Just a quick note to announce a new series I am doing for Millimeter Magazine (Penton Media Inc.) which is called “Creative Expert with Franklin McMahon”. Each week on the video show I will cover a range of creative tips, reviews and techniques for media professionals. Topics include Adobe and Apple software, social media techniques, creative marketing and lots more. Check out the first few episodes below and check the Millimeter website weekly for new episodes.
Creative Expert Episode 2: Marketing Using Facebook
Creative Expert is a new video show dedicated to expanding your professional creative skills via software tips, tutorials, creative marketing ideas, and the latest technology for digital creative producers and artists.
In episode 2 of Creative Expert, Franklin explores marketing using Facebook.
Creative Expert Episode 3: Lighting Sweeps in Adobe After Effects CS4
Franklin explains how to add lighting effects using quick techniques that don’t require rendering.
Creative Expert Episode 1: Color Hue Presets in Adobe Premiere Pro
In episode 1, Franklin goes over how to save and reapply color hue presets in Adobe Premiere Pro.
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At the beginning of each year people make a lot of plans for resolutions. I don’t believe in waiting or starting around a specific date, but the new year does bring a sense of hope and newness to many, so it can be a good time. In a few months some of these new plans never come to fruition, mainly because of one thing: no measuring. A good recipe for success is measuring progress and tracking the status. Goals need to be specific (”I will get 3 more clients this week” instead of “I’m going to try to get more work”) but they also must be trackable to allow progress to be charted.
There is a big difference between a brand and a service, a brand is more of a story and a service is more of a task. So when you do networking with potential clients, how do you describe yourself? Do you stick to talking about the task? I have always disliked the term “freelance”, I always prefer that people position themselves as a company, even if it is just them. But freelancers, especially when they are just starting out, often stick to just describing the tasks they do. For example if they do web work, they will mention they can do all the coding, host the site on a server and maintain the site on an ongoing basis. They sometimes just stick to the technical side, just the facts. The problem is they have no leverage. Another person could describe the same exact thing. Just rattle off the list of tasks. There is no compelling reason to go with you as opposed to the other person. Even if you both do good work, it is tougher for the client to choose, and then it becomes more of a coin toss.
We’re all busy, we all have lots of tasks, projects, things going on. We are focused on growing our career. This could mean networking, gaining new clients, making things happen. But what about you personally? What about your skill set? Your talents? Self-improvement and self-growth? Author Stephen Covey covered this in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, in fact it’s the 7th Habit, sharpening the saw. You are the saw and you are always engaged in keeping things improving, growing and sharper. This could cover many areas including your mind, spirit and physical body. Pertaining to your career, it is often essential to learn new skills, become better at things. But who has the time?
Are you ready to try an experiment? It can be fun and it can show how effectively you may be running your own business. The truth is too often we pour enormous amounts of energy into items with little to no payoff. Take a look at your to-do list and then examine your next week, next month and someday to-do list. Chances are you may have hundreds of items. You’ll sort and analyze them at some point, but how you do that can be the difference between stagnation and success.
One of the most powerful skills you can master is decision making, especially when it comes to your career. Many books have been written supporting the fact that impulse decisions, that is going over the facts and then deciding rapidly and affirmatively, is a good way to proceed. The argument is that even if you spend hours going over the pros and cons, ultimately the best path is the one you initially lean towards. We all know people who can decide quick and move on, who don’t second guess themselves. One of the things we hear more often is that to get better at decisions, just make more of them.
When is it time to stop networking? When it no longer is working for you. Networking, meaning in person, runs a spectrum from uneasy to comfy. You may attend a regular networking event for the first time and you may be a little apprehensive. Lots of people you don’t know, the location is unfamiliar, you have to make fairly cold introductions. But you get to know people and it becomes easier. In fact perhaps you attend the meet or function on a regular basis. You have now gone to it for months and you know everyone. You have made a lot of great connections, gotten new clients, but now it’s more like meeting with your friends.
It’s funny, I almost think everything I learned about egos I learned from doing 
Oh man I just love this! I have been speaking so much lately about 
I’ve been speaking at events a lot about podcasts and it has me thinking more and more about the advantages. I mean I have always know the amazing benefits a podcast can do for your business or brand, I have been 
Cage Rattle Tuesday! Actually it doesn’t have to be a Tuesday, but a great business technique is to plan one day a week to check in with some of your contacts, rattle their cages. Why? Because most of the opportunities that happen will come from keeping yourself on the minds of others. If you are like most entrepreneurs and creative producers, you network in person, make connections on the web, add peeps to your address book and have stacks of business cards. If you initially follow up with people, you may leave it as a “let’s keep in touch, I am sure there are some things we can collaborate on”. Perhaps then the weeks go by, maybe months, and there is no contact. The other person has dropped off your radar and you have dropped off theirs. But try to reboot the connection.
