About a month ago, I was picked to write for The Listserve. I wrote a short-ish piece titled “Tooting Your Own Horn”, looking at how our culture of loud self-promotion makes it difficult for those with small voices and subtle ideas to make themselves heard.
Here’s a little bit from the end of it:
My guess is that there are a lot of us out there: those that maybe should be talking our work up more, should be properly launching the projects we’ve worked hard on, and should be more comfortable marketing the stuff we’ve created. It’s a shame that, in some cases, those who are most comfortable with self-marketing are those without anything interesting to promote in the first place. Meanwhile, some of the greatest living artists and thinkers are right now almost certainly working in obscurity, lacking the confidence or the platform to show the world what they’re doing.
For those of us that aren’t prone to shouting about ourselves, we risk being drowned out by those that can and do. The presumption is that if you don’t say anything, you don’t have anything to say, but it doesn’t necessarily work that way. Those that are quiet are sometimes just waiting for a gap in the conversation. They’re waiting to be invited to speak.
That email went out to about 23,000 people. At the very, very end of the message, I came up with a speck of an idea:
I’d love to hear what you guys have created or are working on – especially those of you who aren’t usually comfortable promoting your work. If you send me a short paragraph about a creative project you’re working on, I’ll compile them on my blog for all of you other Listservers to take a peek at.
Essentially, I was asking for 23,00 total strangers to spam me. I thought this could be an interesting experiment. In general, we don’t ask for random people to tell us what they’re working on. In fact, we generally do our best to avoid hearing what people we don’t know are doing. If somebody’s a bit shy and has just finished work on something amazing, their options are limited: they can tell their circle of friends, and then… what? Buy some banner ads the people you’d like to know about your work will probably ad-block out? The best marketers are loud and brash and talk a lot of “hustling”, and when you’re introverted (as many creative-types are), that’s terrifying. My gut tells me there are a lot of amazing projects that aren’t getting the recognition they deserve because the creators are shy and retiring types. That’s a shame.
When I asked to hear back about the projects the Listservers were working on, I had no idea what kind of response to expect. I was, frankly, a little worried: I was half-expecting an inbox full of ads for Viagra and grey-market pharmaceuticals.
I did receive a lot of emails, but nothing I’d consider “spam” (Gmail’s spam filter wholeheartedly agreed with me). I read through all of them. The projects were all very different, but what tied them together was that they were all big, unique, and designed to bring something great into the world.
I’ve decided to share them all here. The takeaway, I think, is that we need to create new channels and spaces for the quieter types amongst us to share their work without getting drowned out. I’m not sure how we can build these spaces, but I think it’s something we need to give some thought to.
List of projects after the jump!
Liz Morris: Tooting horn of Jen, manager of the Goodwill Centre. dedicating her life to improving the lives of 70 desperately poor families in an urban village in Cambodia without fresh water or sanitation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Vivek Gani: I work on a plugin to make graphic design suck less at thimbleup.com.
Alex Katzen: I am working on finding my voice as a writer as well as defining myself as a social media specialist, helping people and companies with their online presence.
David Lapointe Gilbert: I graduated in Graphic Design this year with a minor in entrepreneurship, just incorporated my first company with 5 partners, we are signing our first big gig this week.
Nicole Walters: I just published my first book! “Thirteen-year-old Charis Parks has five days to save mankind. What she thought was mere mythology has become her reality … she alone must reverse the curse of Pandora’s Jar.”
Anne van den Berg: If you want to visit my blog 🙂 creativelydeprived.wordpress.
Rita Di Cesare: I create work that I’m always timid about sharing – it’s women’s clothing and it’s nothing ground-breaking… but I’m good at it and when I do finally show the things I have made they sell very well. This last season I produced only two styles. It was all I could bear to show as I am picky through the sample-making process and eliminated a lot of other work while I was editing.
Marika Sosnowski: I’m working on a project about the Middle East calledgaddafispyjamas.com
Miyuki Masuda: I’m writing about Energy. She’s an invisible girl who’s been around me for a while. I see so much of her, and hear her words when she speaks, but putting them into my words takes me a very long time. They are found at: http://energyspeaks.
