In this third installment of our Kickstarter Maxi Series, we speak with Richard Bliss , host of the podcast, Funding the Dream On Kickstarter . Richard has, as of this writing, posted over 183 episodes, interviewing, in Chris’ estimation, at least 120 different Kickstarter campaign owners, where they tell him what they tried; what worked, what didn’t, what they might do different next time. Richard has also been a part of more than a dozen Kickstarter campaigns, three of them his own. So, we wer...
Feb 08, 2014•36 min
You may recall several years ago the very last interview we did was with our good friend Cedric Hohnstadt. In this episode Chris, and I jump into the CI time machine and flash forward to today where we catch up with Cedric again after four years. Cedric reveals what he’s been up to for the past four years as well as his top secret formula for an amazingly successful Kickstarter campaign. What does it take to get a successful Kickstarter campaign off the ground? Is it a lot of work? How can I ach...
Jan 25, 2014•36 min
After a 3 year hiatus, Bob and Chris are producing new episodes of Creative Independence. Both of us have been very busy for the past few years, and we’re both involved in some cool new projects. We’re doing things that go beyond anything we’ve talked out in our shows before. We’ll fill you in on those in a minute, but the point is that we have been working on new projects, learning some really cool stuff, meeting some great folks and are continuing to figure things out as we go, and excited to ...
Dec 20, 2013•27 min
Bob interviews professional illustrator Cedric Hohnstadt. In this episode Cedric and Bob discuss marketing techniques, networking, social media and self promotion. Cedric is an extremely talented character designer and humorous illustrator who specializes in mascot design, cartooning, animation, logos and other forms of marketing entertainment. Some of Cedric’s clients include Disney, DreamWorks, Wal-Mart, Target, Crayola and many, many more. If you’d like to see some a Cedric’s art please visit...
Oct 07, 2010•39 min
Bob welcomes Carlos Castellanos back to the show. Carlos is a wealth of great business and marketing information. Whenever we have Carlos on the show we make it a point to get out out our notebooks and take notes so I don’t miss anything… We know you’ll want to do the same. So grab a pencil and some paper and check out the latest episode of CI. We know you’ll be glad you did. The post CI-309 An Interview with Carlos Castellanos first appeared on Creative Independence ....
Aug 13, 2010
David Billings AKA Sparky Firepants Bob and illustrator Sparky Firepants (AKA David Billings) talk about marketing. David shares some of his surefire marketing techniques including, slowing down, networking, using social media, and the importance of forming strong and trusting relationships with your clients. Davids hilarious new comic Botpreneur If you are not familiar with Davids work you can find him at SparkyFirepants.com. (don’t forget to sign up for his newsletter). You can also find him o...
Jul 22, 2010•27 min
This episode is full of comedy and adventure! Come along for thrills, chills, explosions, guns, fisticuffs and hilariously sarcastic retorts. Join us as Dan Thompson, creator of the syndicated cartoon strip Rip Haywire talks to us about his journey to get his strip syndicated and published. While we think he’s got a real winner here, his journey is littered with trial, error, dead cartoon strips and great discoveries along the way. One of Dan’s first syndicated cartoon was Lost Sheep: http://con...
Jul 01, 2010•51 min
If you’ve been on twitter, Ustream or any of Dani’s many websites you know what an amazing and talented artist Dani Jones is. Chris and I had the privilege of interviewing Dani a little while back. It was a fantastic interview unfortunately the sound quality was so poor we weren’t able to release the episode. Dani was kind enough to grant us another interview. In this episode she talks about social media, twitter, her blog, her on line comic My Sister the Freak and much, much more. Here are a fe...
Jun 23, 2010•26 min
General Text Messaging definitions There are scores of places on the web to find the definitions for this texting shorthand that is developing around short-form messaging, but here’s a decent on to start with: http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp Twitter Tags – what do they mean? @<username> – Use this tag when you want someone <username> to see your post, such as when you’re talking about her or asking her a question. .@<username> – If you want every...
Apr 11, 2010•52 min
Hey, guys, just a short one this week to keep things moving along in a positive direction while Chris and Bob play Skype Tag. In this episode, Bob takes a quick breather and Chris steps in to talk about a couple of interesting tools for managing your online social activities. Avatar Management: Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatars) http://gravatar.com/ Comment Management System: Disqus http://disqus.com/ Cocomment http://cocomment.com/ Not mentioned in the show itself are the differences betwee...
