Got a link about an exhibit of photographs at The Tennessee State Museum in Nashville. Joe O'Donnell spent seven months in Japan in 1945 and 1946 taking photographs for the Marines. He took a bunch of personal photos "off the clock." The exhibit is 24 images from his collection. Images from Hiroshima are in the exhibit.
I took three deep breaths. E-mailed the gal at the museum who was the contact for the O'Donnell exhibit and asked, "Ever thought about Ed Westcott?"
One of the curators e-mailed Monday. He said, paraphrasing, no we haven't and we should.
On other fronts, a military blogger that I sent my YouTube link to, e-mailed and said there are three of them who do a podcast and wanted to know if I was interested in doing a live interview. Sure. Why not?
So things are looking up a bit.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Getting On With It
Got up, dusted off my pants and got back to work. This has been going on, in one way or another, for almost seven years. I will fall down again and I will just get back up.
Working on Twitter each day. Simply posting the message many times a day. Won't change a thing. Will sit down and look at the YouTube numbers after May 5th. Perhaps the tea leaves will show a pattern after four weeks of tweets.
Also, will video tape my TED talk and get that posted. The presentation will be the easy part. The logistics of getting equipment and camera operators together will be the main hurdle. Again, want to have that posted on YouTube by May 5th. at the latest.
The Oak Ridge story is a great story, my screenplay is a solid story of a little boy losing his father. Everything else is simply execution: leveraging social media to raise awareness of this great American epic and also raise awareness of my screenplay in Hollywood. One or two lucky breaks and this story will get out there!
Working on Twitter each day. Simply posting the message many times a day. Won't change a thing. Will sit down and look at the YouTube numbers after May 5th. Perhaps the tea leaves will show a pattern after four weeks of tweets.
Also, will video tape my TED talk and get that posted. The presentation will be the easy part. The logistics of getting equipment and camera operators together will be the main hurdle. Again, want to have that posted on YouTube by May 5th. at the latest.
The Oak Ridge story is a great story, my screenplay is a solid story of a little boy losing his father. Everything else is simply execution: leveraging social media to raise awareness of this great American epic and also raise awareness of my screenplay in Hollywood. One or two lucky breaks and this story will get out there!
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Just Get On With It
There are many reasons for my current funk, but the main reason is the failure of my IndieGoGo campaign. I've got $80 online and another $60 in person. Have eleven weeks to go. My goal was $100,000 by June 14th. Safe to assume I will probably not reach my goal, but at IndieGoGo you keep whatever you raise.
Need to promote it on the social media sites with a ton of personal appeals to folks. Will also send links to hundreds of military bloggers. Will also need to press the flesh in east Tennessee. The concept of ideas going "viral" on the Internet is smoldering somewhere between a cliche and mythology. Stories abound, but contrary to the myth, the more I pass out my business cards, the more hits I get on YouTube.
People will donate to this "cause" because they have a deep personal connection to it. In short, they had a family member who worked on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge.
Here are the links for both IndieGoGo and YouTube.
http://www.indiegogo.com/forgivenessonline-1?a=433232
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQO7pOfBdxY
Need to promote it on the social media sites with a ton of personal appeals to folks. Will also send links to hundreds of military bloggers. Will also need to press the flesh in east Tennessee. The concept of ideas going "viral" on the Internet is smoldering somewhere between a cliche and mythology. Stories abound, but contrary to the myth, the more I pass out my business cards, the more hits I get on YouTube.
People will donate to this "cause" because they have a deep personal connection to it. In short, they had a family member who worked on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge.
Here are the links for both IndieGoGo and YouTube.
http://www.indiegogo.com/forgivenessonline-1?a=433232
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQO7pOfBdxY
Monday, April 2, 2012
A low point
I decided to do another practice run of my TED style speech. TEDxNashville had their show on Saturday. I chose not to go. I think it would've been hard for me to sit through presentations which I knew were weaker than mine.
Not to imply that all the presentations would be weaker, but I've watched repeatedly all the presentations done in 2011 and 2010. There were a couple of real clunkers each year. It happens. I should have been on that stage in Nashville Saturday.
I invited 15-20 people to the Sunday practice run. One person showed up. We had a great talk about how I needed to better leverage my time and efforts to get the Oak Ridge story out to the world. It was a very productive discussion.
But still, it was a very low moment for me. If I can't get Oak Ridgers to act, how in the world can I expect the world to take notice?
I spent last night looking at all the work over the last seven years and all the dead end leads I have chased down. My life would be extremely easy and carefree if I just stopped trying to sell Forgivenessonline. I have spent thousands of hours pounding my head against the wall.
Thousands of hours a year would be available. I could go back to reading 50-100 books a year. Hell, I could write a book. Freedom to Fail, my long essay about the social contract in America has been collecting dust. I could spend hundreds of hours fixing up my wife's house. It needs lots of TLC. I've always wanted to shoot 90 on a golf course. That would take a little time. Always wanted to hone my skills in a kitchen so at least I could claim a certain competency there. And my guitars gather dust. I could really take my playing to an aspiring, awesome place.
But could I live with myself if I gave up on Forgiveness? Would I be haunted forever? Would I, deep in the night, look out the window, listening to the wind sing through the leaves on the trees and think, "What if?"
I don't know. I don't know.
Not to imply that all the presentations would be weaker, but I've watched repeatedly all the presentations done in 2011 and 2010. There were a couple of real clunkers each year. It happens. I should have been on that stage in Nashville Saturday.
I invited 15-20 people to the Sunday practice run. One person showed up. We had a great talk about how I needed to better leverage my time and efforts to get the Oak Ridge story out to the world. It was a very productive discussion.
But still, it was a very low moment for me. If I can't get Oak Ridgers to act, how in the world can I expect the world to take notice?
I spent last night looking at all the work over the last seven years and all the dead end leads I have chased down. My life would be extremely easy and carefree if I just stopped trying to sell Forgivenessonline. I have spent thousands of hours pounding my head against the wall.
Thousands of hours a year would be available. I could go back to reading 50-100 books a year. Hell, I could write a book. Freedom to Fail, my long essay about the social contract in America has been collecting dust. I could spend hundreds of hours fixing up my wife's house. It needs lots of TLC. I've always wanted to shoot 90 on a golf course. That would take a little time. Always wanted to hone my skills in a kitchen so at least I could claim a certain competency there. And my guitars gather dust. I could really take my playing to an aspiring, awesome place.
But could I live with myself if I gave up on Forgiveness? Would I be haunted forever? Would I, deep in the night, look out the window, listening to the wind sing through the leaves on the trees and think, "What if?"
I don't know. I don't know.
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