Disclaimer: Melissa edited this wonderfully shot video. Had a professional edited Adrienne Brawley’s beautiful work, sponsors would throw money at Melissa and not ask one question about deliverables.

I met Brian Solis in Mountain View, Ca, home of Google and The Computer History Museum.  While waiting in the museum courtyard for my camera person to set up, I spotted a Babbage Machine in the museum window, it’s one of only two in existence.        I begged my way into the closed history museum and was on such a high from getting to see a piece of "thought antiquity" brought to life that Brian Solis could have said anything to me and I would’ve thought it was brilliant.  As luck would have it, what he said was brilliant anyway. It was a pleasure to meet and interview him.

I blindly interviewed Brian, he was an interview suggested to me by Brett Petersel of Mashable and Jane Quigley of Crayon. I had no idea what he was going to say, and honestly, I wondered why I agreed to talk to a PR guy. But wow, Brian Solis seems to be tapped into what is happening to our society as we adapt new technology to the way we want to live. And you know, he hit my soft spot for education (I send my 13yr old to a school where kids learn at their own pace whatever it is that they are interested in… I think the current public school model is a curiosity killer)

"Everything is changing to the point where (educational) content has to change or it’s just going to become irrelevant, it may actually hold (students) back… in the real world."

Does this make anyone else think about my first interview with Jason Fried, how he said that a person’s scholastic achivements mattered little to him and his company’s hiring process, what did matter was their level of curiosity and skill for the job at hand.

I think that society is changing and in turn it’s going to change how we structure our own goals and in turn how we meet those  goals. I think that It’s going to open up a broader set of opportunities and ideas for us, ones that we that never thought or deemed possible.

 That is presisely what I was thinking.  Is the planned life, the one that we plot on a timeline, is it worth living anymore? Is the method of planning from the future backwards to achive a goal a dying and irrelivant way to live? With so much of the world opening up to us, is it possible to follow our interests and intuition and still prosper? Is it possible that instead of conforming to our world, we will find ways to conform the world to us. Are collaboration and communication really the cornerstone of the new economy? Is creative thinking a currency?  My sources are telling me yes. What do you think?

If you think creativity is the new black, subscribe to life in perpetual beta or follow Melissa on twitter.  If you want to contribute, monitarily or otherwise, join the tweet team, email me, or scroll to the bottom of the page and donate to the film.

I guess what goes around comes around. Here, videographer Adrienne Brawley and designer Xuanlana Nguyen interview me! How Life In Perpetual Beta came to be and how it’s evolved.

For more karmic circles subscribe to Life In Perpetual Beta. If you want to get the insider scoop follow me on Twitter or even better join the LIPB twitter production team for updates interaction and cool schwag.

Disclaimer: Melissa herself edited this video, if the phenominal videographer Adrienne Brawley edited it, you would nominate it for every award possible.

As usual,  I reached out to my friends on twitter for an idea of who I should interview while in San Francisco.  Chris Saad of Faraday Media,  The Data Portability Project, & JS-Kit was on more than one persons "must interview" list.  I did a quick scan of Chris’s personal blog and knew that once again, my twitter pals were right, I had to interview this guy.  I swear sometimes, twitter is like the magic 8 ball of the internet.

I’m blown away that Chris Saad has ALWAYS been interested in technology and how the internet will change things for us.  He was on the news at 10 yrs old talking about it!  I don’t know anybody that has been that passionate about one thing for that long. He’s the anomaly in my interviewee list in that regard. Are you doing exactly what you wanted to do when you were 10?

Another thing.  This is a whole new area of expertise I never guessed existed. He pays attention to what people pay attention to online? He’s like a technological sociologist/anthropologist/sleuth/advocate/seer.   That’s a pretty cool gig if you can create it and have the intellect to sustain the amount of lateral thinking required. (Um, I’m no rocket scientist but what he does seems exciting but mentally taxing to me.)

