Creative Innovators with Gigi Johnson

Today starts the first segment of Tidbit Tuesday, which brings in parts of the ReadytoZag program from Rethink Next.

What is a Creative Career?

What are we talking about when we throw around the term “creative career”? This could be having a traditional career in a creative industry, or it could be doing something that has creativity in the actual job. In terms of being different from non-creative careers, they tend to recruit differently, and often you can build your career differently. They tend to be both skill and relationship orientated, but don’t fit in nice little square boxes. As a result, there is often a lot more freedom which, in turn, can make it a more complicated career path to navigate on your own.

Take a moment for some reflection. What are some differences that you anticipate or have experienced when navigating a creative versus a more traditional career path?

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Question: What if you could pursue the creative projects that you already saw in the world? 

In this episode, Beatie Wolfe takes us through her creative journey to become the technologist and artist she is today. Back when she was 7 or 8, she began to imagine the “music books” (album covers) that she wanted over music and moved to reimagine the vinyl experience in her later work. She shares her journey through projects like “Raw Space” (the anti-stream in the more quiet room in the world). She also discussed “From Green to Red,” which she created for this year’s London Design Biennale, and “Postcards from Democracy” with Mark Mothersbough that will be a Featured Session at March 2021’s SXSW Online. Enjoy Beatie’s journey to create and re-create our ceremonial experiences around music in the real world.

Guest: Beatie Wolfe, Singer, Songwriter, Technologist (Photo: Ross Harris)

“Musical weirdo and visionary” (Vice) Beatie Wolfe is an artist who has beamed her music into space, been appointed a UN role model for innovation, and held an acclaimed solo exhibition of her ‘world first’ album designs at the V&A Museum. Named by WIRED as one of "22 people changing the world,” Beatie Wolfe is at the forefront of pioneering new formats for music that bridge the physical and digital, which include: a 3D theatre for the palm of your hand; a wearable record jacket - cut by Bowie and Hendrix’s tailor out of fabric woven with Wolfe’s music - and most recently an ‘anti-stream’ from the quietest room on earth. Wolfe is also the co-founder of a “profound” (The Times) research project looking at the power of music for people living with dementia.

The Barbican recently commissioned a documentary about Beatie Wolfe's pioneering work titled "Orange Juice for the Ears: From Space Beams to Anti-Streams" and Wolfe's latest innovation is an environmental protest piece built using 800,000 of historic data that will be premiered at the London Design Biennale in 2021.

Mentioned Links:

• Beatie Wolfe: https://beatiewolfe.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beatiewolfe/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BeatieWolfe/ 
• Punk Rock by Virginia Boston - https://beatiewolfe.com/this-beats-blogging/punk-rock-by-virginia-boston-1978
• 8ight (2017) - “World’s first 3D Interactive Album App” - “Theater for the Palm of the Hand” - 
• https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/beatie-wolfe-8/id666096956 
• Montagu Square (2015) - Album Deck of Cards - https://beatiewolfe.com/shop-list/the-mongatu-square-album-deck-of-cards 
• Raw Space (2017) - Documentary about the album and Bell Labs - https://beatiewolfe.com/raw-space-beam 
• Victoria & Albert (2018) - “The Art of Music in the Digital Age” - https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/bJR1B3Ng/ldf-2018-the-art-of-music-in-the-digital-age-a-series-of-world-first-designs 
• SXSW Session - Mar. 18, 2021 - https://www.sxsw.com

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Starting next Tuesday, we'll be sharing parts of the Rethink Next career exploration programs to tie in with the non-linear career stories from each of these podcast interviews. 

We'll be sharing each week on Tuesdays a bit of the programs we have been working on for a few years with groups on how to expand your creative career, using examples from past and future interview episodes. Listeners can continue the programs for free in our online program spaces and can share them with friends. 

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Question: What if you need to leave creative work to deal with crisis? How can you bring your creativity to other fields? 

In this episode, Christopher Zyda shares his journey through the 1980s AIDS pandemic as a young professional writer-to-be and his shift into finance to help care for his partner while dealing with insecurities and fears in launching a life. He tells of his choices to go to graduate school, his persistence and a kind person that got him into Disney finance, his Zelig-like choices of taking financial leadership roles at Amazon, eBay, and a mortgage finance company, and his newer role of leading Mozaic, a financial investment firm. All of this work in finance still involved storytelling and learning everything he can. Chris tells the story of returning back to writing with his biography of his own AIDS-era journey with his new book “The Storm.”

