In my mind, what I created is an act of guerilla transmedia storytelling. Sort of a single freestanding act of street theater, but performed in a transmedia realm.

Like many people, I’ve played around the creative edges of nontraditional communication since I was a kid. In grade school, we played games using pay phones that allowed you to call them. Just before our high school graduation, we spray-painted the actual size floor plan for a proposed fine arts building on the parking lot where it was supposed to have been built.³ In college, we held staged and improv arguments in public spaces.⁴ In the mid 1990s, some of the first websites I built were for non-existent products⁵ or fictional historical events. But despite these examples, when it comes to communication, I’m far from the only one who occasionally decides to color outside the lines. (And I don’t rank myself among the most creative, most knowledgeable or most effective in that group.)

While Hollywood, digital advertising agencies, universities and others are busy codifying the concepts of transmedia communications and creating bigger and better transmedia properties, there will be others who are just following their artistic urges. After the very first commercial ARGs, we saw game-playing fans begin creating their own grass roots ARGs. We’re now beginning to see such grass roots creativity in other areas of transmedia communications. Meanwhile, the barriers to entry into the digital realm are low and trending down.

My advice? Watch the edges — that’s where the unexpected will arise and tomorrow’s Picassos and Hemingways will emerge.

Let me know what you think via the comments section below.

1. If you’re interested in taking a look, here’s an entry point.
2. Alternate Reality Game
3. For four years, our class raised funds for the construction of that building and we were told we would be the first class to graduate from its auditorium. For the record, I graduated from high school in 1981. The first class that did graduate from a new building was the Class of 2005, and that new building was a fieldhouse instead of a fine arts building.
4. In one case, a female friend and I pretended to be a couple, then had a loud “argument” in a video store where she accused me of sleeping with her sister.
5. Think Whacky Packs.

Chinese villagers build a bridge across a tributary of the Yangtze River.

So after burning up an appropriate amount of time and grey matter pondering how I could accomplish my vision for this website, I’ve realized I need to build something from the ground up that will turn TomorrowSage.com into much more of a canvas for conveying knowledge and stories. Or rather, a series of canvases upon which each article or story can be communicated in its own unique way.¹

Ultimately what I envision isn’t just a different approach to a website, but a different way tell stories (and ultimately for me, a broader creative experience).

I will do my best to bring about the new TomorrowSage.com as quickly as possible, but given other demands (professional and personal), it is likely to be a matter of weeks (or months) rather than days before everything goes live. And finally, while I don’t intend to provide any new posts on this site until after the reimagining is complete, I do promise to read and respond to any thoughts or comments you share below on this new direction. I’ll also remain active in my other online domiciles and quite possibly provide the occasional update about TomorrowSage.com in those locations. So please stay in touch at:

• twitter.com/tomorrowsage
• www.kevinabarnes.com

1. A quick clarification: When I say, “build something from the ground up,” I don’t mean lovingly code every line of every single web page. My intent is to develop a custom, highly-flexible content management system that will allow me to create and communicate in the way I envision. And no, I currently have no desire or intentions to sell the resulting tool — it is being designed and built for my unique needs and to meet my creative vision.