About Me
I’ve been asked a few times now to write about who I am and why I’ve done what I have. At the risk of breaking the taboo against knowing who you are, and articulating it, here is a new version.
“Let’s make a dent in the universe.”
… Steve Jobs, Apple, Disney, Pixar.
- I don’t have a conventional bone in my body – I grew up on the edge of the desert, without teachers, mentors or peers, and I’ve had to work everything out for myself. The conventional way of doing things – what’s that?
- Shoshin (Beginner’s Mind) – Enough said.
- I begin from the beginning, each time – If you always want more of the same, but with the slightest of near imperceptible differences, then sorry, I cannot help you… please call somebody else.
- It’s all about storytelling – The story is key, whether it is told in images, words, sounds, motion, experiences, smells, and whatever other means are at my disposal. They should all work in concert to create something that is far beyond the sum of its parts.
- It starts with the visual – anthropologists theorize that human communication began with images and then words evolved from that, hence cave painting and rock carving evolved into pictographs and then alphabets. Images certainly led to words for me – I was a visual artist before I took up the pen, with text and pictures, still and moving, remaining interlinked in my mind. My lifelong love of type grew out of that, too.
- I think strategically, but without bogging down in planning – There are well thought-out reasons for what I do, given there are a thousand ways of telling the thousand stories within every person, place or thing. Strategic creativity is what I was trained in.
- I’ve been lucky enough to have learnt from the Best of the Best – In writing, art directing, design, photography and filmmaking, I’ve sought out the best in the world to spend time with and learn from. Mostly it’s rubbed off, and if not then it has introduced me to some superb collaborators.
- I don’t believe in rigid hierarchies – I collaborate (I don’t take orders) because others are there to help me in my projects and I’m there to help them in the very same way. Welcome to the new world of work, Tom Peters late 1990s-into-the-future style.
- I’m a natural leader and teacher – I look after and inspire others to become all that they can be, to do their best and better, and I’ve been doing that since I was a green young thing in university… as an undergraduate, as a lecturer, as defacto head of department, and beyond. When I work with others, I help them to blossom, to shine and to reach new heights. As they evolve then we all do.
- I Dream It Into Being – Innovation, dreaming the future into being, is as natural as eating and breathing for me. I grew up in a desert void – if I hadn’t visualized the things of my world into existence then they would never have happened. I coined “Dreaming into being” in my earliest of days, to describe how I lived then and now.
- Left brain/right brain, left-handed/right-handed – I’ve been told, over the years, that I’m just plain bad for being ambidextrous, for being verbal and visual, and for refusing to drop right-brain things for those of the left brain, or vice versa. Why deny who I am and what I can do? By the way, may I suggest Stop It! You Can’t Do That! in my Verse page?
- Memory, for me, is 3D, Surround-Sound, All-Six-Senses and Cinematic – There are no bounds between time and time… I can recall times and places like I’m in the middle of a next-gen holo-movie. Imagine if I could create experiences for others that induce the same kind of multidimensional sense memories for them!
- I’m a lifelong learner – Being brought up in the rural working class taught me this, that once you turn your brain off, you’re dead. I not only love learning, I relish it.
- Genres, boundaries and classifications mean little to me – I went to university for a liberal education in the true sense of the word, to study anything and everything that interested me. Rather got up the noses of the system, that. It still does, apparently.
- There are no Good Old Days – Everything creative, artistic, scientific and cultural, then and now, is fascinating to me… my curiosity is boundless. As a child on the edge of the desert, my imagination sustained me, fed as it was by a steady diet of art, dreaming, science fiction, and communication with some of the greats in their field, in other lands.
- There is nothing that I take for granted – I question everything, accept nothing, and try it out for myself.
- I live in the Future Now – My best friend and I often have to remind each other we were born at least 100 years into The Past.
- You can throw me in at the Deep End – Do that and I’ll not only swim, I will have a go at walking upon it. Seriously though, I’ve been in this situation several times now and I’ve done very well indeed. Chaos is nothing that I’m afraid of. If great things promise to come out of it, then I’ll embrace it, and make it into something workable, so long as you give me what I need.
- I live and work across time zones with ease – I ran successful global projects before the Internet became so embedded in all our lives, and since then breaking the bounds of time and space has been trivial.
- I love working with brilliant people – I’ve found that is the way to get extraordinary results, by selecting them well and then by allowing them to excel. Where they’ve shown the potential but have lacked the means to do it, I’ve given it to them. When they’ve been well-established but I’ve asked them to do something entirely new, I’ve backed them up completely. When they needed subtle guidance, then I’ve provided that. Nobody benefits from keeping others down.
- Humour, wit and wonder – They’re essential to all great storytelling, to all remarkable experiences – so are awe, joy and transcendence. Our emotions cry out to be engaged.