What happens AFTER Kickstarter?

Ever wonder what happens to the Kickstarter or IndieGoGo campaigns you supported? If they are of a creative nature you might have gotten a copy of the book or a down load of the film, but what about all those cool gadgets?  

 

Now there is a website, OUT GROW ME which is the first marketplace for successfully funded Kickstarter and IndieGoGo projects (thank you, Swiss Miss).  And I have to say, some of them are VERY cool…. I wish I had known about this link for the holiday season… but it’s never too late to give.

Crowd Funding a Year Later: One Success – One Bomb – Part 11

Gary Delfiner, Rob Barabas, David Mandel (blog interviewee),
Aubrey Levy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A year ago we accompanied David Mandel and his partners on the Kickstarter campaign for their feature Mulligan.  Here, a year and one more Kickstarter campaign later, a wrap up.

David: you now have two Kickstarter campaigns under your belt one, the feature Mulligan very successful the other, a documentary Indestructible Baseball on the Isthmus not so. Can you tell us where the big differences were between the two campaigns in terms of preparation, staffing, ask level, execution and leverage with ‘goodies’?

Identity and the Other – Synopsis

Here the (current) Synopsis for my next film Identity and the Other:

 

How Swiss are Muslims living in Switzerland, how Swiss do they want to be and who decides if they are Swiss enough?

 

Identity and the Other explores the lives of several 2^nd generation, millennial, Muslim immigrants, which represent a section of a culturally, religiously and ethnically diverse Switzerland many Swiss feel uneasy about.

TED Talks

TED talks are highly addictive and the most welcome, educational and inspiring time sink I can think of.  Last weekend I indulged and revisited some old friends and found some new ones I wanted to share. 

 

For those of you who are new to TED, TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design.  Since, TED talks have spread in many directions and in particular onto their amazing website onto which all TED talk videos are uploaded. 

Giving Thanks

Every year has its highs and its lows and even the lows tend to have silver-linings. Superstorm Sandy hit hard, even if we, as a company, had no hardship. We didn't lose power, had no property damage or major work disruptions and we are very thankful for that.

 

But it does hit home hard to see so many people and small to medium sized business owners and employees lose everything and see their life's work slip from their grip in a few hours. No amount of government support and insurance money will give anybody the hard work, time, worry, planning and love back, lost when a catastrophe - man-made or natural - strikes.

 

We wish all of those affected by Sandy no matter how lightly or gravely the strength, perseverance and tenacity to rebuild even better and stronger than before.  And mostly we wish them the strength to see a silver-lining and be able to give thanks this Thanksgiving. 

 

And on a lighter note:

Photo "borrowed" from Bar Sepia Thanksgiving mail - thank you!

 

Megatrends

I came across megatrends repeatedly doing research for my next documentary Identity and the Other and decided to do a bit of further digging. I found different definitions for different countries and cultures, no surprise there. The following seemed the most comprehensive. 

 

Megatrends are defined as forces (i.e. trends) affecting all aspects of our lives over a long period of time. Factors are:

Giving and Volunteering



Far Rockaway, NY: "U Loot. We Shoot"!

This weekend I volunteered for the disaster recovery of Sandy, and I’ll be brutally honest (when am I not): I did it because I felt survivor’s guilt, I wanted to see what devastation looked like other than on TV and yes, I wanted to help as much as I could.  The bottom line is: why you volunteer is irrelevant as long as you do.  

 

Spending a waaaay long time in various buses to and from the Far Rockaway’s I had two very interesting conversations about disasters, giving and cultural differences.