Luke Spray: My dream of my organization is to take the TOMS shoes / Warby Parker model of one-for-one and extend it to housing. In my hometown of San Francisco it is not uncommon for people to spend $750,000 and feel like they got a great deal on a two bedroom home, while on other parts of the world it’s not uncommon for new houses to cost less than $5,000. My goal is to convince the developers of those $750,000 condo’s to donate a small portion of every home sale to an organization like Habitat for Humanity so that HFH might be able to build houses for impoverished families.
Sarah Louise: I’m planning on launching a game project of my own soon through Pozible, just to see what happens 🙂
Neal Meldrum: We are working on something of our own as well… an email marketing system. Even worse because we’re doing something that has some big names to compare to and we’ll be compared and scrutinised for sure… so I know where you’re coming from.
TJ: I am working to build a watch from scratch with new and old parts bought off ebay and some that I made. I also paint/draw a lot but rarely finish them because of what you wrote. This morning before reading your email, I had pulled out my favorites and am going to finish them, one by one. I’ll send you pictures when I’m finished.
David Majlak: For now, my one book, New Universe: Tronconia is all I can offer. It’s free on smashwords for those who are pinched for cash but you can also set what price you want to pay as well.
Rachel N Witalec: A friend of my mine just finished writing two novels in a 3-part series. The first one took him 10 years; he published it last November. The second took just months and he published it just a few weeks ago. The genre is Young Adult Fantasy and he creates a wonderful world of a village built hundreds of feet in a canopy with villagers who cling to their tradition of music and fear the big city and anyone from it. His site is www.melforger.com but you can see book 1 here on Amazon and book 2 here.
Colin J H Thurston: I’m an artist, musician, and writer from south coast of England. I put together a little home recorded album in January that’s available online at my website (www.colinthurston.co.uk) and am currently working on a collection of short stories that I hope to publish electronically through Amazon later this year!
David Allendorfer: I have spent the last 3 years writing a commentary of the book of Revelation. My purpose in the commentary is to help people who don’t have an abundance of Biblical knowledge understand Revelation as it is one of the most difficult books in the Bible. I will have it available for free download onwww.qwertysonic.com when I’ve completed.
Rebecca Sharvis: I’d like to leave a shout out for my shy Friend Crick MacEnick who writes short adult literature for sale on Amazon and never tells anyone about it.
Rick Lee: Castify has created spoken word versions of the best blogs. Now, readers can turn “read it later” into “listen now” during their commute, run, or trip to the store.http://castify.co
Rachel Cotterill: Look, I wrote a novel! http://www.amazon.co.
Jan Freek Lulof: [Sent through some fantastic artwork “covering” Francis Bacon and Edvard Munch – I’m not including images in this post, but you can seek out Jan’s work online].
Ariel Abrahams: A project that i am really proud of, and that I would like to share is called LOVESITES. It happened twice this year, September 19-October 22nd 2012, and then again in November 2012. LOVESITES was an exploration in family life. A group of artists and I took over a space and lived together, inviting anyone and everyone for dinner, sleepovers and general hospitality every night.http://cargocollective.com/
evan flores: I think everyone has a calling / even some have missed calls / Some are left in confusion / Not having any talents / But perhaps you have to look in the past / To determine your future. I was on a clip of an E.R. Episode / When I was just 2 years old / Not a big deal; quick scene / but was this perhaps a call? Because as of right now I have no clue what my future is nor my talents. So maybe I should take up acting.
Anthony Leedom: GENUIS is a collaborative music project that I’m half of based out of Northern California. We make experimental tropical bix wave music, idk how else to describe it, its pretty chill//mostly homemade sample based if you’re into that.genuis.bandcamp.com/
Peter Schuyler: I’m in the process of reworking my website at the moment—it may be a long moment, but you can go to http://peterschuyler.com and the link at the bottom to get an idea of what I do. Rewriting other people’s scripts have dominated my time lately, but I’m about to release my new novel via Kindle.