So many more questions arose for me from this interview, so many things I want to know about and I understand all fit together, the hard part is dissecting what it is I want to know personally, and what I want to investigate further for this film. Perhaps I can take Chris’s advice and build a better filter, i.e. it may be time for me to build that storyboard.

Seems to be a theme with me these days. Everything belongs but nothing fits.

For more references to rocket science and magic 8 balls subscribe to Life In Perpetual Beta.  If you want to get the insider scoop follow me on Twitter or even better join the LIPB twitter production team for updates interaction and cool schwag.

Disclaimer: Melissa edited this beautifully shot interview. Had the same time an attention been used in editing and uploading it as was taken in filming it the Rapture would be upon us at this very moment.  Thanks to Adrienne Brawley for the San Francisco filming.

Xuanlana Nguyen is an artist, web designer, and the sole proprietor of Loetus Creative, but most of all she’s a story teller.  She is passionate about communicating a story in everything she creates whether it be a web site or an illustration, she is intent on using her creativity to communicate some kind of narrative. She views her one woman design company as a venture in new school storytelling, an interesting mix of collaboration to bring about a meaningful interaction for both her clients and the people that ultimately visiting the websites she creates.  An interesting way to articulate collaborative creativity I think.

She also touches on her work with incarcerated young women and her passion for helping them to tell their stories through their creative process.  You can tell by watching Lana talk that it’s a very important part of what she’s doing.  In fact, I would almost go as far as to say, that these interactions are exactly what she is in business for.  She designs websites that tell a story so that she can afford to teach other young women to design artwork that tells their story.  

I would’ve loved to interview Lana for longer, and had the construction workers next door kept their promise of remaining quiet for 20 minutes I could have. I would have gotten her perspective about what it’s like to be a female entrepreneur following her own path as opposed to the one her mentors set for her.  I would’ve asked her if she thought the expectations were different between men and women in regards to creative thinking and problem solving.  I would have asked her views about why it is that so many women stay in the background of their businesses.

I could have asked her why she thought that when I asked around for examples of women who were good representations of the core themes of Life In Perpetual Beta… men and women alike came up with nothing.  But I didn’t get that chance, so now I’m asking you?  I know they are out there, I know that their stories are amazing,  so why is it we have such a difficult time recognizing them?

 i struck out on my own a year ago this next month after a meandering pinball path from berkeley to art school to ad agency to nonprofit arts to my own solo gig (under the guise of Loetus Creative). My trajectory mirrors the way in which I live my life and how I approach my work both personally and professionally; it suggests a seeming discontinuity that like a snowball picks up momentum and direction that becomes clear closer to the end, but it’s useful to enjoy the ride and not freak out.

My sense of purpose comes from an interest in communication and voice. What I think I share with other women entrepreneurs/professionals is figuring out how to push my interests/aptitudes in a way that also services a community. For me personally, it is about the small and local successes that have nothing to do with recognition, money, or web traffic, but are instead measured by impact, resonance, or personal reward for the work you do. For example, I work in visual communications, which often means redesigning a brand and an online presence for a client, but the same principles apply to the art classes I do with the young women at Juvenile Hall. In either case, I measure my success in how clearly I am able to help my "client" articulate an idea or story, thereby allowing them to connect to a greater audience or community.

This is a very "feminine" approach to working that is integral to what I do both in form and function: it relies on the actual process of communication and collaboration that is sometimes slow and circuitous, but ultimately the most meaningful to everyone involved. The goal is not just tangible deliverables, though these are useful byproducts– but it’s about listening as much as telling. How I see it, that’s the real business of good communication.

I’m not sure if I fit the criteria for your film in terms of convention. I am not much of anybody in the public sense and my ideas aren’t absolutely original. But I remember my friend alex saying to me ‘determine what is important to you and do it on your terms." I think that’s what i’m doing now in arbitrary strokes, and by that litmus test, I am wildly successful. I consider it an overdue subscription to the book of yes (http://loetus.com/exchange/20080601/iplay/) and I am clumsily tearing pages from it with slow, concentrated delight
 

For more slow concentrated delights subscribe to Life In Perpetual Beta.  If you want to get the insider scoop follow me on Twitter or even better join the LIPB twitter production team for updates interaction and cool schwag.

Despite the clever way she edited Loren’s hat to magically jump back when he discusses puppetry, Melissa is not a professional film editor and thus you should not blame her New York camera man Chris Cavs for her shortfalls in editing.

I was a little nervous before this interview, after all, the character Loren Feldman portrays in his satirical parody blog at 1938 Media is more than a little vicious and has been called a bigot a bully and downright evil. I wasn’t sure I was ready for what was coming.

The morning of the interview I had thought up a myriad of arguments Loren and I would have during our interview in New York’s Central Park, if Loren wanted a fight, I was going to be prepared.  I was so prepared for our jousting match that it was a little bit of a let down when I met the man, but I didn’t really notice the let down at first as I was too busy heaving a sigh of relief.  He was nice, he was charming, he was alive with possibility in all the ways good people are.  Don’t get me wrong, he still had a very strong personality, but he wasn’t the character I had come to expect from his blog. Thank God.

Regardless if you think it’s satirical genius or tasteless drivel, 1938 Media’s brand of in your face, envelope pushing parody and satire is a very interesting study of the dynamic shift in expectation we have with regard to authenticity and personal interaction online.  At some point we have stopped expecting that brands would market for and produce content that was true to the brand itself and have little to do with the people who produce it. Instead we have pushed the envelope so much in the direction of transparency and full disclosure that we expect many entrepreneurs online to use their personalities as a commodity, to use themselves as a "personal brand".  It’s one of the many reason’s why what Loren does throws so many of us for a loop. His juxtiposition to the 1938 Media brand has exemplified (for me at least) that it is still possible to be a person without being a "personal brand".

Which brings me to a frustrated phrase I hear quite often from my coaching clients:

"but I am not my day job."

 I wonder, how long that will still ring true for people as we integrate our personal and professional lives online…

For more sighs of relief subscribe to Life In Perpetual Beta.  If you want to get the insider scoop follow me on Twitter or even better join the LIPB twitter production team for updates interaction and cool schwag.

I also missed filming a tweet-up Monday night where I met a ton of great people.  That night I discovered there is no such thing as a taxi in Brooklyn. And on Tuesday after the shoot with Loren Feldman I lost my hat on the Long Island Railroad…

so it goes.

I’m happy to be home, I can’t wait to go back.

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Melissa edited this interview herself.  Had a professional editor touched it with his/her golden hands you would have cried yourself to sleep with joy at the artistry. Mad props go to Matt Kliegman for his camera stylings and his very bright lil’ LED light.

If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll know that I’ve already interviewed Jason Fried of 37signals, you will also know that in that interview I didn’t think that I asked him the "hard" questions. You’ll know that at the last interview I didn’t know squat about Jason Fried and I ask some questions that now just seem obvious.  You will also remember about how disarming his demeanor was for me.  Lucky for all of us, when I asked him to interview again he said yes.  My opportunity came at 8pm a few nights ago on a  park bench near Milwaukee’s river walk right after Jason delivered a talk to students and staff of Milwaukee Technical College. (A shout out to Vicky of Remarkable Parents for setting it up and inviting me to Milwaukee in the first place)

Once again, I think that I did a poor job interviewing, maybe I asked all the good questions on the car ride up - right before I lost my voice. I don’t know. But here is my take away: Jason talks about being real, he talks about this gut feeling about knowing someone is authentic, and I wonder if that’s not a little of my problem? The guy just puts out that "realness" vibe, and I think the intrinsic "knowing of it" is a real downer for the part of me that puts that knowing into questions.  Now, this could be a load of bull, I’m not closed to the possibility that I just don’t know what to ask yet, but I do know whatever the questions turn out to be they need to be asked.  To my credit, I’m a great listener, and not being too quick on the fire back questions portion is a good thing. And, I’m learning, I’m taking little steps towards a bigger goal, and according to Jason that’s a good way to go about doing things.

