So thank you for having me there's a lot of people out here at an awwwards show huh
three Ws that's so fancy but listen what we're gonna do today I'm gonna do
this differently instead of giving you, where's my clicker instead of giving you
just a regular old talk my talk today will be done via interpretive dance
twenty five minutes baby
just keep it going just take your life in hip-hop wait alright I'm just kidding
I'm not gonna do 25 minutes thank you don't clap don't clap stop clapping that
would be insane if I just did 25 minutes the whole time the guy who like brought
his friends like come to the show with me just what the heck just happened, anyway so some of you
maybe four of you might know who I am I make videos for TechCrunch and if you do
what's up I do it and if you don't I made a little video for you of some of
my work
now we know each other a little better so my talk today is about removing the
barriers to creativity and that's a pretty broad topic there's just so many
thing I'm not gonna clickbait you there's so many things that are gonna be
barriers to your creativity time money location equipment yourself excuses your
mom just there's so many things like if we just go out I could list them on for
days and you know what those barriers are and those are all shit legit things
like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say that they're not real barriers because
you know everybody has their life that they have to deal with and creating
getting from getting from that point of just an idea to Inception there's a ton
of shit that gets in the way and so I'm just gonna tell you my story of you know
getting through things and creating things and hopefully it resonates with
some of you. I'm a digital
I'm a digital media producer at TechCrunch and what that means is I get
to be in front of and behind the camera just creating content working with
awesome people traveling to cool locations around the world and creating
content that that I want to create but it wasn't always that way
let me tell you it wasn't in the beginning I got hired on as a shooter
editor and what that meant is I was part of the editorial team and I just worked
with the writers helping them create their content so they would come up with
an idea and then it would say we want to make this we need you to work on it and
I'd say okay and so I'd shoot and edit it and produce it with them but I wanted
more control I wanted more creative control I wanted to work on the things
that I wanted to work on so from there I started coming into the office like
super early this is all while doing like the normal job and then leaving after
everyone's super late and I started the first idea that I was working on was
this this app show idea reviewing different apps and it was a lot of fun
making it but I also didn't even know if it would be even seen by anybody I
started creating them and then one day I want an editor at TechCrunch was like
hey Tino this is actually pretty sick let's ship it and they threw it online
and people started watching it I was so excited I was ecstatic because I've been
a lifelong fan of TechCrunch and now my content was on TechCrunch I was like I
made it start texting my mom I was like I made her mom and she's like what's
TechCrunch and I don't worry about that
but I started working on that on the app show and that was my first taste of
taking something creating it and then the idea working out and I was like cool
but that took a lot of work I love my own time but while I'm doing this my
former boss created a daily tech news show at TechCrunch and it was called
crunch report and every day would report on the daily news that's happening in
Silicon Valley and around the world and we did that for about a year where
she would write and host the show and then one of us on the video team would
edit and shoot the show and so after about a year of doing that she decided
to bounce and they started auditioning a bunch of the different writers and
having people come in to take her spot but I was like man I know the show I've
edited I've edited so many of them and I shot a bunch of them and I know that if
I had control of it I could have like a ton of fun with it so one day I was like
screw it and I just I took the day and I said I'm
gonna write shoot edit and host this thing by myself and so I did I did the
whole thing and the show hit pretty well and then next thing you know they're
like hey Tito you can be the you can could take over the show you could be
the new host and I was I sick and so I took over the show and from there it was
just a daily grind of creating content every single day and creating content
every day like it can drive you crazy I'll wake up at 7:00 a.m. or shoot right
until 12:00 and prep until 2:00 and then you know you shoot at 2:00 and then you
post at 4:00 and you just every single day it is a grind but it's awesome
because it's saying that you want to do yourself and it was
I was I was doing it every day I was making it happen and I was becoming
super efficient as at creating content because I could take three bags I just
had everything in it and go set up anywhere since I was riding and shooting
hosting and doing the whole thing now I was developing the skill of getting rid
of all the extra newest things that were unnecessary and just focusing on the
content itself and that was a that was a huge learning experience for me
and while all this was happening while I was working at TechCrunch building the
show you know building a user building a fan base and customers you know I also
had a side house so anyone that's in media video
it always has a side hustle so from there I was working with a had my own
media production company where he was startups and companies and creating