Jenn Satterlee: I’ve realized that if you don’t show people who you are and what you can do, they are happy to categorize you and put you in a box of their choosing, which is often far from who you are. Oh and I forgot to say.. I’m currently working on my portfolio. jsatterlee.com
Leslie Pineda: I’m a designer from San Diego and have been wanting to sell my postcards that I design for friends on holidays or “just because” but like your novelist friend… I work on them and hope to open an etsy shop but I don’t because who needs another postcard designer? I’ve designed these to send out because I know that I personally love to receive mail and wish to share that with other people.
Judith Meyer: I’m Judith from Germany and my passion is learning languages. I have already learned 12 or so, it’s long past the point of being useful for a job or anything, but I can’t imagine stopping. I blog about learning languages at www.learnlangs.comand I’m presently working on a new type of language course – can’t reveal more yet.
Michael Durante: Check out The Compass Fellowship! We’re an organization of students from universities in the US and Sweden, all of whom want to use entrepreneurship to change the world. I helped start this group while in college, four years ago, and it’s grown big and beautiful since then.
Jose Alvarez: I’ve been in a little bit of a standstill with my projects. I’m really interested in music, song-writing, and most recently have delved into reading and writing my own poetry. A friend of mine recently asked me to write a poem for her wedding, but I have no idea where to start. This is the next project I foresee in my life, and for the first time it is for the sake of another person. This thought is kind of daunting.
Rose Broome: I’m developing a new crowdfunding platform called HandUp that lets you donate to homeless people and others in need using a text message. The funds go directly to the person you donated to and can only be used on good stuff like food, medical care, and shelter. Here in San Francisco, people are sleeping on the streets and don’t have access to basic sanitation like showers and toilets. I believe we can do better than that as a society and that we’ll ALL be better off for it. Want to help but don’t know how? Give your neighbor a HandUp!
Milos Blasko: Meevl (http://meevl.com). is an online tool for utilizing the power ofyour employees on social networks. Who could better represent your brand than the people who help create it? Be it employees, investors and other stakeholders involved.
Egypt Urnash: I’ve been working on a graphic novel for the past couple years. It’s about a robot lady who’s dragged outside of reality by her ex-boyfriend. She’s got to pull herself together across four parallel worlds before a hivemind can take over the planet. I write and draw it myself, and am having a lot of fun playing with the shape of “time” in comics. It’s about two-thirds done as of this writing, and about to go to Kickstarter for the second volume. You can read the whole thing online athttp://egypt.urnash.com/
Susan Pray: Heck. It’s not even my project. But worthy nonetheless. My husband is working on the final draft of an autobiography from his time in the service in Vietnam c. 1969. He has been working on it for about 40 years. Literally. The stories are all based on a journal he kept at the time. And since he was always interested in photography he is able to include a number of his own photos. It’s really pretty interesting from a historical perspective. I’ve helped him edit and proof it in the last year. And I have a new appreciation for the incredible process of writing. He hopes to have it done in the next few months. He will have both printed paperbacks and it will be available on Amazon as an ebook. It is titled: Recollections of a Remington Raider.
Jessica Amezcua: I got a work for a Textile company in Scotland. We produce wool, cashmere, cotton fabrics Scottish textiles are very good and the company I work for is a happy place to work, High quality natural materials and a very detailed production process makes the product of the highest quality. So now I think more about what is behind what I buy. From clothes to food, electronics. Do I need it? Where does it come from, how is it produced? Is it going to last and most importantly… again… Do I really need it? http://robert-noble.co.uk/
Dallas: I am working on a sexuality-education mobile app. The app will provide answers to hundreds of commonly asked questions about sex, sexuality, dating and relationships. For a very small fee, users will be able to ask experienced sexuality educators their own questions and get personalized responses. We’ve been working on content and overall design for over a year and are currently looking for a graphic designer so that we can start building the app! For more info, e-mail me at elise dot schuster at gmail dot com.