Mar 17, 2010•19 min
140 Characters So, maybe if you’ve been living on a deserted tropical island or under a rock you haven’t heard of twitter. This episode, Bob and Chris talk about the basics of Twitter and go through the process of getting you set up and branding your account. Twitter helps you reach clients and grow your business 140 characters at a time. WordPress 2 + WordPress MU = WordPress 3: http://ocaoimh.ie/wordpress-mu-291/ I answered Marty Qatani from MartyToons.com ‘s follow up questions about Linked I...
Mar 09, 2010•55 min
Short show this week. Bob does a quick recap on his way to visit a group of art students at Wake Technical Community College. Home work assignments for this week will be collected with the release of the next episode. If you haven’t done your assignment yet there’s still time. Just head on over to Linked In and sign up for an account. If you’ve already signed up or have an account find the CI group and join up. Say hello to our group and introduce yourself. Links for this episode include: Linked...
Feb 06, 2010•11 min
Small Business Marketing Expert John Jantsch A few years ago I had the good fortune of finding John Jantsch ‘s podcast, Duct Tape Marketing Radio . John is an expert in small business marketing. His podcast and blog site have completely changed the way I think about my business and how I market myself. In this episode I talk with John about some of his marketing strategies and about his latest coaching program, Social Media Pro . I’ve recently completed the course and highly recommend it. John d...
Jan 19, 2010•21 min
In this episode, we conclude our discussion of LinkedIn by leaving the realm of the personal profile and looking into the many features that Linked In offers for network, for promoting yourself, for promoting you business, and job searching. Topics covered this episode: Inviting your friends and colleagues. Finding people on LinkedIn Using LinkedIn’s Search Setting up contact options Finding and Joining Groups Starting Groups The Creative Independence group on Linked In Job Search Job Posting Qu...
Jan 11, 2010•1 hr 6 min
Chris and Bob take a look at Linked In . This episode is the first in a two part series showcasing the many features available on Linked In. Once you’ve listened to the show please visit Linked In and join the CI group . Don’t forget to let us know you heard us on the show. As always thanks for listening and Pod On. In Part 1 of our in-depth discussion on setting up yourself on Linked In, Bob and Chris walk through a number of key features including: Signing Up Setting up your Business Card Sett...
Jan 07, 2010•46 min
As Bob and I continue to roll out the new Creative Independence Network, we’ve reached a point where if we wanted to split the Creative Independence feed from the Answers for Freelancers! feed, that now would be the ideal time to do it. So, we did. Overall, things are looking good. iTunes has updated the feed to not only point to the new location, but the show is also indexed correctly in the iTunes directory. Our new site, also a bit on the bare-walls-and-no-paint side, is also up and functioni...
Dec 13, 2009•22 min
Chris and I talk a little bit about some of our favorite podcasts and what we like to listen to when we’re not up to our eyeballs working on Creative Independence. We hope you’ll check out these out if you haven’t already. There are a million great podcasts out there and unfortunately we could list them all on this episode. If you have any suggestions for podcasts we haven’t listed here or mentioned on the show please add them to the comment section after this article. Don’t forget to leave a br...
Nov 25, 2009•37 min
This episode, Bob and Chris talk about the business applications of social media: promotion, networking, community and lead generation. The social media scene is so big that there’s no way we can touch on everything, but we can definitely talk about some of the more relevant types of tools available, and we can certainly list a bunch of them below. The categories below are very general guidelines, especially when you consider that many of the tools really blur the lines and could easily fit into...
Nov 05, 2009•49 min
This is an interview you will not want to miss. Bob sits down with Carlos Castellanos the co-creator of the syndicated comic strip Baldo . A big fan of Michael Gerber, Carlos talks about his experiences with freelancing and business ownership. If you are interested in learning more about Carlos and some of the websites he talks about on the show please check out these links: Baldo Comics Website Carlos on Twitter Drawn by Success Carlos The post CI 207: An Interview with Carlos Castellanos first...
Oct 16, 2009•51 min
Bob and Chris conclude the discussion on Mind Mapping your business before you start working on it by asking you to start thinking a bit outside the actual business and start thinking about the type of lifestyle you want your business to provide to you. The bottom line, if you want a certain style of life and your business’ direction doesn’t seem to be getting you there, then we may need to rethink how things are going. Then moving on, once you have figured out what you want your business to be,...
