If I haven’t mentioned it already, all the 2nd Culture sites are going through a version 2.0 revamp. But one of the elements that has been wildly successful are the DiaBLOGue format we tested out on the Panda Girls site.

The idea is simple. A blog post is usually written from a single point of view or individual. Sometimes interviews can provide a new POV, but those posts are usually labeled as such “Interview with…”, and one is the interviewer, and interviewee - hardly a dialogue on equal ground.

With the DiaBLOGue it’s more that the blog engine now becomes a stage for two opposite POVs to responding in tandem, laced together for a dynamic effect. In our employment, we used comedy as our genre, invented characters, and represented those personalities with comic strip-like visuals.

After creating the template, the posts are fast and effortless - but the snag is trying to make them humorous. We’re not always successful, so when we aren’t, we usually lean on character-revealing.

The response for this format has been very positive, and I think it’s an example of taking something that is quite common today, and just giving it a little twist. I’ve since been thinking of other common tools to twist - nothing quite as successful has come yet.

I’m just gonna shoot from the hip on this one, and whatever I write I’m just gonna leave up. You’ll find in the My Projects menu list on the right the various projects of 2nd Culture.

2nd Culture - First Year:

Overall, a success. But not quite in the ways I’d hoped. A lot of contract work with Corus has come in, and kept the lights on. But some of the 2nd Culture initiatives have been both a disappointment, and victory.

Disappointments:

• Got involved with a company, and it ended up costing us a lot of development time on 2nd Culture
• The reason for working with the company was strategic, and everything was going well until the deal “changed” quite drastically due to nepotism and short-sightedness
• We invested nearly $1000 into this new venture, before this “drastic change”
• We still have no idea how it’s going to turn out, or if I’ll see my 1000
• WGA (short film paid for by FrameBuyFrame sales), is still in post production
• we lost 8 people (I had to cull, and bring everything “back to the wood” on all our websites/network)
• The host that I use for my sites has turned out to be unreliable - so our site’s performance is unacceptable
• We’ve had 4 different web developers back out of the project due to various reasons
• I’ve had to spend an unacceptable amount of personal/project time learning web development, Joomla, and design to have our site “up”
• Because of the time spent, I’ve neglected an important element to our cause - posting content for Panda Girls

Crom - 2nd Culture’s lead writer

(COMPLETE DISAPOINTMENT)

Victories:

• FrameBuyFrame.com sold $1400 in frames in it’s first 3 months - with NO advertising
• Over the last 10 months we’ve tweaked the sites, and have an enormous amount of user data for version 2.0’s release
• We hit over 100,000 unique visitors
• The local television station wants a story
• I was asked to pitch our business model at the Calgary Demo-Camp
• Tokyopop made a offer for a publishing deal with Panda Girls
• We shot a short film entirely financed by capital earned through FrameBuyFrame.com sales
• Found an incredible writing partner for developing quality Intellectual Property for film, tv, internet, and video games (Yes, Crom - you can stay)
• Signed two Intellectual Properties for development in film and tv
• Received valuable consulting from a marketing manager from Shaw
• A venture capital company has made an offer of 200K

All in all, the year had it’s wins and losses. What I’ve learned mostly is not to chase every opportunity. That’s not to say we did, really… It’s just that there were a few that we should have just said “no”.

The losses/disappointments forced me to restructure (more time and money), and rethink my approach to 2nd Culture, FrameBuyFrame.com, and Panda Girls.

I’m embarrassed to say, these issues reflect on my leadership. 2008 is looking a little clearer due to some storms we’ve survived over the 10 months. It helps to remind you where you’re headed when you’re in the clear again.

Ok… This is a pretty simple and ingenious marketing gambit. <WARNING>> Cuteness abounds.

The whole thing is so you learn how to vote for Kina here: TwoWeeksForKina.com to win a contest to have her music video played at the Superbowl (and a record deal).

For those of you who are like, “yeah, so like wtf cares?” - she uploaded yesterday, and already has 75,000 views.

So Dargie calls me and says “dood, stop reading DoshDosh.com and start bloggin. You got great ideas - you should share.” What he really means is he’s got none, and wants to steal some.

These are my current projects:

• CreatingPopCulture.com - I provide a wonderful place for procrastinators to read about creating something, rather than, well, creating.
• FrameBuyFrame.com - A film finance idea using crowd-source/internet.
• Panda Girls - The first project to use FrameBuyFrame.com’s finance model.

Ya, I can see why Dargie wants to steal’em.

This’ll be that blog which will document the creative and cerebral travels/discoveries as I problem solve for these projects, and any other genius thing I might dream up.