2009 June | Maine Video Production, Marketing, Photography and Web Design in Portland Maine : Franklin McMahon Studio

Jun

Your 4 Creative Career Steps

4steps 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.

Or you may be between steps. Through your life, you may be working through the steps in order from 1 to 4. Or you may be thinking back to an easier, early step and thinking about stepping back to it.

Here are the 4 categories of steps:

1. HOURS
Hired Hourly $
You punch a clock and are paid via time

2. TALENT
Hired for Talent $$
You get paid for your talent and technical skills

3. IDEAS
Hired for Ideas $$$
You get paid for your vision, your ideas, your thought process, personality

4. WHO
Hired for Who You Are $$$$+
You have nailed all of the above, your resume, is you

(4 are often people like celebrities, sports figures, rock stars, business gurus, etc)

Many creative artists who are independent producers are wedged between 2 and 3. And many charge for services and content more toward step 2. The key is to work your career (and income) toward 3 instead. Lets say you are a motion graphics animator. A client says they need a flying logo, 2 says no problem. 3 says, hmm, is a flying logo the best idea? 3 offers the most to the client, and charges accordingly.

3 is typically in charge of a team of people more talented, and may have a completely clean desk, but 3 can still be anyone, even a single producer, if they focus on vision (ideas) as opposed to technical skills.

When working at level 2, you have little leverage and are trumped by another producer or company doing the same technical tasks for less cost. 3 can charge more because you can’t get their vision elsewhere. In other words, most of what you should charge for and offer to clients takes place before your hands ever land on the equipment.

Figure out what step you are at now. Are you happy at that step? Or are you between steps?

And more importantly, what step is next for you?

Jun

How To Pick A Facebook Vanity URL

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:

http://www.facebook.com/username/

I received a lot of questions from clients and friends on the importance of this, what name to choose and even some who were mystified by the whole experience. Also if it was better to use the “.” dot or not. Here is some advice:

- Using the dot does not matter, facebook.com/samjones works as well as facebook.com/sam.jones. Try it.

- The importance of a Vanity URL is in making your Facebook profile easier to type out. It’s shorter and more descriptive. Especially important if you are a creative media artist who is promoting their brand or work on Facebook.

- What name to choose? For your profile I would highly recommend your full name (if its available). Your name is your brand. Your brand is your name. Your name will outlast any current career you are now in. So if you choose facebook.com/samJmusic, that may work for now, but a few years down the road you may move into a new career (actually..you probably will) so the Facebook name will always anchor you to the past. So your profile should be your exact name, so it pops up immediately if anyone is searching for you.

- Also avoid things like facebook.com/sjones. It is much harder to brand yourself using just your first initial. S could be anyone!

- Don’t name your profile after your blog, podcast, username, anything but your actual name. This advice can be applied to all your social networks, such as Twitter. People follow you and you lead them to your projects. If people follow one of your projects, that project may change and you may get lost in the shuffle down the road. And if you don’t think you’ll be doing your main project 5 years from now, look at 5 years ago, and see if you are still doing a project from then.

- As for Facebook Pages, that is different, and there you have more options to use different names. However look at using your name for this too, again it is all about branding.

So when you are staking out your identify on Facebook, make sure you are branding your actual identify. Stick with /samjones as opposed to /sam345 or /musicsam. Because the common theme in every one of your projects, is you.

http://www.facebook.com/franklinmcmahon

(yep…that’s me by the way!)

Jun

Moving Your Career Forward One

Part of the creative process involves applying your skill to a project. It could be personal or professional, but lets stick with personal, since it is often where the option to do it or not comes in.

Before the project begins you must envision it. You sketch it out on paper, on your laptop or perhaps just in your mind. The problem arises is that your imagination is large and boundless, while your skills and talent, and time table for execution, might be a little more grounded. Now the challenge is how to do this big idea and not be overwhelmed by it. It’s tough.

One of the common reactions is to not do it. It’s often much easier to file the idea away than to actually do it. The problem is the idea keeps coming back to haunt you (often because it is actually a great idea) and each time it does, it sometimes gets bigger and bigger.

Ideally the plan of attack is to break it down into a plan, into chunks, into smaller elements. But even this is a problem, it takes time to map out the project and then sometimes spelling it all out makes it seem even larger.

The key is to move “Forward One”, move forward one step. Just one. Just one part. Don’t over think it or you won’t move. One step can be small. If you are redesigning your website, just pick out the color scheme. One step. Shorten the idea from “Forward One” to F1. In fact, look at the top left of your keyboard. Is there an F1 key? Look at the key and think of your big project, then Forward One. In fact when you are at your computer, and notice the key, think of the big project brewing, and make a move. Just one move.

Jun