Hawk: I am a non fiction humor writer, I’m working on a book but until then, my blog gives an excellent idea of what the book will be like, it’s at: hawkward.blogspot.com
Alex McMurray: Wow, I like this! One of the coolest listserve ideas yet if you ask me… I’ve made some music over the past couple years and I’m very close to releasing some more. I have one rap album and then two instrumental albums, released in that order, though if I had to rate them I would probably say the most recent instrumental album is my best work and the instrumental album before that is my worst. My bandcamp is http://a-merk.bandcamp.com/
Carmelita Wasson: I’m an extrovert by definition, but I tend to be quiet in promoting myself. I lack of a lot of confidence in my abilities and my work. I’m a technical writer by day, but my passion is photography and papercrafting. I love scrapbooking and card making. I think hand made items are special and love giving away my work. I’ve tried my hand at blogging to show off my handmade work, but sometimes I feel like I’m speaking to a digital wall based on my blog stats. I try to post at least once a week in hopes that I can inspire at least one other paper crafter out there in digital land. If you interested, you can see my cards at http://www.carmenacita.
Amir Sh: The side project I have is rappad.co. It’s a platform for rappers (or any songwriter) to write songs. You can tie it up to an instrumental, then share it with others. The cool part is the toolset that it comes with. You can double click words to find rhymes (including “double” rhymes) and also choose to “freestyle” which will generate a line for you. It makes it a fun little thing to toy around with even if you don’t rap.
Wyatt Kirby: Over the last year, my friend Charles and I have developed, funded (via Kickstarter), created, and finally published, a zombie-apocalypse survival card game called Quarantine Z. We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, and run into our fair share of problems, but after much hard work, we actually received the game, and now have been able to put it up for sale in several local game shops. It should be for sale to a wider audience soon, via Amazon, but I’m not writing about it to get you to buy it: I just wanted to share that it exists. Making it was difficult, but fun, and the first step in what we hope becomes a much larger adventure. www.quarantinez.com
Tim Hereid: Since you asked for projects, I’m going to take advantage of that! 🙂 Last year, I wrote a novel that I self-published on Amazon. Over the past year, I’ve been writing and formatting an ACT prep book (the ACT is one of our college entrance exams here in the States). The prep book should come out very, very soon. The link to the novel and a picture of the cover of the prep book are both on my website at:timhereid.com/books
Penny Rice: I spent over a year compiling the stories, journal entries, poetry and essays I had written over a long period as part of my recovery from the effects of abuse. I gathered them together to present as a part of my contribution to a 2 day art/multi-media show on recovery art. The artists were 9 women and me who had worked together using our creativity as a part of our personal healing. It was effective. The show was powerful. We all took a chance to just let our experiences and our healing help others and help ourselves, without judgment. Ten years passed. I gave the manuscript of my ‘book’ to a few therapists who used it with their patients to help them on their journey of recovery. I was encouraged to publish it. I demurred. (aka, I chickened out.) Last November, I did one last edit. Then I self-published it on Amazon as an ebook. People have bought it. I have had two people take the time to review it and give it 5 stars. The book is Undoing Suicide – An Exploration of the Recovery Process by Penelope S Rice. It will likely never be a best seller, but I did it. And I didn’t let my history defeat me by keeping it hidden. I’m glad I did it.
Tay Wal: I’m currently spearheading www.wevue.com. We’ll be launching shortly.
Duane Johnson: Something I’ve been working on: creating a hackerspace in Salt Lake City, UT: http://enjigo.com/
Hannah Concannon: For the past 155 days I’ve been creating one character/costume/face a day and posting it to my blog www.thedressupbox.com. What started as a friendly challenge turned into an obsession with face painting and theatrical makeup. I started pretty simply, a little hot pink lipstick here, some glitter there, and then suddenly about two months ago I was painting an infrared hubble telescope image of Betelgeuse on my face, and that’s when shit got real. In fact, four weeks ago I quit my day job in the hopes of pursuing my dream of becoming an professional makeup artist. I’ve finally found my passion, and it’s incredible. My goal is to keep this up for a year and then publish a book.
