What I Actually Do vs. What You Might See In the Wild

TIL that most of my colleagues & friends have no idea what I do for a living!

Do you have a similar challenge of sharing your own story and work?

Here's a summary of my now-less-hidden & experimental creative life with job hats I hold with various teams:

• Consulting Producer - interactive & immersive features, new pilots, tech events, big social campaigns like the launch of Obamacare, high tech workflows in existing shows from gameshows to internal media, storytelling that includes XR, AR, AI + layers of mediamaking with heavy doses of media strategy and planning, pre-production + for the future, new media modes & interfaces including lightfields, leading orgs like XR Guild for ethical design
• Generative mediamaker (Realitycraft, Generations newsletter) - this newsletter on LinkedIn includes new tools and techniques, methods and models to consider in your work. I've given dozens of talks, panels and workshops so far this year on AI, XR & generative mediamaking including video tools, VFX and filmmaking, writing music & generating almost 100,000 images with clients for new works. Day to day I work across fields from gov, nonprofit and new product development to apps, stories and new worlds. I've personally made a few hundred video & image shorts & reels shared around the world with clients & collaborators and experiment daily. A few are up at realitycraft.art, more at evo.ist
• Creative worldbuilding -- concept development clients vary and I rarely get enough time for these fun sprints that may include a wide variety of media methods for developing new XR/VR/AR worlds and experiences, libraries and museums coming soon (more to share in a few days!) -- working on a book on this topic now that introduces people to creating worlds for the 3D web
• Writer -- I've contributed to 7 books and wrote/released a book on Promptcraft this year that's done well on Amazon as a textbook and primer for generative media writing. After releasing Promptcraft guidebook I jumped into writing a new album with Will Henshall for our new band, Auricles which will be releasing new songs for you soon along with a book on our process of exploring use of LLMs and audio cyphers for music featuring how we work with ElevenLabs , Kaiber and many other tools emerging in music/video fields
• Art & Antiques -- I make installation altars & multimedia art and using light to projection map and make what we call NeRFs or Neural Radiance Fields that bring scenes to life for storytelling. Making experimental media with old fine crystal, light and glass art has become a personal passion project and I'll be exhibiting a new installation work this weekend at Autumn Lights in Oakland as part of their yearly event for the Lake Merritt Gardens. Autumn Lights Festival is always an amazing place for me to share my personal love of art and experience design in experimental and fun new ways, and this year I'm adding in many found items including rare glass and crystal to try reflecting and refracting light throughout the gardens in new ways. I sell art and antiques out of Realitycraft, my gallery and occasional art/vintage show popups around California. I'm considering taking this part of my worldbuilding and design business cross-country to set up smaller footprint stores inside antiques malls and design centers as I pursue accreditation.
• Leading workshops and design sprints -- this week I had the pleasure to work in Tampa, FL facilitating a design and technical sprint for 25 developers in edtech working on challenges related to both special needs education and wellness/health services, two of my favorite fields where working closely with caregivers and listening makes all the difference. Some days those workshops are online, other experiences traverse the open metaverse with groups like MetaTraversal and the interoperability explorers I work with behind the scenes on open source elements of the 3D web with portals between our worlds and experiences. So far there have been 59 talks & workshops this year on making media and technology with new tools such as open source 3D toolkits, XR & AI.

I've tried to sum up the work but it's always different - every project is a new adventure. Listening, guiding and providing connections is a big part of the process. For most of this work, I use few transformers or generative tools, especially as I find writing personally a part of my creative work and process. Later as I explore images and videos I add the generative layers to my stories and ideas.

Here's a summary of how this guiding work changes how other people work:

• Last week we directly improved software that over 10K people will use regularly to provide care to kids with special needs while helping teams collaborate remotely worldwide
• Last month we released the Stori app for storytelling with kids throughout the EU & worldwide
• This summer I mentored filmmakers from around the world to finish their first features and shorts now starting to premiere at film festivals around the world
• Tomorrow I'll give my 60th workshop of the year for a group developing new products for the public

More of the work today is quiet mentorship and guiding the collaborative flow of others, creating ease and sharing insightful tools and tips at the right time, without overwhelming the masses with all of it at once. I realize that this post is like drinking from the firehose of my life and inbox, but now you know when to call me in for working with your various projects.

The hats I'm holding or wearing today include:

• EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
• CONSULTING PRODUCER
• PROMPT ENGINEER
• CURATOR
• WORKSHOP EXPERT/SPECIALIST
• MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY SPEAKER
• WORLD CREATOR/CONCEPT DESIGNER

Some roles I hold very lightly for short periods of time to support well-situated teams while others require a great deal more attention and care through sprints and production.

If you are looking to hire me for one of these roles in the coming year, get in touch as I'm currently booking talks through 2024 and consulting engagements for the next 6 months including 1 day to 12 month extensive engagements for a wide variety of teams, nonprofits and organizations creating wonder and delight.

For now you can enjoy the songs I wrote earlier this year, coming soon on our album, Deeper Learning at @AURICLES on your favorite social site & coming soon on all major music channels with the release of our first album.