"I had no idea what I was doing."  Mark Harper shares his story of going from ROTC to Combat Camera (leading teams of combat photographers) to Technicolor to high-end headphones to joining a startup military channel. He talked about each time where he sought out creative opportunities, the advice given to him by Sargeant Logan from his hometown (whom he will be seeing next time he returns to Upstate New York). Guest: Mark Harper, CEO, We Are the Mighty; General Manager, Military & Defense, Recurrent Ventures Mark Harper is the General Manager of Recurrent’s Military vertical. He is re ..read more

Mike Polis started and ended with animation and graphic novels and cool creative content. In between, he has run marketing for Yo Gabba Gabba, Jim Henson, and other adventures. Mike shares his stories of how he moved from desktop publishing after college to food marketing, to DVDs for Universal Studios, and into adventures with Kermit and other creative projects. He brings us to his present day, where he runs two types of organizations -- one producing with creative brands and one now working with next-generation low-energy rendering systems. His stories are ones of finding ..read more

From photography to musician websites to Flash to now AR, Lafiya Watson Ramirez combines visual and experience creation with storytelling.  She tells her own story about how she moved from photography to web and interactive design into being inspired by Pokemon Go to pursue Augmented Reality (AR) through Snap Studios and a residency there.  She shares some of her projects and her ideas for future projects. Guest: Multidisciplinary artist Lafiya Watson Ramirez Lafiya Watson Ramirez is a multidisciplinary artist specializing in AR development, web development, graphic design, and photo ..read more

We are in post-production on new episodes, so our host, Gigi Johnson, shared a story about "Postcards" and Postcard Moments that has come up in prior episodes and in many recent conversations. She shares how a single postcard created a pivot that changed her direction when a TA offered the suggestion that she apply for USC Film School after a single class. She challenges us to explore "postcards" in our lives -- both given and offered. She also suggests that postcards are all over past episodes, which we'll call out with additional content in the future. Mentioned: Happenstance Theory - Krumb ..read more

Bruno shares his saga from playing the drums and enjoying international music, mixing songs and culture from Tunisia, France, and LA. Those facets led to studying at UCLA Ethnomusicology, becoming a DJ at KCRW, and building a record label in his living room. He shared work in place-based music and compilation records, in building the sonic architecture of hotels, vacations, and clothing brands -- creating soundtracks to vacations and lifestyles. His own independent label became his inspiration to work to streamlining the complexity of running a music label. His work in Filemaker ..read more

[Enjoy our podcast this week that we share with our sister Maremel Network podcast, Innovating Music, that has just launched its fifth year.] Dick Huey claims that his career jumps have been "educated luck."  "Because they they are luck. And I'm, I'm I don't ever pretend that I have more information than everybody else does. But I think I'm good at identifying opportunity. So for me, this felt like opportunity. And I jumped at it. And then of course that launched a 25-year career in digital music."  And so Dick shares with us his 25-year career, ranging from teaching software applica ..read more

Questions: How do we design for extreme conditions and resource challenges?  Is that for Mars or Earth? Guest: Alfredo Muñoz, Architect; Founder; Onteco; Founder, ABIBOO Studio; Chair for Memberships of the Technical Committee of Space Architecture at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Digital twins?  Space architecture?  Alfredo Munoz combines astrophysics and architecture to let us pilot new ways of building in VR on Earth . . . as practice for Mars . . . to improve how we live on Earth.   He’ll share elements of a digital twin of a compound in Mars th ..read more

Question: How can you build a rich creative life based on referrals and going out on a limb? Guest: Darryl Hurs, Owner/CEO, Indie Week; Managing Director, Downtown Canada; Director, Market Development, Canada, CD Baby; Educator, Harris Institute In this episode, Darryl Hurs shares his journey from studying music, working in retail at HMV, and being in a band to building a dynamic life in digital arts and music business through the reach of the people he has met and putting himself out there, even if he was uncomfortable.  His work of getting and giving work to others launched his own earl ..read more

Question: How do you connect independent artists and music business in India as a young woman? Guest: Ritnika Nayan, Managing Director, Downtown India; Owner: Music Gets Me High Ritnika Nayan shares stories about her passion: helping indie artists succeed and make money through various avenues that they might have been neglecting.  She does that in her main role: Managing Director for Downtown India.  That passion also connects her early love of Broadway musicals to working on college concerts at Hofstra, music festivals in India, building her own company, wellness work, ukulele cove ..read more

Question: How can you build campfires, mixing music and social activism? Guest: Arturo O'Farrill, Founder, Artistic Director, Afro Latin Jazz Alliance; Professor, Global Jazz Studies, The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Arturo O'Farrill builds campfires and connects music, activism, and community to build momentum to change his areas of passion in the world -- especially in New York.   He shares with us the many projects he is working on, his Grammy-award winning music melding and digging beyond jazz and Latin music roots, his st ..read more