A New Adventure: Digital Theatrics

April 1st was my last day as an employee of Gaiam and a contributor to the development of Gaia.com. When I signed at Gaiam, Gaia.com was little more than a parked domain. The blooming of Gaia was rapid and intense. I do hope she continues to grow and evolve into a healthy and vibrant community.

Over the past 5 years, my passion was in virtual communities. Since then I've been involved in several project ranging in size from hundreds of users to hundreds of thousands of users. What was once a niche is now an industry.

Now it's time for me to focus on new adventures. I feel as though the development of social media is starting to level out. During the Web 2.0 boom, we saw massive innovations spawning all around the Web. With so many social apps to choose from these days, it's almost overwhelming. Still, most of these apps are poorly connected and we're still maintaining individual accounts on each. I'm sure that bridging this great divide will be a complete mess - at best.

So as I make me exit from the development side of the social web, I'm focusing on what can be done "in" this emerging social scene. The first experiment is what I've started calling "Digital Theatrics".

"Digital theatrics is the art of weaving a digital story in a virtual medium through social role playing. Social Role Playing is the art of impersonating a character on a social website."

I'm not going to expand on the details, but if you would like to know more - feel free to msg me about it. I've been refining the concept and now have my first client to turn this concept into a live campaign. I'm hopeful this will be the foundation for a variety of interesting services that could never be offered before the existence of the social Web.

Meanwhile, I'm still driving two very passionate ideas as hard as I can. I'm still advocating Intellectual Sustainability. To that end, I'm hoping to build the business on as much open source software as possible.

I'm also keenly interested in building a mobile career - not just for myself, but for my future employees. Many developers and designers enjoy lifestyles of telecommute because their jobs can be done remotely. I think Digital Theatrics is an even better telecommute style job.

I tested and explored this mobility over the past week. I spent 7 days in Sayulita Mexico working from various wireless Internet hotspots. The results were mixed, but promising. There's value in being "at work" in the office and face to face with your co-workers. However, there's also value in going straight from your laptop into the ocean for a quick surfing break.

In exploring all of this, I'm redesigning much of my life. I'm exiting my apartment lease, I'm selling my vehicle, and I'm hoping to travel a lot. I'm going through the process of setting up a company in Colorado and making a handful of mistakes along the way. I'm also trying to define a new business model. It's really hard to sell something when no one knows just what it is yet.

Some days I am tempted to accept another office job and continue living life in a way I know is both comfortable and safe. Still, the potential of building something new and interested is a strong motivator - the kind I haven't felt since I fully dove into my passion of virtual communities some 5 years ago.

Here's hoping for the best.