content for them I'm working on TechCrunch doing all the
fun journalism stuff and working with startups and companies creating getting
their vision across and this was good because it gave me a variety of
different content to work on and stuff to you know apply my skills to and you
know and also through a lot of change in change and I think change is great you
can either fight it or embrace it and you know you can pick which one you want
to do but usually one of those is the right move and it just happens to be
embrace so that was a that was a good time but on January 31st we ended up
this was like between myself and you know big bosses
and stuff the show was doing really well getting great views and it was growing
but then it started to plateau and we weren't
I wasn't seeing as much growth as much engagement as I was hoping that it would
and I was I I think it's time to move on from this and after doing 350 episodes
and creating it we decided to sunset the show on January 31st and that was the
last episode of crunch report a little bit of a sad day but it was it was
actually a relief because now I could work on other things other creative
endeavors that I wanted to try out but then I caught me thinking what is it
that I want what is it that I want to do I've I now have this like skillset of
being able to create content efficiently and fast and by myself and usually I
mean it's only by myself because a lot of times people are working other things
or doing in meetings or whatever that they have to deal with and so I was just
crated for myself because I don't want to wait on people I hate waiting and so
I started working I started thinking about it what is it that I want to do
next and I said and I listed it out and
I wanted a space to be creative a space that I can easily just go and just start
creating without having to worry about you know anything that comes along with
that I want an easy access to equipment because that's what in media and
production you're using cameras and lights and this and audio and everything
so I wanted an easy way to acquire that I wanted them to remove all the
distractions to creating just a place where it's like minded individuals and
you just focus on it and I wanted a community of support because what I had
realized over doing 3 on 50 episodes of crunch report
and doing it mostly by myself whenever I would collaborate with somebody or work
with someone the content ended up being that much better like it pretty much
every single time so I wanted to build a community of support so then it got me
thinking like how do I make this all happen without you know and making it
feasible and and so I had this idea to create a co-working space and the
co-working space calling it giraffes pace so
half-space the idea behind your oasis is to take those things that I wanted and
then and then create it but it's not only for me it's for other individuals
within the local community that can use it and use the power of collective
bargaining and also share all the expenses and everything that's involved
with that so you know we literally just had the grand opening for this thing
last Friday and before that we were slowly working but it was an area that
you know has the typical office space of like a a we work or a Pegasus co-working
or whatever co-working space you're at but has all the production facilities
with that so you know a studio you can walk in there just start creating
there's basic equipment that you can use a music recording studio for podcasting
a room for photographers if they want to go in there and take photos and that was
the whole inception of giraffe space that came from what I wanted based off
of what I had learned making a daily show and creating content
now to bring that bring that whole thing full circle reason the reason for this I
mean it's it's a space and I'm I'm creating it but it's more to build the
infrastructure that I would want around creating content because that's the
number one goal the number one goal for me is to you know create stuff that
people are gonna watch people are gonna learn from they're gonna educate it on
content that is that is fun entertaining educational so to create all that we
made that happen and from that the new a new show that I'm working on that will
be released sometime soon in the future is a is a weekly show that is way higher
produce but it's still just me working on it but within a community of people
so now I have access to a giant group of individual and like-minded people that
are creators I can help me we can bounce ideas off of I can show it to them get
feedback and so the weekly show is in motion so what if I were to bring it
back what are the barriers that that I've thought I had or that I think I had
it was combination of you know wanting to have
control of programming of creating content which in the beginning it was
like I had to do the job right but then removing the barrier of having
to be in a certain time and having to work within certain confines it was like
just just you know work for the job like do the job that you have
but then work for the job you want I think that's the same as someone said
that and so and then another barrier was I wanted
a sense of community I said people to bounce ideas off of like I collaborate a
ton with my wife and she has a lot of good feedback
and a lot of like you're a dumb-dumb feedback type stuff and so I wanted to
me I wanted it at different creators you know share with me and and talked to me
and have a space that we can all use it and if I thought it would be good for
for me to be there and create that it might be beneficial to others so that's
uh that's my talk about creativity and removing the barriers so thank you very
much