At long last, another Open Source Creative Podcast episode is here! Sorry for the long gap between episodes, folks… it’s been a crazy month. In any cast, this episode was recorded back in March and in it I talk about doing spec work (that is, speculative work) as a creative producer of things. Episode 15 really helped me nail down where I think my position is on this, so in a way, it’s an extension of that. It’s a bit of a contrast to the folks at nospec.com.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

I have a strange feeling that this episode is going to get me into a bit of trouble. Maybe. We’ll see. I get into details and backstory in the actual episode, but it all started with a question (or, better, replies to a question) regarding the resale of “used” digital content—specifically ebooks—in an episode of the Sell More Books Show, a podcast that’s pretty prevalent in the indie publishing scene. This episode is a bit of a rant launched from that premise.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

So this episode turned out to be a really long one. The bulk of it is a topic that comes courtesy of @3pointedit on Twitter (thanks for listening!). That is, the costs of choosing to use free and open source software tools to produce your creative works. We often hear (or read) the benefits, but those of us on this side of the fence are less vociferous when it comes to the costs and consequences of this choice of ours. I run through those costs… at least in as much as how I see it.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

The first episode of 2015! Hi folks. This week (yes… this is still supposed to be a weekly podcast) I talk about ways to get started and get inspired on creative projects. It’s the start of the year and folks tend to think about what they want to do over the course of the coming year… but sometimes get stuck right out of the starting gate. Maybe, just maybe I give some suggestions that can help thaw out that paralysis and get you moving on your projects.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

This episode is a week late… or I just skipped last week. I suppose it depends on your perspective. In any case, I cover a lot of news in this episode since two weeks of it happened since the last one.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

Though it’s a bit scatterbrained, this is a fun episode talking about knowing your audience. When you produce creative work, it’s a good idea to have a notion of the people for whom you’re producing it. And amazingly, this is something that a lot of creatives sometimes overlook or forget about. I know I do on occasion. So I talk about it here as it pertains to writing and commercial TV (and yes, also how it relates to Free Software and the UI episode from last week). I also have a bit of a mini-rant about small business owners and their friggin’ dogs. I still don’t get it.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

In this episode I talk user interfaces. Specifically, I try to crack the nut on why it seems that the user interfaces for open source tools appear to get higher scrutiny and more anger thrown at them than their proprietary contemporaries… and if that’s really a problem at all. Sadly, I’m not sure that I have any real solutions, but maybe we can use this as a means of launching a discussion that’s actually meaningful and productive. Maybe.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

This week’s episode talks about tutorials… well, specifically how we tend to treat tutorials. There seems to be an overarching trend toward replicating the process in a tutorial verbatim without actually learning how to apply those techniques elsewhere. People learn how to push a specific series of buttons in a specific way to produce a known result… and it’s lame. I take a bit of time during this episode to try to sort out whether the responsibility for fixing this lies with the tutorial maker or the person following the tutorial.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

You may have noticed that I skipped a week in airing the podcast. That’s because I was at Blender Conference 2014 in Amsterdam. I mentioned this in the last episode with a question asking how I should cover the conference. I should’ve realized that you, the wonderful audience, would ask me to interview everyone there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to everyone… partially because there were over 250 people there and partially because, well, I’m a bit shy.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.

This episode of the Open Source Creative Podcast covers a topic that we see all over the place in the creative world, but it seems to be especially prevalent in the web communities of open source creative projects. I’m specifically referring to the topic of collaborative projects or community projects.Originally posted on monsterjavaguns.com.