My Exciting New Career Chapter

Career Prototyping

In my career coaching, I use a design thinking methodology to help people craft an authentic career – similar to the method that Bill Burnett talks about in Designing Your Life. In the book, Burnett describes prototyping a career to see if it is a good fit. Over the past few years, I have been doing that for myself, in prototyping a coaching practice as well as a business in Galeryst which I built during a sabbatical while working at Microsoft in 2021.

An old Bulldozer in Sonoma

Generative AI

After leaving Microsoft earlier this year, I jumped into the world of Generative AI, joining Typeface as a product manager. At Typeface, I saw the awesome power and potential of generative AI when applied to creating content for sales and marketing. Using AI, Typeface gave marketers a creative super power. While at Typeface, Galeryst took a back burner for my creative energy, but the site still grew on autopilot with new galleries and subscribers, proving that people and organizations want a way to easily create 3D virtual galleries in the metaverse from their art collections.

Artwork generated by AI (trained on my watercolors) placed in a virtual gallery.

Being exposed to Generative AI during this time, my creative ideas multiplied, especially around ways that I could use the technology to enhance and improve Galeryst which procedurally generates galleries from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom albums. Generative AI could super-charge Galeryst across many aspects of creating, sharing, and browsing art galleries. Seeing this amazing potential, I wanted to focus my creative energy on playing with the technology: experimenting, building, crafting, and collaborating with developers, technologists, artists, photographers, and gallerists. So, this week I left Typeface to go out on my own hoping to grow Galeryst with this transformative technology.

Galleries on Galeryst.com

A Mission

I found that while creating (drawing | painting | photography | modeling | coding), I also had a driving urge to help others create and be creative. I best articulated this in a personal mission statement that rounds out my style of creativity with coaching and mentoring as well:

I discover and craft connections linking creative processes that delight me with technologies that fascinate me, sharing the results to inspire and motivate others.

San Rafael Farmer’s Market

An Ensemble Career

Being true to that mission, my next career chapter will be an ensemble of activities including:

  • Improving and enhancing Galeryst with Generative AI, XR, and other exciting technologies
  • Coaching and mentoring people at all stages of their careers
  • Creating more artwork and exploring other creative mediums
  • Collaborating with technologists and artists to create beautiful works
  • Consulting around Software, Media, and Creative Workflows with Entertainment Technologists
Keenan on the Kora at San Rafael Farmer’s Market

Seeking Fellow Travelers

I am always looking for fellow travelers on this journey to create with, to build with, to inspire, and be inspired by:

Michael in his creation studio
Michael Scherotter in his creation studio