Yesterday I had started to define areas of overlapping interest between myself and the interests of the audience I think I have. Today, I try to whittle down those AOIs into something more actionable.

I reformatted yesterday’s overlapping interest thoughts into four main groups that seemed related. Not sure HOW they are related exactly, but this is what my intuition is saying, so let me start with this and see what I think after I see it all in one place:

1. Creative Independence

• Maintaining the means to support one’s creativity through creative works
• Happiness through Creative Process: Explore, Learn, Build, Share
• Happiness through Directed Action: Seeking Inspiration, Developing Mastery, Creating Opportunity … creativity
• Happiness through Shared Values: optimism, personal growth, connecting with like-minded individuals

2. Being a Maker, a Creative

• Putting what one makes out into the world
• Happiness through Connection: Sharing, Creating Opportunity

3. Tools, Techniques and Stories

• on Originality / Cleverness
• on Quality
• on Independence
• on Productivity
• on Excellence
• on Creative Process
• on Directed Action
• on Shared Values

4. Dave Seah

• Who is this mysterious, somehow compelling person?
• How is he doing what he says he’s doing?
• What can I take away from him?

5. Shared Joy

• in Creative process
• in Directed action
• in Creating, itself
• in Creators, themselves
• Supporting one’s self in the way one must
• Knowing you’re part of this small community

At this point, I need to make a visual map and think about it. This mapping I’m doing is outside the 15-minutes I spent this morning, incidentally, thinking about it.

Where are the Entry Points?

Taking a few moments to look at this. I think the message is CREATIVE INDEPENDENCE, BEING A MAKER. That’s the common goal. The specific offerings are tools, techniques, and stories. The bridging elements that provide context are myself as the conduit for stories and maintainer of the CREATIVE INDEPENDENCE vision as I see and share it. Underlying it all is the JOY of it, the part that drives the passion.

So the outward-facing mission statement might be:

• Spread the message of joy
• Define creative independence as my particular version of joy
• Establish myself as the host of this website and my vision as an accessible dude
• Guide people to tools, techniques, stories in the context of creative independence

It occurs to me that the entry points actually look like this to a first-time visitor:

This is pretty awful.

To arrange, label, enhance these entry points so the CONTENTS are apparent and desirable…that’s the next stage of thinking!