Democracy Now! 9) Diggnation 10) TED Talks • Most popular podcasts I produce are Rumor Girls, Women of YouTube, Creative Cow and Media Artist Secrets • Also produced Rumor Girls Uncut, Rumor Girls HD, Rumor Girls Diaries
A lot of you reading this network, you go to functions, perhaps you give speeches, you make connections on a weekly basis. Business cards still continue to be a pivotal part of what you do. You may think giving out your card is the most important aspect, but I feel that getting business cards is sometimes more essential. When you give your business card to someone you’ve just talked to, what are the chances that they will contact you?
Look we all want to be successful. We all want to feel like we have achieved what we set out to do. The problem arises when we benchmark our success against others. Instead of creating our own goals and celebrating the success of achieving them, we look at other’s careers and measure ourselves against them. Of course our career path never aligns with anyone else, so that’s when disappointment starts to move in. After that comes resentment, instead of celebrating your own career path you may look to someone else who is seemingly doing better and then get very grumpy. This can then cause you to give up.
A picture is worth a thousand words. And one picture can convey, or not convey, an enormous amount of info about your brand.
Everyone wants a following on the web, everyone wants fans, people who are checking in to see what you are up to. Producing content helps to promote you, it helps to promote your business. But think about what you are providing, what amount of original content do you produce on a weekly basis?
It’s kind of like a dance isn’t it? Your involvement with social networks often involves some skill, some finesse, some fancy footwork and perfecting of the craft. It’s not enough to be on the networks, it is important to work the networks. How can you get your movements smoother and more productive? Here are 4 quick tips to get the most out of social media:
If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It.
First let me say that someone has to be generic. Lots of things need to get done and not everyone can be a superstar. But what if you want more? What if you want to rise to a higher level in your career? I am sure you have seen lots of perfectly fine people, producing content, shooting video, writing on blogs, doing tutorials, entertaining with their craft such as audio, video, graphics, design, film, web or other types of media art.
It’s official, Media Artist Secrets TV is now available in iTunes. Each episode features a topic devoted to developing your creative career. The show started as an audio podcast and won the Best Business Podcast award at the Podcast Expo a few years back in California. In fact the audio podcast is still in iTunes, you can get that 
I like to surf. I like to look for big waves. Career big waves.
What is the difference between a new growing company and a company that is stagnant or experiencing cutbacks? One is moving and the other is stationary. This could be a small one person operation or it could be a large enterprise. It does not matter the size, it only matters if there is velocity there. Imagine your company as a moving vehicle, with the goal to constantly travel and meet new people and clients. You could almost think of this as a political campaign, logging hundreds of (virtual) miles with the goal to expand your audience and reach.
I just sent out invites this morning and wanted to include you as well. If you live near Portland, Maine I’d like to invite you to an event I am hosting called “Facebook Maine Summer Party”. Myself along with 
I’ve been experimenting with doing no tech weekends, instead of constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, looking at email and news, actually scaling down to nothing by avoiding using laptops, social networks, tech in general. Imagine doing social things and not having an eye on my iPhone during conversations, going on outdoor hikes instead of inside with my eyes fixed on a flat screen, just trimming it way down to almost nothing. I say almost, because it is tough to go cold turkey, but a dramatic reduction is not that hard. I’ve learned a few things along the way during this tech elimination.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Twitter lately and I see some patterns that could be improved and tweaked, with myself and others. These suggestions will be tough for some of you to take, so feel free to tell me otherwise, I don’t have all the answers (see actually..I only have 5) so let me know. Here are some thoughts about how to avoid some of the downfalls, from using Twitter too much to not using Twitter at all:
Your career success often hinges on what you are offering. Can the client do it themselves, but it is just easier to have you do it? Or is it a service that the client could (almost) never figure out on their own, unless they went through months of training and research?
How do I sum up the wisdom of four talented career development gurus in one blog post? Impossible! But I will certainly try. This past week here on the blog I mentioned these four individuals, Anthony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Tim Ferriss and David Allen, so I thought it was time for a recap on these people who made a huge impact, and still do, on my career. Below are four of the bigger concepts these guys cover:
I’ve been talking to people about this a lot lately, it’s worth discussing here. I always recommend that if you have a lack of talent in a particular area, you should get help, either someone to help you or hire someone to do it for you. I’ll give you an example. You have a product or service you want to sell, you have worked hard to make it really compelling, because it is your specialty. Of course you need to have a website and make sure you come up in search results. But doing SEO and web design is not exactly your talent. You are not a designer. So rather than get someone who knows what they are doing, you design the website yourself. It’s OK, design is not good, it does not function too well, but hey at least it’s something up there. 
When building your career, having inspiration is something that could not be more pivotal. Having momentum, goals and plans of course will keep us pushing forward. But having inspiration, keeps us pushing upwards.