Aubrey Rose: I’m in exactly the same spot! I just published my first full-length novel, and I’m such a shy person I don’t want to tell anyone…especially because it’s a romance novel! Anyway, here’s the link to my book: http://www.amazon.com/
Rip Rowan: I’m a musician and producer / engineer. I started a project called “1974” over ten years ago with an old school friend who creates sound collages. By which, I mean: ever since we were kids some 40 years ago, Byron would walk around with a recorder – first a Sony Pressman, then a Recording Walkman, then a DAT recorder, and a Minidisc recorder, and now a digital recorder – recording “found sounds”. Around the year 2000 he shared with me his “collages” – crazy mashups of decades worth of found sounds that (at least to Byron) fit together in some way. After five minutes of listening I was completely fatigued, but I realized that these collages were, in their way, rather brilliant, and could form the basis for an avant-garde music project.
Rachel Rimm: I have been working with a few other people on starting an organization called reweave. In truth, we dream to be more of a movement, more than an organization, that is about rebuilding person-to-person connections that have been lost, largely due to big business. Our online marketplace (although small) is fully functioning. When you purchase a product from the reweave marketplace, you are partially supporting reweave’s growth but most importantly, making a direct contribution to a social enterprise that is truly making a difference and having real impact on peoples lives. reweave.org
Alec: I am 19 years young, I have had a dream of making a clothing/ skateboard hardware company (hoax hardware). I know that my introverted self must disappear when it comes to the point of promoting my company and that does scare me at times. I know when I get to the point of promoting I will succeed in my own way.
Tim Rowberry: My first project is something that was nearly 10 year sin the making, I raised money to bring it to fruition through kickstarter (by the skin of my teeth, and some very generous people who knew I have a hard time promoting myself) and was able to have it produced. I call this one “The First Halloween” (http://www.thefirsthalloween.
Zan McGreevey: I’ve been writing for many years but mostly in forms that will never see the light of day. I recently started planning a novel with the actual goal of having it read, by people, and eventually I will be looking for readers who can give helpful critique. For the moment though, a little summary: After suffering a car crash, Lily and her brother David find themselves in a dark and frightening parallel reality. Their senses are unreliable, the landscape changes itself around them, and the ill-tempter, shape-shifting creature that appeared to them with vague offers of help may not be what he seems….
Stefy Cohen: I am a launch coach and a communication coach. I help people with good ideas to launch their startups and communicate them to the world. In order to do so effectively, I created www.Epicentro150.com, an online platform that allows latinamerican entrepreneurs promote their work and connect to other entrepreneurs in order to catalyze business in our region.
Wendy Pruitt: My biggest project right now is QuartersMagazine.com — a online magazine devoted to those of us trapped in the “after college, but not quite middle-age” age demographic. I also created these grandparent journals —http://www.etsy.com/listing/
Jo Hunter: A couple of years ago I produced a book of aviation photos: http://futurshox.net/
Steve Silcox: I dug your email as it really struck a cord with me. I’ve been working on a personal project, an independent film for the past 6 years. Like your writer friend, the film was edited and tweaked for months and also left to gather ‘dust’ on the shelf several times. Sometimes the last thing I wanted to do after working on a computer all day is work on a computer at home all night. But with a big push, I’ve just completed and screened it to friends and family last week. Next is promoting it and trying to get it into film festivals. So here I am tooting my own horn. Toot! toot! Primarybrothers.com
Lindsey Bowers: I’m about 3,000 words into my novel and am now stuck because the “I’m not good enough” demons are gnawing at me, telling me I’m wasting my time. The thought of offering anything I’ve written to a publisher makes me feel sick, despite my friends telling me they love my writing (I’m ok at self-promotion within my inner sphere!) and i think that’s what’s making me stall, like your friend. I’ve had a blog since 2007 – one I don’t give nearly enough time to. Basically I update it when a friends shouts at me to. It needs a LOT of tweaking though: http://
Marisa Gertz: 3 friends and I started an internet art collective called GIFRIENDS back in 2010. We’ve been doing projects using animated GIF’s as our medium from documenting music festivals, to fashion editorials, to gallery shows. We’re all interested in different things, but I think we share the idea that GIF’s can be more than just quirky internet nostalgia or the punchline to a joke and that they can be used, just like photography can, to tell a story or express an idea.
