Social Sites
Search
|
AboutMedia visionary Intro: The patents have been filed, I've completed Graduate School: Now I am constructing the start up business which consists of three cross pollinating brands: 1) Innovative TV Programming This is a business that involves the brokerage of knowledge in the spirit of game play. The combined brands transcend traditional formulas and move knowledge beyond memorized trivia. Digital Squeeze connects savvy contestants with the power of the Internet revealing to the audience unprecedented results through team play. Sabbatical journey: Five years ago Loudeye hired me as General Manager to open the Santa Monica facility. The expense of running a movie business on the beach of Santa Monica, CA proved too costly. A year later I was asked to shut down operations, auction off all the equipment and sublease the building. I collected unemployment for a few months, sent out the obligatory number of resumes proving some form of normalcy. However, I came across an amazing graduate program and after some contemplation I returned to complete my masters degree, addressing my desire for an academic backbone to compliment my career. With such an eclectic background, I put a great deal of effort into developing a TV - Internet convergent start-up business as part of my research. The hardest part? Locating an amazing TEAM! This "Digital Squeeze" site includes my findings and begins to shed some light on my personal reinvention from six figure media/technology GM - Director to world influencing creative entrepreneur. Please do not try this at home: BIO: I was raised in a very small town in southern Idaho. My Mom and Dad weren't wealthy. My dad sold meat to restaurants and grocery stores for different meat packing companies, and my mom worked as a secretary when we needed extra money. However, at night and on weekends, their entrepreneurial drive to get ahead established their ability to purchase homes that others would not consider buying. At one time they owned 9 rental homes. They would refurbish them and rent them for more than the monthly mortgage. Like many kids, I started a lawn mowing business, delivered newspapers, worked in a clothing store, and played in different cover bands throughout Jr. high and High school. During the summer of my sophmore year I was playing in a band in europe and came across a magazine ad looking for musicians to tour the US with a Florida based organization. After summer school my Junior year, I met with my high school principal to inform him I'd completed all necessary units in order to graduate (summer school classes taken every year since Jr. high). With great insight, he told me that I would learn more on tour than I would with another year in H.S.. With his blessing he stamped my transcript complete, and I graduated a year early. I flew to Florida, auditioned, made the cut, and became the youngest member of Young American Showcase touring the US during what would have been my senior year. Following my dream cost me my senior year and the experience of a high school graduation ceremony with my friends, many of whom I'd started Kindergarden with. I would do it all over again, however. After tour, at 18, I sold my Honda XL motorcycle for $700.00 and used the money to move to Reseda California with the hope of furthering my music career in Los Angeles. Money was very tight, in fact, my last $10.00 paid for the gas that took me to my first paycheck at World Opportunities International in Hollywood. There, I drove and loaded trucks with food that was donated from all over Los Angeles. I brought back the donated food to World Opportunity's Hollywood food bank where I then distributed it to different 'soup kitchens' and the homeless. I keenly remember the stench of rotting food in crates that I carried on my shoulders to the dumpster at the end of each shift. Liquifying lettuce running down my back and chest was a humbling experience. During the most difficult work days I would reflect back to a year earlier when I was playing drums in front of thousands and signing autographs after each concert. Going from being a pseudo rock star to feeding the Hollywood hungry and homeless was an amazing life lesson and an experience that, thankfully, developed a great deal of personal character. I served the homeless for two years until I landed a job sanding guitar bodies in North Hollywood at Tyler Guitars working with James Tyler. This shop was next door to Drum Doctors and being a drummer, this was naturally where I wanted to work. The owner, Ross Garfield, hired me part time. With this job I was able to work my way through my Liberal Arts college degree. Setting up and tuning drums placed me in nearly every recording studio and Movie Studio back lot in Los Angeles with many world-renowned musicians and bands. I loved everything about this job, but loathed the seediness at the core of the music industry. After nearly 5-years it was time to move on. Recalling my parents success in real estate, I took real estate classes to obtain my R.E. license. While getting my license I got a janitorial job at The Church On The Way in Van Nuys. Once I had my license I started a full time career selling residential property in one of the worst real estate recessions in California's history. Farming neighborhoods and cold calling with a memorized script: "Are you or anyone you know looking to buy or sell