Guest: Christopher Zyda, Author; CEO, Mozaic LLC

Christopher Zyda is the author of The Storm: One Voice from the AIDS Generation.

Chris is also the CEO of Mozaic-LLC, an independent, privately-owned firm that focuses on wealth management, family office, and corporate advisory services. He has over 30 years of investment management and senior-level corporate finance experience at several high-profile growth companies including The Walt Disney Company, Amazon.com, and eBay.

Chris earned a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1989 with a concentration in Finance and achieved Beta Gamma Sigma honors. Chris also earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of California Los Angeles in 1984.

Chris serves on the UCLA English department Board of Visitors, the advisory board for the LZ-Grace Warrior Retreat for special operations warrior veterans and Tier 1 first responders, and the advisory board for Veterans in Media and Entertainment.

In addition to investments and finance, Chris enjoys training in CrossFit and Olympic lifting, running, skiing, river rafting, playing the piano, and creative writing.

Links:

• Website: Czyda.com

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In this episode, Laura Escudé takes us on her journey from violinist to adventures in Los Angeles as a seat filler for TV shows from Craig’s list to market research to other one-off jobs. . . until she becomes a tech support staffer at M-Audio because of problems she had with her own keyboard. For listeners who are inspired by linear journeys, this is not one. Instead, Laura was launched from being laid off as the first Ableton Certified Trainer. An email got her working for Cirque du Soleil in playback. A phone call from all of her Ableton visibility brought her to Kanye West’s audio engineer and then years of touring. Until it wasn’t -- and she shares the story of how in 2017 she rebuilt her career about teaching and inspiration in audio engineering around “transmuting” creators - “to move from one form of energy into another.” Enjoy her story of building a global community of artists and creating new online programs ahead of the current virtual learning world. And enjoy her stories of what she now has built with the Transmute Accelerator and Transmute Academy.

Photo credit: Nicholas James

Guest: Laura Escudé

(fka ALLUXE), Future Classical artist blending music, tech, and consciousness

Laura Escudé is the creator of The Transmute™ Accelerator, Founder of Electronic Creatives, and an Ableton Certified Trainer since 2008. Career highlights include performing in the GRAMMY Premiere band, programming and designing shows for Kanye West from 2009-2017, opening for Miguel on his 2015 Wildheart tour, and building a thriving international business populated by top-tier professionals. She’s done official remixes for artists, including M83 and Poliça, with her violin playing featured on albums by Big Grams, Kanye West, Jay Z, and many more. 

She’s released myriad albums, singles, and EPs under the name ALLUXE, synthesizing her skills as a classically trained violinist and her prowess as an avant-garde electronic producer. Now making music under her own name, Escudé released the Transmute EP, her most intimate work to date, capturing the sound and feel of a woman who’s examined the darkest parts of herself and come out the other end transformed. 

Technology is a second language for Escudé, who became the world’s first Ableton Certified Trainer in 2008. In 2012, she founded Electronic Creatives, using her skills to hire and train programmers and playback engineers for artists including Logic, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Big Sean, Charli XCX, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She’s brought massive productions to life for artists including Kanye West, Jay Z, Bon Iver, Missy Elliot, Herbie Hancock, and television megabrand American Idol. Escudé toured extensively with these shows, collaborating with artists to create fresh, thrilling experiences for audiences worldwide.

Mentioned Links

Transmute Academy: https://www.thetransmuteacademy.com

• Web: https://lauraescude.com and
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/lauraescude
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/lauraescude
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/lauraescude
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4mfReLOTaMQoFv54RpEgFD?si=OHtAxr_XR7uWjql49BVvgw

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Dae Bogan shares how he sees solutions and “warps” them into business ideas -- which is both a blessing and a curse. He began with selling cakes in middle school and organizing bus tours in high school from Cleveland, OH to New York. From his early history in acting, singing, and creating and producing events, he moved into a long series of start-ups (including putting gogo dancers in store windows) before moving into various endeavors in music tech. Dae has started and sold a variety of cloud-based ventures as well as mentored founders of other startups. Dae shares how he now is bringing those diverse skills to bear as head of Third-Party Partnerships with The Music Licensing Collective. The MLC works with music publishers and artists to collect and distribute their streaming royalties.

Guest: Dae Bogan, Head of Third-Party Partnerships, The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC)

Dae Bogan serves as Head of Third-Party Partnerships for The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC), where he leads The MLC’s strategy for engaging third-party entities to support initiatives in rights administration, data management, operations, and membership services. 