Nuseir Yassin: I’ve been working on Downtimeapp.com with three of my friends and we’re just about ready to launch. I think the website speaks for itself, so…there you have it.
Levi Watson: I definitely have a self-conscious relationship with twitter/facebook/etc. for these very same reasons. These tools are essential to sharing your art, but by doing so, you are required to pull a “look at me”. Quite tricky. I do love your idea though and want to take you up on that. My art? Is literally visual art. I paint, draw, and design for myself, commissions, whatever. www.leviwatson.net
Jess Jones: I started my own business: Wild Smile Family. I’m a DJ, musician, and yoga instructor who hosts unique, holistic and playful social events where kids and their caregivers interact and relax through yoga, music, non-competitive games and dance. Wild Smile is a family yoga class (ages 3 and up) followed by a free-form dance party featuring a live DJ spinning remixes of kids’ music from around the world and throwbacks for the older generations. Creative self-expression, deep belly breathing andraucous laughter are welcome. Wild Smile can be booked at yoga studios, schools, clubs, at festivals, and for private parties. www.wildsmilefamily.com
‘Demola Adesina: As a young Nigerian(very social cultures like ours are not so receptive of introverts), I have watched from the sidelines as people get excited to get on stages and even get others to call them such horrific titles like: “Africa’s answer to Bill Gates”. I just couldn’t comprehend how people could put themselves out there so easily, for nothing. I tried and tried and tried, but couldn’t get it. So, I assumed something had to be wrong with me. I decided to take a year out, step outside of my ‘life’ and observe rather than participate. This past year I have been holed up in a small city in the UK, studying for an MSc while trying to see what to do differently. And then, I came across Susan Cain’s book Quiet (she also has an amazing TED talk, by the way) and it helped me put things in perspective. Unfortunately, considering I have had to pack everything up this past year, I do not have an idea worth sharing, yet. I do have an idea I want to pursue but it seems too large for my current status in life, so it is far from share-able. However, I am sharing Susan Cain’s Quiet. I think every introvert should read it.
Vanessa Peters: My husband and I – both struggling musicians – spent an hour this afternoon talking about a similar thing, and about how hard it is to put yourself out there. I despise the social media side of my job – or rather, I hate feeling like I have to tweet x number of times a day to keep my audience engaged, or whatever. I hate having to sell myself. I greatly dislike having to shout so loudly to be heard. It’s not really in my nature. I know so many musicians who get their masters back and decide to send them back for one more mastering job, or back to the mix engineer, because it’s not perfect yet – and it’s not really that it’s not perfect, it’s they’ve created something that’s easier to hold onto than it is to let go of. www.vanessapeters.com
Kristofer Stensland: MegsRadio is a music discovery service (similar to Pandora) that has a strong focus on user-customization, promoting upcoming shows, and contextualizing local artists with more popular artists. The real goal of MegsRadio is to help drive local music scenes, and gain popularity for uncommon local acts that may not have the resources to promote themselves. It is entirely funded by research grants and has no commercial goals. It will be launching later this Summer and can be seen at http://megsradio.fm/. This is something I am very proud of, but don’t feel super comfortable telling everyone to flock to.