Success does not happen overnight. Even people who seemingly have just come on the scene with a lot of fanfare have often been working for years, day after day, pushing towards their goals on the path to achievement. When I launch a new project for myself or for a client, I know that a lot of what I am doing is gardening, planting seeds for future abundance. I used to want things quickly, I would look for immediate results. Then I started to think long term. I saw that often when the project or goal was stretched into the future, I could put a lot more into it, hence the greater chance of success.
Want to know a goal that is almost certainly one that will not be achieved? It is one that is delayed. One that is rescheduled. We all have done it (my story in a minute…) starting Monday I will start doing this, starting next week, at the beginning of the month, when the new year starts, etc. Whenever you make a clear goal, you need to take action immediately and achieve even a small part of it. If you don’t, if you schedule it for the future, you are assigning less importance to it. Also when you make the goal you are typically excited to begin it, so why would you schedule it a week from now when your enthusiasm may be considerably less?
I have to say I produce a lot of shows, podcast and online video, for clients and for my own company. One of the shows I produce weekly is one I have a special fondness for: Women Of YouTube. It’s not just because it’s been a hit, with multiple millions of downloads, the show has been charting high on iTunes every month for years. It’s actually the second biggest YouTube podcast in the world (Best of YouTube is actually the top dog) and I get a lot of emails and response to it.
I started Facebook Maine with the mission to bring people together, to socialize, network and have fun. It’s a pretty diverse group with a mix of business people, creative media artists and people who love Facebook. And people who are not even on Facebook yet. We have close to 4000 members and the group continues to grow. Our next mixer is this Friday July 24th at RiRa in downtown Portland, 5:00pm - 7:30pm. If you are in the area, stop down, it will be a great time!
It’s totally OK to be a little on edge. You may go through phases where you are very stressed and worried about every aspect of your creative career. On the other side, you may have times where everything is going just perfect. Completely calm and flowing excellent. These two ends of the spectrum do have their long term drawbacks however.
How you market yourself has a big impact on perception by a potential client. Often your creative business grows not because your skills get better (although that always helps) but because you start to rethink how you position what you are offering. This typically happens in three steps:
Have you ever wanted something really bad, like really fixated on it and did everything in your power to get it? I am not talking about thinking about something and wondering that it would be nice to have. I am talking about obsessing and really focusing, having drive and a laser focus on the end goal. The term “peak performance” is a term used a lot with athletes, but it can also apply to media artists. Having a very strong drive towards something in your career or in your life is very compelling. It could be a new client you want to get, a new piece of equipment, a new workspace, a new service you want to ramp up. It could even be starting a business, leaving the process of working for others behind.
We have all heard that when you are in a creative career, or any career for that matter, an important consideration is to be ready for change. Always be alert to changes in the market, in what your competitors are doing and things that come up you do not expect. While it is a good goal to have, there is an even higher level to consider. Looking at what will change in the future.
This is another concept that sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s one to be constantly reminded of. I do a podcast called Media Artist Secrets (
Aside from the fact that social media websites provide an amazing opportunity to get your content out to a mass audience, the downside is that you are typically accessing a free service that has the ability to terminate your account at any time and for any reason.
As your empire ramps up and you develop bigger clients, the current stable of clients, that have been a real feather in your cap, may unfortunately need to be let go. If a client has been with you since the beginning, there is often nothing more difficult than moving your creative career up to a higher level and having to leave existing clients behind. It’s a tough move, but needed for your career to grow.
Well it did not take long for me to reveal the secret of life here on the blog! Actually this is a common theme that will come up often in my posts and there are a few more secrets that are tent poles, supporting your creative life, but this one is probably one of the most important.
Every media artist with a creative career wants followers, but how do you build this up? We all brand ourselves and our talents online and in the real world, but how do we get people to join in with us? One of the genuine secrets to attracting others to yourself is to also be in a state of wonder over things. Looking at the world and being fascinated is a compelling feeling to a nearby observer. Talk constantly about yourself and people will eventually get burned out. But look and explore something intriguing, while asking questions yourself, and others will step over and explore with you.
Andy Warhol was famous, and infamous, for saying very little. In the press, on TV, during interviews. But instead of the public losing interest because he was boring, the opposite happened, they got more and more intrigued.
This Week: The History of 3D Movies with Ray Zone
It could not be simpler. Look at your circle of work, creative and business related contacts. The people you socialize with in person, at mixers, meetings, etc. Are you the top dog? Having more talent, drive and ambition than the others? Or are you on the other end? Often working hard to keep up career-wise, constantly trying to figure out successful people, seeing others ramp up financially and with much more abundance than yourself. Believe it or not, this is where to be, trying to catch up. It will prompt you to remain in motion as opposed to being content.
Whatever your creative career may be (web, graphics, audio, music, art, video, etc.) there is a likely chance you are in one of several career steps.
Facebook has opened up the option to use Vanity URLs for the first time. If you did not grab your name, you still can, just visit:
