Digital Performance Group
In this project I created a conceptual space for collaboration across various departments (completely unique to the university system) which implemented new technologies and allowed participation from students/staff/and faculty. The framework (called Elements) I created, allowed for egalitarian creation of new content which fully integrated technology, aesthetic modes, and varied topics/approaches. It was a complex feat to propose, organize, recruit, and find space and support for such an ambitious project. I also created the structure for both face-to-face meetings, use of blog and teleconferencing for meetings, and a workshop period in which most of the digital content was created an integrated with live performers.
Sonoma County Book Festival #1 This was a wonderful opportunity lead a local community organization to stage a live event across multiple venues, and help coordinate people (multiple committees) and such as publicity, venues, and vendors. We did exceptionally well both financially and in terms of attendance the year I was in charge.
Sonoma County Book Festival #2 Here you can get a sense of both sponsors and the logistics of the event which ran for 13-14 years. I also did the layout for these.
Sonoma County Book Festival #3
Here you can see the scale of the event which took over Santa Rosa’s Court house square. Notice the many smiling vendors and participants. Pictured are also the authors reading and several other adult and children’s venues.
Web site - Sebastopol Center for the Arts
This is an example of a web information design. I build and developed this site from scratch around the structure of the organization and its offerings with great care to include all the aspects of the SCA. I have training in information design and have created many online and CD based projects which organize and categorize information in a clear and deep way.
Women's Global Leadership Initiative
For 3-4 years I invested myself in multiple aspects of the Women’s Global Leadership Initiative working directly under the founder and helping her clarify the goals and mission statement, leading the marketing team, writing and vetting curriculum, creating new public events, facilitating public forums, creating systems for volunteers, and serving on the board and loving strategic planning committee work.
Re-Membering Harmony
This unique project was based in community need. Although the outcome was in the form of an interactive (digital/live) performance, it was really about inviting the community back into a reused site and allowing for healing and the transition into its new use (partially) as a public art center. The project took quite a bit of planning and coordination as well as interviewing, scripting, logistics, technology, working with a local school and board, as well as community meetings. It was a wonderful success and accomplished not only a very unique performance, but began a healing process that the town and its new school desperately needed.
Non-Profit Work, Leadership and Committees
(Conference planning, panels, committees, boards)
I have worked on multiple committees and boards which all require teamwork and planning. I have chaired panels at conferences on relevant, timely and emerging topics and helped coordinate two conferences (one national and one international) as well as attending and speaking at many myself.
AI: Interaction Designer, Digital Dramaturg
Recently, I’ve served as an advisory expert to the development of an AI, named Darwin who is at the heart of GritX’s chat feature. GritX is an online platform for making mental health and wellness tools available to youth and young adults. (The target age is 6-26.) I am his “human” or behavoral advisor in a sense, making me perhaps, the world’s first Digital Dramaturg to an AI.
Darwin the presence engaging the user in mood-exploring chat, was created by John Denning and his team at WSC, now 10.4.ai. Darwin is the second generation of the very first AI to pass the Turing Test. He is now functioning in the role of a therapist/friend/councilor for humans. The project is a partnership with San Francisco State University’s Psychiatry.
The current iteration is best found at http://gritx.azureedge.net (Use Google Chrome)
“GritX teaches methods to help you manage your emotions, cope with trauma, resolve interpersonal conflicts, and grow your self-reflection through interactive prompts. You can save your favorite self-care tools for quick access when you need it, anytime, anywhere, and without cost.” From the Website:
Darwin is always available, free, speaks 80 languages, has knowledge about psychological states and conditions, and has metacognition, allowing him to not only remember participants, but track their participation, situation and learning styles.
10.4.ai CTO John Denning likes to define my role as Digital Dramaturg as “someone who makes things better.” If only most tech-employers saw things that way. I worked with an international team of developers, reading the bot for launch. My job was to “make things better.” Sort of like a quality tester, but more so to coach the Bot how to be, or respond more like a human. In addition to coaching this unique actor on his lines, I was also working with the team to help him think about answering types of questions as we would. (It is about sensing the subtilty questionable dip into the uncanny valley.) I reviewed dialogue, lines of questioning, and created some new systems for engaging in types or paths of dialogue. This type of role is also called an interaction designer.
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