mograph.net :: matt fraction interview page 5 ::

Electronic Arts’ ‘Need for Speed,’ another full television spot, which if we know anything of EA, meant a hacked game console, visits by a geeky EA guy who does nothing but game captures, a client who spends most of his time during his visits playing video games, and enough money to pay for three ‘Ultralove Ninja’ featurettes.

This is where things get interesting: work for a big, stodgy retail brand, Best Buy. Technically, a step up. Now, is that yellow legal?

Cowboys and astronauts, the long-anticipated HISTORY OF AMERICA project. We hear the Whiskey Rebellion and the rise of the Free Soil Party didn’t make the script.

It's more interesting to make Brand X look interesting, amazing, thought-provoking, challenging, unexpected, and alive than it is to make yourself into all those things. Because everybody knows Brand X. Brand X is a system. You're just a dude. Think of a computer virus: if it's just sitting on a disk somewhere, it's not doing its job. It needs to be launched inside the system, and it can remake the system in its own image. Destruction, chaos, creation, order, blah blah blah--sometimes those fortune cookies are true. Doing cool work: that's it, that's the thing. That's what you do.

Creative autonomy trumps scale. Creative autonomy trumps deadline. Creative autonomy trumps budget.

You're going to lose more than you win. Brace yourself for that. It's not easy, and it's not fun, and there will be days you'll envy the steady and reliable patter of a Starbucks barista as opposed to your own life. There is much to envy in steady and reliable patter, in utility bills paid without your knowledge, in a paycheck that is guaranteed like clockwork. It's okay to think that and feel that. At the same time, there's even more to envy when you marshal abject chaos in your favor. That's a long way of saying it's awesome when it's awesome, but when it sucks, it really, really, sucks.

Once upon a time, you were a student living in a cheap-ass flop, wondering what the hell you were doing with your life. Stay connected to that time, to this time, to who you were and who you are. We're constantly flattered and humbled by the kindness and generosity we've experienced by being connected to MK12--the amount of good will we've experienced is just astonishing.

So: smile and shake hands and be as gracious that anyone's seen what you do, let alone like it. Talk to everyone, listen and learn and meet new people, new ideas. There are amazing minds all around you, all the time, and most always they'll talk to you some. So smile. Listen, learn, say Hi and get smarter.

And then get back to work.

A revolution leading to what though?
Whatever it is you Want To Do? I don't know, and I'm not entirely sure that's the point. Whatever makes you happy, you know? Our revolution was proving we could do this, and that we could survive doing this. We win.