One Faller: I’m a motorcyclist, and prefer to take twisty backroads when I’m out riding. Some feel the call of the interstate, I’m drawn to the curves. I want to have a Google maps interface that allows me to choose curvy roads. It wouldn’t be hard to do, I just have no idea how to do it. :~)
Simon Weber: I’m a quiet software guy, and to be heard over the noise of the tech scene, I’ve learned to promote myself a little more. So, here’s a relevant project of mine that other Listservers might be interested in: http://
Simon Rakosi: So exactly 2 months ago I started a project call Brussels of the Day or Bruoftheday. It is an instagram project with the sole purpose is to post awesome pictures of Brussels, taken by Brusselers or tourist passing by. They tag their instagram pictures with #Bruoftheday and every day 1 select the Super winner.https://instagram.com/
Zachary Stafford: I live in Minnesota and we just passed through a fairly long and protracted winter. Most of the people here enjoy being outside in the winter. We ski, we hike, we jump in freezing lakes, we carve things out of ice. Not all of us do this, but our friends and family come to support us. They gather around and stomp their feet in the cold and watch sled races like crashed ice. So I decided to open a food truck that serves real european drinking chocolate to these freezing people. It will warm them from the inside while they stand around with their loved ones, and hopefully strengthen an already robust community of outdoor enthusiasts! There is nothing like it in the midwest that I know of, and everybody is really excited about it. It’s called The Warming House and will open (hopefully) in Nov/Dec of this year. Check it out: http://www.warminghousempls.
Carolynn Bullard: I just finished writing a sewing book for beginners! It’s for sale here: https://www.etsy.com/
Andrew Rothman: The main thing I’m working on right now (aside from waiting for my first child to arrive… any old day now!) is a production of Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical. It was a silly indie film he made before South Park took off. I’m going to be directing a volunteer stage adaptation in October. I’m running an Indiegogo campaign to buy some better sound gear for the theater and I’d be thrilled to have you mention it on your blog! It’s a $5000 campaign and we’re about 1/3 funded with about half of the time left to go, so any push from anywhere is helpful!
Allison Kornstein: I have a food blog that I was working on for a while (have been busy recently) and didn’t really share with anyone because I was embarrassed that it wasn’t good enough. My friend Kate found out about it and posted it on facebook, where people were excited about it and a little annoyed that I hadn’t shared it earlier! Just goes to show, the people who care about you are excited to see the things you are working on. It is much easier to be a critic than a creator, and the people who love you will realize that.
Kevin Barrett: I built an app for people to share secrets and confessions anonymously. It’s never going to be done, but I launched it anyway, and the response has been great. That feeling of slowly building something is incredible, right? It’s nothing next to the feeling of real, positive feedback from total strangers.airendipity.com
Myles Recny: Fellow Aussie here, though living in NYC for 3 years past. I’m running a small ‘incubator for individuals’ (microha.us) in Brooklyn. There are 6 of us sharing an office space working on projects ranging from Bitcoin research to an new Gmail interface to a book about Conversations. It’s great fun and we’re producing some interesting stuff.
Matt Muir: Having taken a look at your, I thought you might potentially find something that I write of interest. Well, bits of it, in any case. This is last Friday’s: http://www.imperica.
Bryan Young: Currently, I’m working on a Kickstarter for a sci-fi anthology I have a story in: http://www.kickstarter.
Michael Balchan: I actually just finished writing a book on Option Trading and am working on getting it self published in the next couple of months! It’s going through a professional edit right now.
Gary Dietz: www.dadsofdisability.com – A book for, by, and about father’s of children that experience a disability. Very cool Kickstarter project with an overview animation will launch in under two weeks (visit the site to sign up for notification).
Liz Mazzei: This past Tuesday, June 25th I officially launched a project that I had been working on for the past 5 months. Honey & Nonno (http://www.honeyandnonno.com) is an online community dedicated to sharing stories of family, food, and tradition. Our dream is to document and share 1,000,000 traditions from around the world in hopes it will help families learn to pass on, build, and maintain traditions. As we embark on this journey, we invite you to join our family and help us reach 1,000,000 traditions. Learn more on how you can get involved in the community at http://honeyandnonno.com/
Pauline: The project I launched about a month and a half ago is a webcomic called Grim Fuzzy. I studied art in college, all but abandoned it for several years, then recently returned with great new passion. The Internet is sadly/awesomely full of webcomics, some of them brilliant and some of them awful — it’s tough to wade through them all and it’s even more tough to find your audience. Still trying to figure that out. grimfuzzy.com
Rose Fox: I’m editing an anthology called Long Hidden, featuring speculative stories from the margins of history. We’re currently open to submissions and I’d love to see more stories. You can find out more here: http://www.longhidden.com/
Thanks for reading, guys! And thanks for sharing!