes to complete, there is still plenty of time left in the day for other projects. But making sure I get something out day after day really keeps me motivated and enthused. And I’m sure all the artists out there know that staying motivated and enthused is often a task in and of itself.

The beauty of this, after having only begun this experiment a couple of weeks ago, is that I’m seeing the beauty of it already. Day after day, I do something, and it’s already beginning to add up. Think of the beauty that will have accrued after a year. It’s stunning.

Also, I have found that there is absolutely nothing like “stage time” to increase your skill in anything–whether it’s dance or design or writing or video editing. Releasing something everyday is such an incredibly amazing way to accrue experience that I am finding my skill increasing at a speed well beyond what I previously thought possible.

They often say that it’s the little things in life that are important. It’s the little things that add up. So while I’m quite proud of creating a robot dance instructional DVD as well as a breakdance DVD, it is these small projects that will assure that the quality of the next big release is ever-improving.

Nike said, Just Do It. Nike is a multinational corporation that operates in a manner that I do not resonate with. But they sure have a kick ass slogan. Peace out peoples.

Professor Brit

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The Dilemma: Centralize or De-Centralize05.18.07

I read my blogs this morning and this came along from the man himself.

“Do you really need a home page? Does the web respect it?

Human beings don’t have home pages. People make judgments about you in a thousand different ways. By what they hear from others, by the way they experience you, and on and on. Companies may have a website, but they don’t have a home page in terms of the way people experience them.

The problem with home page thinking is that it’s a crutch. There’s nothing wrong with an index, nothing wrong with a page for newbies, nothing wrong with a place that makes a first impression when you get the chance to control that encounter. But it’s not your ‘home’. It’s not what the surfer/user wants, and when it doesn’t match, they flee.

You don’t need one home page. You need a hundred or a thousand. And they’re all just as important.”

This is a dilemma I’ve been having/facing/thinking about with Elastic Illusion. As in, does Elastic Illusion matter? does having this 1 mega-brand matter? Or should we fracture? Just make a product and put it out there with it’s own website, attach a link to the main blog and the forum and then let it go from there. And repeat ad infinitum.

I don’t know…

I’m going to think of pros for both right here and now.

Pros for centralizing:
1 website to tell people. –however, “telling people” is not as important as your ability to get googled.

create a place for people to discover things about you they might not have otherwise known.

don’t have to make 1000 web sites.

Pros for decentralizing:
can make each page super google-friendly.

gives people an easy access point to the specific thing they may want.

more personalizable.

“small is the new big.”


So here’s the real issue: I waffle on this and nothing gets done on either front.
That’s the real problem.

Solution:
Do something. Now. OK.

Feel free to add comments.

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Posted in Brit's thoughts, Elastic Illusion, Building A Business Empirewith

Ning is great05.17.07

ning.com

Check it out.

I’m really impressed. Pretty soon, EVERYONE is going to have their own social network, their own video channel, and their own virtual life.

2012 looms folks!

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Posted in Technology, 2012, Brit's thoughts, Building A Business Empirewith

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    Hi! I'm Brit! I love God sans religion, breakdancing, design, motion graphics, adobe, men and women both, my mac book pro, g funk music, glitchy tweaky electro house, writing, making videos, elastic illusion, photography, vv, fractals, and google. Life is my art school. I believe that creativity is the point.

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