I met Shaunna about 9 years ago at the Blissdom blog conference and we hit it off almost immediately.  As fellow “furniture girls”, we knew of each other, but we hadn’t connected until that event.  Since then, we’ve been like peas and carrots.

We’ve done speaking engagements together, taught workshops on paint and creative business, and were vendor neighbors at the Chapel Market.  We’ve been a sounding board for each other and have, for years, talked about various business ventures together.  One of them did get up off the ground – The Parsons West paintbrush.

But life happened and those ships crossed in the night every other time.  Until now.

I am beyond thrilled to introduce you to something we’ve been working on over the past few months – The Creative Exponent!

It has taken us so long to launch it because the concept kept growing and evolving.  What started as an idea to make one creative business courses together turned into three courses, a blog, social media channels, and a podcast!  The scope of what we wanted to talk about also broadened.  We initially thought our “offerings” would be all about creative business, but as we worked through why we were doing this and what we wanted to say, we realized it was about creativity in general.  We wanted to be champions for the creativity that we believe is in everyone.

So, The Creative Exponent was born.  We puzzled out the name for weeks and when we found the word “exponent”, the puzzling was over.  We found the way to concisely express what we’re about.

Exponent means “a person who believes in and promotes the truth or benefits of an idea or theory” and it’s also “a quantity representing the power to which a given number or expression is to be raised, usually expressed as a raised symbol beside the number or expression (e.g. 3 in 2³ = 2 × 2 × 2).”  In short, it’s a multiplier.

Are you following?  Do you see how both definitions are beautifully appropriate?

From there, the color palette, branding, and message fell into place…

We just needed to dig in, do the work, and bring it all to life.  I can’t even tell you how much work we’ve put into this, but I can assure you, it’s been hours upon hours of collaborating, writing, reading, filming, and editing.  It’s been stretching ourselves to learn the completely new-to-us world of voice recording and podcasting.  And it’s been hundreds of conversations about creativity…diving deep into why we are so passionate about it and how we can harness that passion and share it with others.

Here are the details about how you can be a part of The Creative Exponent…

THE PODCAST

Our podcast was approved by iTunes last week, which was the final step that needed to happen before we could officially launch The Creative Exponent.  The first four episodes are available to listen to!  You can listen and subscribe HERE.

I am very blessed to have a brother who owns a recording studio (Pinewave Studio) and is a meticulous sound engineer, so he helped Shaunna and I with picking out quality gear and taught me how to use ProTools (a professional sound mixing/editing software) to edit our recordings.  He even took the time to create custom templates for our voices, so they sound their best.

And, as the owner of a studio, my brother knows lots of musicians and paired us with Elly Swope of A Walker Spring to write and perform our theme song.  It feels pretty special to have our own theme song, I must say!

We are still learning about recording…like I need to turn my mini-split AC to quiet mode and Shaunna needs to kick Ollie (her dog) out of her studio while we’re recording, so you can’t hear the click of his nails on the floor when he’s resituating himself.  And I’m hunting and pecking my way through YouTube tutorials on ProTools, so I can do a better job addressing those issues in the editing.

But, I’m proud of the sound given that we’re just learning and the fact that we’re having to put together two separate voice tracks since we’re 1,000 miles apart!  And I’m proud of the content.  I listened to the first two episodes on my walk the other day and the other two while I was running errands.  I actually laughed out loud a few times while grocery shopping and yes, I realize the level of dork happening when I’m laughing at my own podcast.  Anyway, I feel like we made the kind of podcast I want to listen to and all of the work is paying off!

My mom gave it five stars and a glowing review, so that should count for a lot.    She’s not partial at all.

We will be releasing episodes every week, so subscribe if you want a creative pick-me-up.

And, it means a lot to iTunes and the success of a podcast when people leave reviews and ratings, so please take 30 seconds to do that to support us, if you enjoy the podcast.  (If you think it’s worthy of one star, then just keep that to yourself!  I’m just kidding.)

Again, you can listen, subscribe, leave ratings, and reviews HERE.

 

THE COURSES

We currently have three courses available on The Creative Exponent site and each one includes videos, written portions, PDF printable worksheets and checklists, and some homework for each session.

One is a FREE course on being or becoming a Creative Exponent.  There is a lot of encouragement as well as action items to discover, uphold, and share your creativity.

We have two 2-week (14 day) courses, one on Turning Your Creativity into a Business and one on Establishing Your Brand Voice.  There are a lot of “make money online fast” courses out there as well as ones that focus on the technical side of this business.  These courses are not that.  We wanted them to be as timeless as possible and address the foundations of these topics.  These courses are encouraging, practical, informative, and fun.  We do a lot of laughing and invite you into our mindset and strategies when it comes to creative business.

SOCIAL MEDIA

And, if that’s not enough, you can subscribe to The Creative Exponent Blog, where we’ll be sharing our favorite creative contraptions, showcasing inspiring creative workspaces, sharing our creative confessions, and introducing you to people we feel embody the idea of being a Creative Exponent.  We hope it’ll be inspiring and creatively stimulating for those who subscribe and follow along.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

The entire experience of building this venture has involved mingling fear and stomach-knotting anxiety with hope and confident anticipation.  It’s been a long time since either of us launched something completely and thoroughly new.  We’ve both expanded our businesses and tip-toed into new territory over the years, but this is a leap into a different lane and, in many ways, we’re starting from scratch.

But, passion and optimism are carrying us!  And we hope you’ll join us…