We Get By With A Little Help From Our Friends

"I was sustained by one piece of inestimable good fortune. I had for a friend a man of immense and patient wisdom and a gentle but unyielding fortitude.

I think that if I was not destroyed at this time by the sense of hopelessness which these gigantic labors has awakened in me, it was largely because of the courage and patience of this man.

I did not give in because he would not let me give in."

Thomas Wolfe

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Good thing I don't have due dates on these blog posts because seriously, I never know what my next topic is going to be until it hits me (usually when there is some serious physical distance between myself and my computer or the shower makes it difficult to type a note on my iphone). And the idea is almost always the result of a random conversation that, in the moment, seemed, well, like any regular conversation but somehow the next day it morphs into a platform for thought. Not to dissuade you, fair reader, from hiring me as a writer (as you'll be giving me topics to mull over and muse on if you happen to be in a position to do so) but I don't want to waste anyone's time by reviewing District 9 or writing about my food journal. Wait I do that. Sorry. But I really only try to twitter out that posts that are either embarrassing or fun (usually involving pictures of stealthy bad ass babes.)

So back to my point. It is usually through that nifty interpersonal activity called talking that I get the light bulb moment that inspires me to write. This time it was when a friend bemoaned a number of bad business decisions that she had made at her last job. "If only I had had someone to tell me that I should have signed that actor. I didn't know! I was just sitting there trapped in my closet of an office doing things as best I could on my own." There are a lot of other things that she regretted that I won't repeat, and her office was definitely bigger and infinitely better decorated than a closet, but the root of the conversation kept pointing back towards one definitive thing, her lack of a mentor. She was at a fantastic company, at least it seemed like one if you waited in the post modern chic lobby sipping your Americano, but her office might as well have been in Siberia for all the inter-office support she received as a junior manager. The corporate culture supported competition and secrecy; co-workers clashed about projects and clients as if collaboration was a dirty word. And there was no effective farm system to train the young associates; they either made it off of a desk or they didn't. And once they were promoted, they either learned how to swim or they sank. (Cue 'Swimming with Sharks' clip) Oh, old Hollywood. How I don't miss you.

No one doubts the value of a mentor so why do so few of us have one these days? Musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, creatives in general throughout history have looked to an elder for guidance and inspiration. Even well known artists of this decade admit to being mentored: Oliver Stone was mentored by Marty Scorsese at NYU, poet Maya Angelou mentored Oprah Winfrey. But in looking at my peers and contemporaries (both in corporate and artistic fields), either in traditional Hollywood or New Media, I don't see it (and if you do, skip to the bottom and just leave a comment ;-p)

The word mentor was first used in the Odyssey when Odysseus left his son under the charge of Mentor whilst he partook on his epic journey (and then the proper noun turned into a verb, but that is for another post, not to be written by me) so it's been around for a while. Given, us modern day whiz kids have access to information and inspiration any moment we chose by clicking on our Safari browser (Odysseus' son nor the majority of famous mentor/protege pairs had the interwebs to learn from) but I see such value in having someone take a personal interest in your career. Believe it or not (and I know some of you out there don't think people do anything that is not in their own self interest), these mentors did it because they wanted to and someone probably did for them. "Every student deserves to be treated as a potential genius." Anton Ehrenzweig said it well.

Perhaps that is why Seth Godin or Tony Robbins are so popular because they offer up a wide brushstroke of guidance, through their seminars and books, that is lacking in the work force. It's not tailored to you specifically though. The life and executive coaching sectors are certainly expanding but that is still a business transaction; the coach is helping you because you pay them to. Why is it that people aren't simply helping each other out anymore? And during this time of economic crisis and change, the need for this, the need for a mentor, is even stronger. But there in lies the problem. What would our potential mentors be mentoring us on...if everything is changing.

So I pull focus back to my own industry and the specific landscape that I inhabit: that of content creation and the attempt to monetize it on the web.. There is a fantastic article in Wired about 'Socialism' and the intellectual collectivism that is elevating the internet to a cyberland where we, as a society, benefit from sites like Wikipedia, operating systems like Linux and 'free' restaurant recommendations (from all the people that took the time to write a review) on Yelp. I would like to think that our web community is an offshoot of that idea; that the creative members of our space are a supportive community that often work to simply to elevate the original web content landscape, or within the context of my mentorship topic, help someone out...just for the sake of helping.

But here's the thing. How can someone be my mentor in the digital space, how can they 'help me out', when we are both struggling to monetize our own content, create an active and interactive audience around our own shows and be abreast on all new technological developments that affect the space that we distribute via so we can make a successful living at this? Is there one digital company that has 'cracked the code' yet? Nope. Regardless of the VC that does or does not back us, we are all at the precipice of big change and all of us are guestimating the outcome. So, if we are technically competitors then how can we foster a mentor/ protege environment? By changing the vertical nature of that relationship and re-examining competition.

I have always believed that that the sum of this industry is much greater than the individual parts. Gennefer Snowfield wrote a great article for Tubefilter.tv on this topic called 'The Only Competition for Webseries is UnAwareness' where she posited that 'the underlying issue isn't competition (between series) but discoverability' thus content creators, especially those creating series within a similar genre, should band together and cross promote each other's shows, not consider each other competitors. Out of that article and subsequent twitter conversation spawned The Scifi Collective. Still waiting to hear what exactly that is, but between it and the soon to launch SciFinal site (where original scifi web content will have an awesome home) we're on the right path in joining our powers.

We also all got our starts in different sectors: entertainment, technology, law, etc but have landed in this upstart sector together because we see the opportunity to be a pioneer. Even if we can't foster a traditional mentoring relationship, like say Bob Evans had with his mentor Darryl Zanuck as Mr. Zanuck was the head of 20th Century Fox and Mr. Evans was a producer who aspired to such (ended up becoming the head of Paramount), we can each look to each other's strengths. The fact that we all didn't start in the UTA mailroom is a GOOD thing.

I have experienced nothing but support and kudos since stepping onto this quickly changing landscape. It's the first time that I didn't have to limit my identify to one field: I'm just an actor, I'm just a web producer or I'm just a writer. In the web community, I'm all of the above because I have to be. Being a multi-faceted creative is a fiscal necessity because of the budgets that we must deal with in this space, but in being such, we are setting ourselves up to reap the rewards when those budgets become bigger, when Madison Avenue has faith in the space or the web subscription model takes off (?). So what do we need to do to make certain this happens? BE BETTER. I need to be a better writer, a more knowledgeable producer, a more savvy salesman (I think my acting is pretty cool but you never know). I can learn from media blogs, conferences and articles as much as I can, but I can ultimately learn more from you. Would you be my mentor? I would be happy to be yours as well.

Be back soon.

All Things T