24 May 1999 Copyright, 1999, Max K. Goff, all rights reserved
Tomorrow evening I leave for Madrid. I'll be speaking at the Java Business Expo and then on to Munich, Antwerp and London, more dates on the iDeveloper99 Tour from Oracle, on which Sun is a key partner. Jini is the topic I'll cover in all cities, targeting software developers for the most part. I'll also get the chance to speak to a group of two or three thousand business types in Madrid, covering Java, Jini and the Networked Customer. I'm especially looking forward to that talk, because even though it's a less technical crowd than I'm used to addressing, it gives me the chance to stretch a bit, exercising my business school experiences and bringing the messages to a different set of people that I might not otherwise address. I'll be gone nearly three weeks.
This should be the longest trip I'll have to take this year. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. While I'm heavily booked over the next few months, come mid July things should slow down considerably. And given recent events, I may not have to travel nearly as much in the future.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd been accepted into the Ph.D. program at CUNY (the doctorate program in Computer Science). That kind of commitment should enable me to reduce travel some. But the fact remains that I remain a full time technology evangelist working for Sun Microsystems. So I have an obligation to somehow continue preaching the word, as it were, despite other commitments here in the city. To that end, I've proposed some alternatives to my management. And I'm pleased to say that their response, while not definitive, has been rather favorable.
But first, some metaphysical context might be useful to note. A few weeks ago, in a diary entry I wrote about working on "Lynn's Wake," the independent film I did in April, I said:
And I've learned something all ready -- something vital. Take a chance. Take risks. Go out on a limb. No risk, no reward. Isn't that the conventional wisdom? So in the spirit of that, I'm going to do for the actor in me what I did for the evangelist. I'm going to go out on a limb and say publicly that I will work on another independent film this calendar year. I have no guarantees. No control. I had one audition today and another when I get back from this next trip. And that's all I have. But I will work again, this year. That's my limb now. That's my vow and my publicly stated promise to myself. Maybe it's the risk itself that is the seed of the reward.At the point I wrote that, I had two auditions in front of me; that was all. No assurance otherwise. But I had sufficient confidence to state publicly that I would work again, this calendar year, on an independent film. It was rather specific; almost like a goal. A publicly stated one at that.Now maybe there's something to this. Maybe there is something magical about publicly stating things like that and having something become manifest in reality as a direct result of having stated the goal. Maybe that's how things really work. Because I learned last week that I did get another part in another independent film. As a matter of fact, it's the lead. I won the lead in a short indie that will shoot in August here in Manhattan. I was out of town for the first audition, but the producers were kind enough to let me come in for the call-backs. Which is evidently all I needed.
I knew there was something very special about the audition when I got off the subway. I'd just gotten back to town the night before, from a 10 day U.S. trip -- Orlando, Silicon Valley and Salt Lake City -- but I was looking forward to the audition all week. I got off the Broadway line on 8th street (the audition was held at the NYU film center) and just as I got started walking toward the center at my normal clip, I heard someone behind me call my name. I turned around and was almost shocked to see the lead actress from the film I'd shot in April. It was an amazing coincidence, but she and I were scheduled to audition together for this new film.
Since we'd worked together before, the audition was extremely comfortable. And since it was a call-back, we had plenty of time for the audition. We were there over an hour, doing our monologues, reading from the script, taking direction and then reading again. It was a fine experience; one of those auditions that is almost as satisfying as work itself. When we left, the one producer said she'd call us in any event and let us know, which is unusual. I mean, if you get the role, they usually let you know, fortunately. But generally speaking, if you don't get the role, you won't hear a thing. But I had a good feeling about both producers (a husband and wife team -- both film studies professors -- one at NYU, the other at Hunter College) and felt that they would indeed call and let us know, whether or not we got the parts.
A few days later, I left town once again for a speaking commitment. I got the voice mail while I was on the road. I remember holding my breath when I realized it was the producer's voice. The first few seconds of the message, my stomach sank and I thought for sure it was bad news. But when I learned that I'd won the role, I was completely elated. And a little shocked. I'd done it -- I said I'd get another indie this year, and so I have. We haven't shot the film yet, and August is still a ways off, but the point it, I won the role. And I was and remain quite thrilled about it.
Was it the "going out on a limb" that did it? Was that a part of it? Did it make any difference at all? Maybe. Perhaps I focus more acutely due to the extra pressure -- pressure I put on myself. Or maybe there is real magic in the specific articulation of goals and desires. Maybe there are universal laws that honor specific visualizations. I must say, while working on Lynn's Wake, I could easily visualize working on future sets, on films yet to be, and it was almost like I was there. I cannot say if going out on a limb is the key or not. But it certainly seems to be a component.
So to that end, I'm going to expose on here at this juncture some of what I've proposed to my management, in order to go out on that limb once again. It's not something I can fully articulate publicly at the moment; the details may compromise the idea. But I can say this -- I fully intend to continue to evangelize technology and very specifically Sun's technology to the growing community of developers around that technology. But how I deliver those messages will change beginning this fall. I will begin to use other means to deliver those messages -- not just speaking in public conferences and trade shows. Some messages will be televised, on the web and via conventional broadcast media. I will be involved in the production of "stuff" for web, video and tele-evangelism. That is my plan and once again it isn't something I can control so much as desire. So I'm stating it publicly. This is my new limb. I'll be reporting on the progress of these limb shaking events over the course of the summer. And if this works yet again, I think the next limb should involve winning the lottery or something. Hey, maybe I've stumbled on something here! :)
