Animator. Director. Artist. Scapegoat.
Here’s a rather feisty and spirited interview I did with Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge, a “D.C.-based public interest group working to defend citizens’ rights in the emerging digital culture.” It’s very low-res and gritty Skype video, but the message comes through loud and clear.
Sometimes I’m asked if I have any “advice” for the young’uns. I seem to give a different answer every time. Today’s answer is:
ADVICE:
Stop taking advice and stop asking for it.
The world is unlimited! There are a zillion ways to do things. Don’t be afraid of doing things wrong. The only way we make progress is from trying things, and that means a lot of failure. I’ve been helped by other peoples’ failures – they show me what not to do, so I can learn from their mistakes – and I hope my failures help other people succeed too. So even failure is a social contribution, as long as you’re failing YOUR way. An authentic failure is worth 100 insincere successes.
Do it YOUR way, not my way.
Looking to others to tell you what to do and how to do it is a bad habit. You can learn a lot just by observing. Let your observations be your teachers. What people SAY is not the same as what they DO, so pay attention to what they DO and learn from that.
If there’s something you can’t learn from observing, do some research. If research still doesn’t answer your question, THEN ask for advice. If you go straight to asking for advice, and expecting your answers there, you will miss out on all kinds of observations and learning.
That is my advice.
“The Internet means there’s no one to kill your dream. You can just do it. You don’t have to persuade anyone or get credentialed or even think about what others think of your idea.”
I can now be rented for talks, workshops and consulting.
Above: saying something inspiring, like “Culture is Free!”
Writing down rates for myself reminded me of this old Nina’s Adventures cartoon.
http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/SitaReport1/SitaReport1.html
This is a rather tardy “first-quarter” report about the Free Distribution of Sita Sings the Blues. It was hastily written July 31 for a conference the next day. Please read about our business model. As of this posting (August 5, 2009) numbers remain approximate and incomplete. The store has actually grossed $34,883.00 to date, but some of those sales are for QuestionCopyright.org merchandise; sales of QCO’s “standard edition” Sita DVD are split between me and QCO, and so aren’t fully reflected in this report. In other words, store income is reported conservatively, some numbers should be higher but Karl Fogel is busy right now so these will have to do. Also, I failed to include income from indie cinemas like Central Cinema in Seattle. Those probably add $3,000 to $5,000. Even the conservative numbers in the report reveal an important truth: I am making money with my “Free” content.
testing to see if I can upload a gigantic “Fluff” strip via wordpress. Will the link go to an image, or file, or what?
Update: on my browser, it read as a Quicktime file. But “Save As Source” saved it as a .tif again. This is good news.