"For me it’s about the tiny little things because you can course correct along the way… I think there is this myth in entrepreneurship that you have to take the big risk and you have to quit your day job and sink all your life savings into this thing in order to be successful…  I think you’re better off taking small steps along the way.  You can still have a big plan, just take small steps along the way." - Jason Fried

So maybe I’m doing this right after all, and even if I have to ask for a third interview, I’ll be more prepared, I’ll have course corrected, I’ll have the right questions. It wouldn’t hurt if I wrote down the questions since it seems to be in my nature to be so in the moment that I forget the bigger goal.  Guess it’s time I took a little of my suggestions for my own coaching clients to heart and grabbed a pencil and paper - but then again, is it really such a bad thing to be fully present?

For more course corrections in the key of Melissa subscribe to Life in Perpetual Beta and for even more play by play you can follow me on twitter

Disclaimer: Melissa edited this video herself, when the professional editors of the movie get ahold of the tape, you’ll think this interview sprang from the head of Zeus.

Tiffany Tate, I didn’t know her name for months, I knew her as "The Fem Geek"- a woman about town that knew a whole lot about town…. at least, that’s what I gathered from her blog The Unscene Chicago, TV show, and her twitter, I didn’t actually talk to Tiffany until our interview. It’s not that I didn’t try, it’s that Tiffany had pneumonia forever, and then lost her voice, she had to work alot at her job, and then, school started and she was super busy again… so it goes in the life of a Chicago superhero.

You might be wondering what this interview has to do with the heart of my film.  You may be wondering what Tiffany’s goings on about Chicago have to do with finding ones heart and intuition and following that map instead of the the map to the home of the stars in Hollywood.   I’ll tell you a little something about this dinamo maybe she didn’t.  This woman is serious business, she’s always out there, she’s checking out every venue, she’s meeting every artist, she’s contacting Oprah saying that the Big O could be doing more, she’s got her hands IN IT, and she loves it. She is living breathing proof of someone who wants what she wants.  And you heard her, she’s not leaving.

Even better, she isn’t trying to change anything.  She’s just trying to bring attention to what is, and what is possible.

Even better, she recognizes something that many of us forget.  She recognizes that to find the raw, authentic, real stuff, you got to go to the beginning.  You gotta’ look where people are beginning to figure it out, maybe even before they even know that there is a plan available.

So yes, Tiffany Tate has a thing for Chicago, and she sees something here that fosters creativity more so than other cities - That is to say - Chicago doesn’t have a formula yet for creatives, Chicago doesn’t have a grandly planned hierarchy of creativity, it’s got a bubbling up, an unplanned cultural instinct that just does what intuitively comes next - and that’ s what makes it so amazing.  And I think, that bubbling up, that’s exactly what I’m talking about in my film.

Disclaimer: Melissa edited this interview herself - very late at night. Had a professional edited this video, you could have gone blind after seeing it and been perfectly fine with the knowledge that you had indeed seen all there was to see in the world.  The music is by Sans Analog. (available soon…)

 Up until this interview, I had never seen David Armano in person, if fact, all I knew about the internet celebrity I learned on twitter.  I had no plan to interview him, I’m not even sure that I know how I came to decide to interview him, somewhere buried deep in my brain lies the answer, but it doesn’t matter. I’m glad I did.

The above paragraph is a brilliant micro-illustration of the point of my lil’ film project here.

I do minimal planning, and I follow my instinct as I find new information, and I add that to my cache of knowledge, which leads me to ask more questions, and be passionate about new things and people.  And this whole instinct and improvise thing I’ve got going seems to be serving me pretty well. I’m just rolling with it, I’m planning just enough in advance that I can take the next step. I can’t get it wrong, because I’ll never get it done.

An even more brilliant illustration of the point is a ven diagram from Mr. Armano himself. 

And while I’ll admit that the little speck in the middle of planning and improvising that says "we are here." has my mind referencing a piece of dust in Horton Hears a Who, I can just focus enough on the gist of the simple diagram to recognize that it is profound enough to be part of a much larger conversation. So the question is,  where are you?

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