http://ja-nae.net/blog Adventures In: Experimentation, Imagination & Sophistication Fri, 03 May 2013 18:56:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 http://ja-nae.net/blog/the-mentor-creative-problem-solving-while-getting-what-you-need http://ja-nae.net/blog/the-mentor-creative-problem-solving-while-getting-what-you-need#comments Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:48:54 +0000 Ja-Naé http://ja-nae.net/blog/?p=6229 There are times in our lives when we just meet the right person at the right time. When everything that comes out of this individuals mouth is like listening to Bernstein conduct Beethoven’s 9th: it is subtle, yet every note hits you like a ton of bricks. I had the pleasure of meeting one of those people while in Napa a few weeks ago. His name is Rajesh Setty. Raj is a brilliant, yet unassuming man who shares my passion for growing ideas and  creativity. During our conversation, he spoke very highly of his mentor and how that mentor helped him get to where he is today. Most people I know pay to have a coach or have been a part of some type of mentoring support group. Neither have really appealed to me because they are not who I am. I am a conversationalist and I prefer the conversation be about the other person. So, you can see my dilemma. Since I was so taken with Raj, I asked him how he found his mentors; I asked whether or not he paid for a high profile coach or someone with a ton of connections. I received a very surprising [...]]]> http://ja-nae.net/blog/the-mentor-creative-problem-solving-while-getting-what-you-need/feed 0 http://ja-nae.net/blog/growing-ideas http://ja-nae.net/blog/growing-ideas#comments Mon, 04 Jun 2012 16:45:57 +0000 Ja-Naé http://ja-nae.net/blog/?p=5477 Ideas. I have a ton of them. Those ideas have informed who I am as an artist and an entrepreneur. But what good is an idea, if you do nothing with it? It ends up dying of neglect, right? But what if the opposite happens? You have this wonderful idea and love it so much that it does not have the space it needs to grow. So, it suffocates and dies. When that happens, I cannot help but visualize Lenny from Of Mice and Men. I then think of Bugs Bunny cartoons, like this: This past weekend, I thought a lot about what happens to ideas that I have. I don’t know about you, but I find that my ideas fit into 3 categories: 1. Fleeting Moments: Some of them are like fleeting moments. They stop by long enough for me to acknowledge them, appreciate them and then they are gone. 2. Inspired Gifts: Some ideas are inspired gifts. Ones that we give to people because we feel it would be advantageous for them to act on and vice versa. How many times have you told someone, “I have this great idea for you…”? These are little gifts that we [...]]]> http://ja-nae.net/blog/growing-ideas/feed 0 http://ja-nae.net/blog/fathers-passing-sparked-creative-innovation http://ja-nae.net/blog/fathers-passing-sparked-creative-innovation#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:52:53 +0000 Ja-Naé http://ja-nae.net/blog/?p=5055 When you think of video game heroes, you usually think of big swords, big hair, huge attitudes, and rippling muscles. You don’t think of a middle-aged knight who has gone soft in the middle and thin on top after some 30 years of the post-quest castle good life. But for Adam Rippon, creator of the RPG fantasy game, Dragon Fantasy, his knight is not only larger than life, but drawn from deep in his heart. Our hero knight, Ogden Thomas is returning to questing after a long hiatus. Once the RPG-game equivalent of the high-school superstar, Ogden is now finding his armor fitting tighter and his shield a whole lot heavier than it was in his youth. Called out of retirement by the hijinks of the Dark Knight, he must rely on the greatness of his past and the abilities of his new band of travelers. Ogden’s adventures break from the traditional hero-arc and instead find someone later in life, way past the glory days. Settled and stagnant, he must reinvent himself by getting back out there and returning to his former gallantry, albeit with a lot less hair. Dragon Fantasy is the culmination of a lifelong dream and a [...]]]> http://ja-nae.net/blog/fathers-passing-sparked-creative-innovation/feed 2