And so it begins

Have you ever built a website and taken inventory of all your professional and personal skills and packaged them up? It can be challenging. My method is to just get it all down in any random fashion, then iterate, share with friends who might specialize in design, or are also writers, and get multiple perspectives. Then, I make adjustments until it feels right. In my experience, collaboration usually makes things better. New ideas emerge. Then the fine tuning process takes hold. At the end of the day, it just has to feel right because this is a reflection of me. 

I am working on some amazing customer video and writing projects with Oracle. One is an industrial manufacturing global campaign video that will address all the challenges manufacturers are facing while connecting to a suite of solutions on the same platform. Sounds complex and it is, so the challenge is to create a story that brings it all together. The planning process and the filming is a great behind-the-scenes story in and of itself. Rather than our usual method where we draft a script and film the speaker then apply B-Roll at the end of a project, in this case, all of the visuals were selected up front, and then the actor was directed to say and do things for each and every scene. The end result will reveal that the actor is in the live action settings - interacting with his environment. It's very cool! A lot more pre-planning and precise directing required, but the end result is a more innovative and informative video production! 

And then there's the writing project with a tech partner that I'm working on. The project is an article involving a half dozen stakeholders from multiple companies  all contributing their expertise. Having had a significant amount of  interaction with this tech partner, my role as subject matter expert is to look at it holistically, ensure the positioning is correct, and identify anything that seems potentially inaccurate. Then flag it and make sure it's fact checked. In the end, when everything gets polished, it will be a very comprehensive yet concise article about the world of transportation management and how digital technology is shaping that industry.  

This is a good time personally and professionally to regroup, take a look back, and a consider the future. There are so many different opportunities and choices to make and starting this professional and personal Journal is one way to get started. I realize that my work and personal life seem to intersect often. Maybe it's the freeing of the mind when playing music, or paddling out on San Francisco Bay that releases the endorphins in my brain. Or perhaps it's when two things fuse to form an amalgamation instead of the previous two separate entities.

I know that for me, taking time to reflect and get things in balance is when I do my best work and feel happiest. It's an intellectual exercise!