Skipping down the escalator at Montgomery BART station, I saw people below moving toward the siding. The train must be already there. I descended even faster, catching the train in partial view to my left. A door was open. Touching down on the platform, I turned immediately left and went for the door on the nearer end of the car. It started to close. By the time I reached it, there was not enough room to get through.

Before I could swear, I thrust both arms through the diminishing space. The doors caught them, but I pushed outward just enough to slither my body through.

“Damn, that’s about as late as you could be and still be on this train!” said an African American woman in the second row back. I plunked myself down on a seat in front of her, next to a guy holding his bike against the wall with his knees.

“Yea, called that one close, didn’t I? Now I just hope I’m on the right train!” I hadn’t actually had time to look. If it was the wrong one, I could get off at Embarcadero before it hit the tunnel under the San Francisco Bay.

“Where do you want to be goin’?” she asked.

“Dublin.”

“Then you’re in luck!” She laughed, and I relaxed. I’d been walking fast since my android app told me I had ten minutes to make the distance from North Beach to Market. I’d jogged the last three blocks. Entering the BART subterraineum, I had decided to forego the hope my existing ticket had the minimum fare left and shoved a five dollar bill into the ticket machine. All these decisions, each one, was critical, as I had zero seconds extra. Whew! I removed my jacket and wiped the sweat from my forehead, sliding my hand along my pants in a not-so-clandestine transfer. Whew, indeed!

Reinserting my ipod earbuds, I recounted the evening. It had been good. I’d learned what TransMedia was: a new buzzword that signified a blended media platform, like the old Multimedia on steroids and interconnected real time. Twenty years earlier, I’d taken up with the MDG, Multimedia Development Group, to explore that new twist. Tonight, it was transmediasf.org, celebrating its first anniversary of heralding this new mix of storytelling, video production and social media marketing.

It was an informative meeting, with a storyteller in this new genre describing the basic tenants: values, expressed through a moral story with a hero, a mentor, a special talent or talisman, and an opposing villain. Audience engagement was paramount, with games, apps and social media chiming in to wire everything together in a story that is not only told but cooperatively created.

Years back I had wished for stories with multiple endings, selectable by the viewer. Multimedia had eventually risen to this challenge, and more recently, DVDs offered first extra footage and then alternative final scenes. Yet only games had pushed through to allow fully interactive changes in the plot – even if just to determine how long your character lived. I’d never gotten into the games, though; so I didn’t know how far that really went.

With this new media, the story could unfold and evolve far beyond the vision of its creator, as voluntary participants joined in the conversation. Like commenters on posts and tweets, augmenting authors could add to the tale. How one kept them in line with the basic them and within the believable realms of plot was beyond me; yet the tools were there for experimentation.

What I most liked with this new medium, or media set, was the prime focus on storytelling. As a short story writer myself, I was finally finding a valued place in all this social media-advertising-marketing mashup. I was not a programmer, a web designer, an ad man or a data-hungry marketer. I was the idea man, the concept creator, the spinner of webs, the story teller. Here, it seemed, was a place for me to contribute – not by learning some new programming language or marketing mobile ad placements, but by writing.

My MBA would be useful in any kind of business, but tonight’s discussion touched on psychology, my undergraduate degree. I chided myself for not asking that question about Maslow’s Hierarchy. The presenter used it to say that our heroes needed to operate at a level of self-actualization. The issue I wanted to raise was that Maslow stipulated that self-actualization could not occur until the lower items in the hierarchy, like basic food and shelter, were met. I’d been feeling that myself in these lean years, as the necessity of feeding and housing self and family seriously interfered with writing. Yet a fellow I’d met at a screenwriter’s group had cogently stated the three elements of a good script: character has inner flaw; character faces obstacle; character overcomes obstacle by resolving his inner flaw. It applied to so many great movies. The conflict was that Maslow’s demand for self-actualization completely overshot the basic story line of a character working through his flaws.

As I had chosen a seat in the front row, I happened to be seated right next to the speaker. I postulated this to him after the event had been brought to a close. But I wished I had held my hand up in those last open moments, when the MC was hesitating a second, considering a “last” last question. I longed to have made my observation public, so as to draw the interest of skilled individuals who might be attending the startup weekend event in a few days – an event I had just heard about and decided to join.

The objective: make a compelling transmedia project in one weekend. Get together on Friday night to discuss projects and join a team; work all weekend developing the story and all the supporting technology; present on Sunday night to a panel of local media judges. This was just the sort of thing I’d been looking for, as my resume would never rise to the top of a pile of job applications.

Since my demise with a pre-IPO startup in the dot-bust era, I’d never re-engaged in the corporate or even medium sized business world. I’d covered the early years of “back to construction” in the resume by inserting a Business Development Consulting gig. I still held the title of CEO in my unsuccessful attempt to turn around a failing map publishing business, now limping along from an address that was the same as my home. I’d absorbed the hits of multiple recessions without inching up on any of the rebounds.

Those who had were now in the enviable positions of being much sought after “experts” with but a few years of experience in an industry itself less than a decade old. New twists such as real time auctioning of ad space seemed to describe a virtual world on the other side of a significant barrier – not an impenetrable one, but one requiring months of study just to speak the lingo. Mastering that, I would still not have the direct experience.

Yet when I met with people, and especially when I worked with them in a contrived group challenge or through a complex discussion, I almost always impressed. Afterward, they approached, asked for business cards, congratulated. But entrepreneurs were not hiring other entrepreneurs. My general management talents did not fit the slots they needed to fill, nor did my requirement for said food and shelter meet with their bootstrap budgets.

Thus I had come to the conclusion of saying “fuck it” to marketing and even business development jobs. I would explore the possibility of finding a job where writing and creative concepts would bring value, a job where I, as a short story writer, could craft a story that would help a brand or communicate a message, inspire an audience or lead to action. Lofty and self-delusional as this goal was, I had nothing better to pursue; so why not?

And here, under the ambassadorial auspices of a Swiss communications consultancy, was a new media gathering, a reshuffling of creative individuals in one of the world’s most creative cities. Story telling plus technology: this could be perfect for me! Now I just had to show someone my stuff, to demonstrate that of which I was capable, to impress with content and creativity, not marketing and programming. This was my shot.

The subject of the TransMedia project was announced: “the city.” The two locales I’d always known as “the city” were either New York or San Francisco. The judges were local to San Francisco and environs. “So it’s ‘San Francisco,’ right?” I asked one of the organization’s personnel. She did not want to limit: “the city,” was all she offered. Fine, more room for us to do the interpretation.

As I prepared to leave the meeting, I remembered a conflict for this perfect weekend. I was presenting a short story to my writing group on Saturday in Palo Alto. I absolutely couldn’t miss that, but I didn’t want to give up this best-in-years career opportunity either. I consulted Justin near the door. Having talked earlier with him about the weekend, I asked if there would be a problem with my taking a few hours off. After all, it was for a story-creating event!

“That should be okay. Just tell the people on your team that you have to duck out for a few hours; make sure they’re good with it.” Sounded workable.

I left; I looked at my watch: “8:56.” I’d checked the BART app: “9:06.” And here I sat, on BART, hurtling underneath the Bay at 9:13 PM on a Monday night. A week from now, I would look back and recall how this story unfolded, all begun by a curiosity about a meetup on a beguiling subject with the name, TransMedia.

james chandler