A passionate music creators' rights advocate who enjoys exploring the global music rights landscape through the lens of business and technology, Bogan is also an adjunct lecturer at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. In this role, Bogan develops and teaches the music industry entrepreneurship course for which he was recognized in Billboard's "The 15 Best Music Business Schools In 2017." 

Prior to joining The MLC and teaching at UCLA, Bogan’s passion for innovation at the intersection of music and technology led him to found three companies: music rights administration technology company TuneRegistry, unclaimed music royalties, and licenses search engine RoyaltyClaim, and in-store music video network Maven Promo. Each of these companies has since been acquired.

 Early in his career, Bogan worked directly and more creatively with recording artists, songwriters, music producers, and DJs as the owner-operator of an independent record label, a music publishing company, and a boutique artist management firm before pivoting into technology in 2012. 

 Dae holds an MA in Music Industry Administration with a focus on music publishing and copyright administration from California State University, Northridge, and a BA in sociology from the University of California. He resides in Los Angeles, California where he organizes SoCal Music Industry Professionals, an informal networking community of music industry professionals who live in Southern California.

Mentioned Links:

• Website: https://daeboganmusic.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daebogan/
• Twitter: @daeboganmusic
• Facebook: @daeboganmusic
• Instagram: @daeboganmusic
• UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music: https://schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/people/dae-bogan
• The Music Licensing Collective (The MLC): https://themlc.com
• SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis
• PESTLE: Political, Economic, Social, Tech, Legal, and Environmental Change Factors
• TAM: Total Available Market
• CSUN: Cal State Northridge: https://csun.edu
• SXSW Music Mentors: https://www.sxsw.com/news/2019/2020-mentors-announced-for-interactive-film-music-convergence

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In this episode, we hear how Bas den Braber and Jenna Seiden are following their purpose with Zambezi Partners, a benefits corporation with a mission to eradicate African wildlife poaching during our lifetime. They both worked in large company business-to-business strategy, consulting, and brand leadership, and have found their purposes after their mid-career reality checks. Their careers in their subsequent order built toward new opportunities . . . that led to their using tech tools to advance anti-poaching solutions. They “grok” larger organizations and see the barriers to change -- and share that experience as interpreters between tech and technology to create forward momentum and innovation with saving species of animals. On Dec. 13, 2020, at EndangeredRangers.com, they are having a fundraiser to support fundraising around people on the ground, as well as the technologies being used to complement what they do . . . staying on track to save these animals . . . and on KNECT TV app on your Roku Player and other devices.

Guests: Bastiaan den Braber and Jenna Seiden, General Partners, Zambezi Ventures

Each has previously launched their own startups receiving venture funding, Swagtime.com and Boost VC-backed SAMO VR, respectively. They started working together in Global Director positions for the SDG-centric Dutch $30M venture fund, LUMO Labs. Bas introduced Jenna, a second-generation wildlife conservationist, to his vision to use their venture capital acumen and Silicon Valley best practice models to combat poaching, an issue he committing to solving when he first began doing safaris in Africa in 2003, subsequently becoming an FGASA Level 1 trained Field Guide. The two have formally devoted their lives to bring their technology and investor networks together with their experience in investments to have the impact they’ve believed in their whole lives.

They spend their time between Los Angeles and Zimbabwe where they have already partnered with a team on the ground in Harare and Panda Masuie overseeing investment opportunities and the deployment of the tech stack respectively. They will be on-site in Zimbabwe full-time upon securing the first 20% of the fund in addition to their own GP commit. An international, multi-disciplinary advisory board of industry sector experts, founders, asset managers, and executives is being established. 

Jenna Seiden

Jenna lives professionally at the intersection of technology and media, having worked for, with, or advised some of the biggest names in sports, entertainment, and technology. 

She helps engineers and executives with business development, project financing, and corporate strategy. She has evolved or created new business models to adapt to changing technology platforms. She excels at identifying and negotiating strategic partnerships, which have led to some of the largest digital, video game, and virtual reality deals to date. She went to UPENN and holds an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA.

Jenna’s extended family managed the largest animal sanctuary in the Northeast and has been a fervent animal advocate since her youth. She even predicted her current duty to stop poaching when she was 12 emphatically identifying Zimbabwe, of all the places in the world, where she would someday live and save rhinos and elephants.

Bastiaan den Braber

Bastiaan spent 15-years with Capgemini Consulting, helping executives with digital strategy, innovation, redefining operating models, institutionalizing consumer-centric design, and improving commercial performance. Most recently he helped South African clients find multi-billion USD market opportunities. 

Using these tools he built SAMO VR, a venture capital-backed start-up that drives revenue in virtual and augmented reality by helping music industry companies define, finance, and deliver their emerging tech strategy. He recently served as Global Managing Director for SDG-centric Dutch fund, LUMO Labs, based in Los Angeles. In addition, he is an advisor to other start-ups, a frequent speaker, panel member, and moderator at industry events, and judges events like hackathons. He studied engineering and received his Master’s in business from Nyenrode University in The Netherlands. 

Bastiaan had the vision to use the best of the world’s venture capital acumen and models to combat African wildlife poaching when he first began doing safaris in Africa in 2003. He became an FGASA Level 1 trained Field Guide as part of his journey and formally devoted his life to bringing together the technology partners from his past in the Zambezi Project, with his present passion for venture capital to create Zambezi Ventures that can have the impact he’s believed in for nearly two decades.

Mentioned Links

• Endangered Rangers: https://www.endangeredrangers.com 
• Zambezi Partners: https://www.zambezipartners.com/zambezi-project
• Zambezi Ventures: https://www.zambezipartners.com/zambezi-ventures 

Bas:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/basdenbraber/
• Twitter: basdenbraber - https://twitter.com/basdenbraber
• IG: @bdenbraber https://www.instagram.com/bdenbraber

Jenna:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennaseiden/
• Twitter: @jennan13 - https://twitter.com/jennan13 
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/jposeiden

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Tania Katan shares her wit and wisdom about how to use creativity to challenge with playfulness our rigid organizational cultures. She works with large and small companies, helping them find new alignment around their daily contradictions through “small c” creative work, facing everyday practical problems with imagination. She shares the tales of #itwasneveradress (re-seeing the ladies’ room logo into a cape) and challenging the community to arm wrestle for art at the Scottsdale Museum of Art. She speaks and challenges how we connect virtually in her keynotes and works with organizational leaders through her “Creative Trespassing” classes and new membership organization.

Guest: Tania Katan, CEO, Creative Trespassing

Tania is a transformational speaker, innovation coach, and co-creator of the globally viral women’s empowerment campaign #ItWasNeverADress. Her unique way of formulating ideas led to the groundbreaking bestselling book, “Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life” (Penguin Random House, February 2019).

For over a decade, Tania has been successfully sneaking creativity into Fortune 500 companies, leading tech companies, arts organizations, marketing conventions, and innovation summits to teach people and companies the skill of generating creative breakthroughs. Some of the organizations and major conferences impacted by her work include CiscoLive!, Expedia, Amazon, Google, Humana, Etsy, TED, World Domination Summit, Uber, and Comedy Central Stage.

Katan’s status-quo-busting work has also appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, HuffPost, Time, BuzzFeed, CNN, Adweek, Mashable, Forbes, ReadWrite and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, among others.

If you long to leap from fear to freedom and just need a map… Here You Are: https://taniakatan.com/courses/

• URL: Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life - https://taniakatan.com/courses/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taniakatan/
• Twitter: @taniakatan
• Instagram: @TheUnrealTaniaKatan 
• Inspirational Newsletter (get a FREE chapter of Creative Trespassing when you sign up): https://tania-katan.mykajabi.com/opt-in-833df3d3-9390-46dd-a091-36f10efacca0
• Website: taniakatan.com
• “Creative Trespassing” Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566682/creative-trespassing-by-tania-katan/9780525573401/

Interesting Mentions:

• Sonya Renee Taylor - https://www.sonyareneetaylor.com 
• Patricia Stokes, “Creativity from Constraints in the Performing Arts” - https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Constraints-Performing-Patricia-Stokes/dp/0692611991/
• Axosoft - https://www.axosoft.com
• #Itwasneveradress - https://itwasneveradress.org
• Byron Katie - https://thework.com
• Pema Chödrön - https://pemachodronfoundation.org
• Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk - http://www.seaox.com/thich.html
• Arm wrestling for art at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art - https://frontdoorsmedia.com/arm-wrestling-for-art 

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Megan Elliott shares her journey from Australia and indigenous cultural media to trade union representation in Ireland to traveling across Asia connecting leaders and cultures . . before she was found on LinkedIn to bring her superpowers to Nebraska. She tells of the shared collaborative creation of the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, which works to create “pirates, magicians, and wizards” who can reach their dream job or create their dream company right out of school. 