Oct 01, 2009•34 min
Following up on last week’s assignment to find and start playing around with Mind Mapping software, Bob and Chris start putting your newfound Mind mapping skills to use. We go over two fundamental concepts of reinventing yourselves and redefining your businesses; personal influences and business models. You can see our map here . Sign up for a free MindMeister account here: Business Influences: Personal Interests Personal Abilities Spheres of Knowledge Personal Networks Other People who might jo...
Sep 14, 2009•44 min
Chris and Bob cut the fluff and get right down to it. Chris kicks off with an update on his site Intelligent Acne Treatment.com . He talks about rebuilding his credibility with his costumers when a competitor posts a questionable review on a public forum. Bob checks everybody’s homework and picks up from where we left off last episode. What’s in a name? Chris explains the importance in selecting the right name for your business. Bob talks about getting scooped and the cost of re-branding. Chris ...
Sep 02, 2009•43 min
Chris and Bob catch up on old times. Seems the guys have been pretty busy with Chris launching his new site intelligentacnetreatment.com and Bob hard at work on his ( bobostromstudio.com ). Bob talks about the tutorial videos he’s been working on with Burning Oak Studio and Jerry’s Artarama . Chris brings us up to date on his new site launch and some of the obstacles he’s overcome to get the new site ready. The guys talk about future plans for the CI/A4F site and putting together a series of sho...
Aug 12, 2009•41 min
Chris and Bob learn about licensing with artist Tara Reed Tara Reed . Artist Tara Reed followed a twisting and turning path to where she is today: a mom, an artist who has her own business licensing her art and teaching other artists what licensing is all about and how to do it. An artist by passion and not education – Tara has a degree in Marketing and sold college textbooks after graduating and before starting her family and becoming a stay-at-home mom. Fast forward 10 years: Tara became a “pr...
Apr 29, 2009•39 min
Just a catch up show with a little mail bag, some catch up of how things are going with Chris’ new business and a few other odds and ends. We hope you enjoy it! Opening: Chris blows the opening by double-clicking on his Wacom tablet, and then the dynamic dou lament the loss of several episodes of season 1. —– Letter from @DavilaDraws: We open with a letter from freelance illustrator and designer, Topher Davila from http://inkedideas.com/ and http://daviladraws.com/ Chris’ wonderfully tom-boyish ...
Jan 24, 2009•33 min
Welcome to the second episode of illustrator Bob Ostrom’s and multimedia designer Chris Wilson’s new show, Creative Independence! The goal of this show is to explore and highlight the many and varied ways that intelligent and creative people are using their talents to create and run businesses that generage income in ways that are fulfilling and often do not include billing for hourly, project or any other pay per work rate. We hope you enjoy it! Opening: Chris and Bob are experiencing technical...
Dec 20, 2008•26 min
Welcome one and all to the first ever episode of Bob Ostrom’s and Chris Wilson’s new show, Creative Independence! The goal of the show is to explore and highlight the many and varied ways that intelligent and creative people are using their talents to create and run businesses that generate income that does not include billing for hourly, project or any other rate. We hope you enjoy it! Opening: Chris is all over the mic with a cold and Bob apologizes about having completely dissed the twitterve...
Oct 07, 2008•32 min
This episode is a repost from our classic Answers for Freelancers feed. This episode is #4 from the third season, and is officially our final episode of Answers for Freelancers. With this episode, we discuss why we decided to take the show out of ‘freelancing’ and into a more entrepreneurial direction. Well, you’ve all waited patiently for months for us to return, only to find that this is our final episode. The truth is, after 3 years (more of less) of talking about freelancing, its time we mov...
Sep 16, 2008•29 min
This episode is a repost from our classic Answers for Freelancers feed that we felt highly impacted the decision to start Creative Independence. This episode is #9 from the first season. In episode 8, we interviewed renowned business guru Michael Gerber, who had some very interesting thoughts on the very nature and business viability of freelancing. Michael’s remarks sparked some heated debates between Ken, Bob and Chris. So much so, that even before posting Michael’s interview, we knew we were ...
Dec 03, 2006•43 min
This episode is a repost from our classic Answers for Freelancers feed that we felt highly impacted the decision to start Creative Independence. This episode is #8 from the first season. Michael Gerber, author, entrepreneur, and acclaimed business consultant, talks to us about what happens when Freelancers are ready to start growing their business into a true company; the kind of business that allows the owner to touch the world in a way that is truly meaningful and allows him the freedom to pur...
Nov 20, 2006•30 min
