PocketRevolutionary

Not a Manifesto

While working on building a new business, Craft + Story, I decided to pen some core values to kick things off and find the right people.

Changes

I haven’t forgotten about the blog, but there’s changes coming for all of us. More news to come.

Steve.

The growth of Apple was a shared experience for all of us. My parents were inspired to write, draw, and create music on devices that didn’t quite seem like computers to them. I was inspired to write, draw, and create music by watching them. All of us got excited when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, and all of us prayed for him when he started getting sicker.

How to Not Make Bad Propaganda

Confession: when I started the post about slow-clapping and my dad, I didn’t really know where it was going. I could write that style of writing off as an anomaly, or I could justify it and claim to have two wildly different writing processes that I switch between for different goals, audiences, etc. Obviously, I opt to justify, and I’ll give each process a descriptive, if hyperbolic, name: the “market-y, sell, sell” process and the “painfully honest” process.

My Writing Process

I documented my writing and creative process for “cross-training” at work. The tools I use in the video to write and design are Scrivener, Byword, and Photoshop. Like when I write, Radiohead (Like Spinning Plates) plays in the background. I recorded and edited everything using ScreenFlow.

San Francisco, Father’s Day, and slow clapping

SCS, as you may or may not know, stands for “Slow Clap Syndrome”, and it is surprisingly rarely diagnosed in the medical community. SCS is very simple, though. Whenever I get a compliment or encouragement, I automatically imagine a slow clap accompanying it in the background.

One-hundred slides in ten minutes

“Don’t be offended if people get up and walk out early… I mean, I’m sure that many people will stay. It’s just…  people are very busy.”

One serene moment of freedom

Confession: I waste a ridiculous amount of time worrying about things I can’t fix and feeling defensive about facts I don’t control.

How to Take Stock

The following is a full account of what I did, as a creative and a leader, to take stock of all of my projects, create a handful of stories, and setup some great projects for my team. This may not work for everyone. It may not even work from me in six months. As a framework, though, I think it might be useful to leaders and creatives alike.

How to Write Like an Adult

I used to spend a lot of time fretting about how to write. I read blogs and books by great writers. I studied the craft and thought about different processes a lot. I evaluated every different brainstorming tool, word processor, pen, and notebook I could buy, but I didn’t start really writing until I discovered the real secret. How do you write? Keep the cursor moving to the right. That’s it. Writing isn’t thinking about writing. Writing isn’t brainstorming or outlining what you could be writing. Writing is simply moving the cursor to right over and over again.

It’s a Fixer-Upper

You might have noticed that this site is a little barebones, even for me. I launched without search. I don’t have comments. You wouldn’t know this, but I even dropped some key functionality like a little “news” section before the launch. Why did that happen? I have two very good reasons.

Like a Minimalist Phoenix

Hey, look! It’s a new site!

This is just the re-introduction of Pocket Revolutionary as a site.