Guest: Megan Elliott

Founding Director, Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Megan Elliott is the founding director of the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. She was previously the manager of leadership and community connections at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia and former director and CEO of digital media think-tank X Media Lab.

From 2015-2016, Elliott served as the manager of Leadership and Community Connections at the University of Technology Sydney in Sydney, Australia’s number-one young university, where she led an international program for students to develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills, as well as instilling a commitment to innovation, social justice, community building, and sustainability.

Elliott has deep ties to emerging media industries across Asia, Europe, and the world. She served as co-founder and director of China Creative Industries Exchange in Beijing and Shanghai, China, from 2007-2015.

From 2005 to 2015, Elliott was the director/chief executive officer for X Media Lab (XML), an internationally acclaimed digital media think-tank and creative workshop for the creative industries that she co-founded with Brendan Harkin. She also served from 2002-2006 as the executive director of the Australian Writers’ Guild.

Originally from Australia, Elliott received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Canberra in Bruce, Australia

Mentioned Links

Megan

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganelliott

Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln

• Website: http://arts.unl.edu/carson-center
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/carsoncenterunl 
• FB: https://www.facebook.com/carsoncenterunl 
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/carsoncenterunl 

Overall

• McKensie Wark, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, The New School (NYC) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_Wark and https://believermag.com/logger/an-interview-with-mckenzie-wark 
• Lynette Walworth, Australian filmmaker/artist/activist - https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/lynette-wallworth-climate-change-crystal-award-australia-fires 
• Media & Entertainment Arts Alliance, Australia (MEAA) - https://www.meaa.org 
• The National University of Ireland Galway - https://www.nuigalway.ie 
• Australian Writers’ Guild - https://awg.com.au 
• X Media Labs - http://xmedialab.com

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Ale Cohen and Mark "Frosty" McNeill share their journey through “experimenting with sound” and community in building the Internet radio collective DUBLAB over the past two decades. They share what inspired and drove them to build this institution and how it has shifted gears in our listen-from-home global era. 

Dublab is not your average radio station. Mark calls it “experimentation with sound” that was formed as a reaction to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which forced the closure of low-power stations. We talked about online radio as a “misuse of technology” -- as a “hack” and a mutant use of tech. Initially, dublab acted as “an excuse to gather the creative community of Los Angeles.” They share stories of how contemporary much often started out of the studio and how dublab became a testing ground for new sound and to honor the music that went before.

Guests: Mark “Frosty” McNeill, Founder, and Alejandro Cohen, Director, dublab

Alejandro Cohen is a musician and composer from Los Angeles, and the Director of non-profit radio station DUBLAB. Over the last two decades, Cohen has released music under numerous projects and groups including Languis and Pharaohs. He has composed music for TV shows, documentaries, and educational materials, and recorded more than two hundred solo artists and bands as a sound engineer and consultant for dublab.com, KPFK 90.7 FM, Sony/Columbia, and the Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS). As Executive Director of the Internet radio station and creative collective DUBLAB, Cohen curates the station’s programming and podcast offerings, fundraises for the organization, and curates the annual ambient music event Tonalism.

Mark “Frosty” McNeill is a DJ, radio producer, sonic curator, filmmaker, and creative community builder based in Los Angeles. He was the founder of dublab.com, a pioneering web radio station that has been exploring wide-spectrum music since 1999. McNeill hosts Celsius Drop, a weekly dublab radio show and has produced long-running programs for Red Bull Radio, Marfa Public Radio, and KPFK 90.7fm. McNeill co-curated/produced the Pacific Breeze compilations of Japanese City Pop music for Light in the Attic Records as well as Somewhere Between, a forthcoming album focused on the more experimental side of Japanese pop. His output on a multitude of international media platforms has focused on sharing transcendent sonic experiences.

Mentioned Links

Email: [email protected]

Frosty

• Web: dublab.com/djs/frosty
• Twitter: @dublabfrosty
• Instagram: @dubfrosty
• Facebook: @dubfrosty

Ale

• Web: https://www.dublab.com/djs/ale

Dublab

• Web: https://www.dublab.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/dublab
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dublab/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dublab/ 
• Linktr.ee links: https://linktr.ee/dublab 
• KUSC - https://www.kusc.org 
• KXSC - https://kxsc.org 
• SASSAS - The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound - http://sassas.org 
• Echo Park Film Center -

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