real estate, now or in the near future" ...drove me to practically beg for a job back in the entertainment industry. Without a financial break and hopelessness setting in, I finally found a new job through an acquaintance I met in a real estate class at Valley College. I was hired to sell professional audio sound equipment for the film industry. After a few months, I learned that serious money was not in audio sales, rather, it was in the visual side of film making. I contacted and was hired by ASC Audio Video (now Leitch), and began paying my dues installing and troubleshooting computer controlled video editing systems. I learned everything I could about this business by rolling up my sleeves and digging into the process of film making with extreme technologies. While working during the day at ASC, I spent every spare minute at night learning to record direct to hard drive in my small Macintosh digital home studio with Pro Tools and Studio Vision. I was ecstatic when ASC bought one of the first Mac based Avid editing systems. I was the only Mac savvy employee. I led the non-linear editing movement within the company. Renting Avids became intensely popular. Within months I was in charge of 11 editing systems. I became passionate about the technology of Avid. This passion firmly established my resolve to work directly for Avid Technology. In charge of Avid's march on services was Bob McDonald. After one year of persistant phone calls a field engineering position opened and I was hired in the Burbank office in 1993. Avid had just gone IPO and in the next year became the 9th fastest growing company in America. I loved evangelizing Avid's digital power over traditional film editing. Installing thousands of Avid systems world wide increased my knowledge and moved me up the corporate food chain. I lead Avid's Critical Accounts, Field Support, and Phone Support businesses in the Western US, Asia, and Latin America, with 20 direct reports worldwide. I led the company in support contract sales, obtaining every major film studio in Hollywood. Avid chose to outsource all support offerings and I was asked to downsize the dept to two direct reports. In 1999 I received a phone call from Boston informing me my job had been eliminated. I was asked to leave my dream job that day. In 2000, Loudeye Technologies was getting ready to go public and hired me as their GM and Director of Production to open the Santa Monica office on 2nd street near the Santa Monica Peer. The business model did not account for the fact that people were not ready to watch a feature length film 2-feet from a 15" monitor with a dialup connection. A year after opening the office I was asked to close it all down, lay off the staff, auction off all the computers and post production equipment, then sub lease the office space. During this crazy season, I completed my Bachelor of Science in business and management with a 3.95gpa [Magna Cum Laude] from Azusa Pacific University. After closing the office, I collected unemployment for a few months and sent out thousands of resumes. Multitasking, I decided to leap head first into a reignited dream of entrepreneurship. I started with physical preperation, lifting weights nearly every day for 2-hours, and focused upon my personal cognitive development by researching the true meaning of the term 'convergence.' I read every web site and book I could find on connected subjects. In 2002 after a year of personal research and with no jobs that interested my digital media interactive hybrid mentality, I entered a Masters program at Pepperdine University. My goal was to establish an academic backbone to support my entrepreneurial ideas. While at Pepperdine I also attended classes at Harvard Law and UCLA. In 2003 I graduated with my Masters in Educational Technology from Pepperdine University with a 4.0GPA. THANK YOU! How others have compensated me:
Description for the "deep" academic crowd: The theory of this project agrees with Negroponte and Minsky [MIT]: "Intelligence is not the product of any singular mechanism, but comes from the managed interaction of a diverse variety of resourceful agents. They argued that such diversity is necessary because different tasks require fundamentally different mechanisms; this transforms psychology from a fruitless quest for a few "basic" principles into a search for mechanisms that a mind could use to manage the interaction of many diverse elements." Description for the 'pitch' addicts: Teams play within a game of connection, bidding for knowledge utilizing the Internet or wireless. The first patent pending TV show where the audience pitches the questions and the contestants utilize the Internet to race each other and the clock to find the answers. It's not about trivia; it's all about connections! Description for Consumers: If ebay were to partner with a game of knowledge it would be called Digital Squeeze. Description for those without Internet access: A game where you find stuff online for others in order to win cash and prizes along with a sense of helping everyone. Description for entrepreneurs: This Los Angeles start up business is backed by three years of full time research and was part of my Research Project for my Master of Arts in Educational Technology at Pepperdine University, in Malibu. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA, July 2003. |
Browse archives
NavigationUser loginIndeed
|
