HEY MIKI

Meet me

 

Me at the Badlands, toward the end of my cross-country drive. Photo by Peter McCollough.

Miki Johnson* Connector. Communicator. Curious as hell.

I started this blog in April 2010, as I was setting out for five months of traveling, through Europe and the United States, fulfilling my lifelong desire to drive cross country, but also deciding what would be next for me personally and professionally. Now that I’m living in San Francisco again, I’m still exploring a range of professional possibilities, looking for exciting new projects and developing several of my own.

As editor of the liveBooks RESOLVE Blog, and before that as senior editor at American Photo Magazine, I both observed and experienced the recent reordering of worldwide media. While this has scared and confused some people, it excites me — my goal now is to instill that excitement in people who might otherwise be confused and scared.

Connector
Humans crave connections. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the blogosphere simply make connecting exponentially easier. They can also make it overwhelming. I’ve seen the power of these connections first-hand, so I am working to help people harness their connections without being overwhelmed by them.

Communicator
I’ve always loved writing, and a journalism degree from Northwestern University taught me to do it well, but my true passion is for conversation: be it spoken, typed, or tweeted. The answers to all our questions do not lie in our millions of libraries and computer servers, they lie in the billions of human brains buzzing around them. That’s why I’m researching new ways to transfer important information from a few brains to many.

Curious as hell
I apologize for the strong language, but I’m rather vehement about this. I’ve often said there is no such thing as a media expert right now. The 20-year-old art student’s guess for what will happen next year is as good as some high-powered executive’s. But what I really mean is, WE ARE ALL EXPERTS. That’s why I ask so many questions, of everyone, all the time.

I know I’ll never succeed if I rely on “experts” to tell me what to do next. Instead, by cultivating a broad understanding of media — and the world — I can recognize good opportunities when they arise. Now I’m developing ways to empower my fellow new media professionals to find their own opportunities. Our industry will not succeed by finding a silver-bullet “sustainable business model.” It will succeed when we realize that each person must find a model that works for them — and I’m here to help them do that.

If you’d like more details about how I do that or think you might be interested in working with me, please click here. Or click here to find me wherever is convenient for you.

Want to see more of what I do and how I think?