About
Okay, so what do I say about MythoSpheres Development? Or about myself?
Well, what do you want to know?
The long, verbose, honest version follows, but if you prefer the shorter, spun version (in bold blue), simply skip to the bottom of this page by clicking here.
Otherwise, at the risk of saying too much and losing about 80% of you (but it's usually the other 20% that are really worth knowing anyway, right?), I'm going to be fairly conversational here. I'm just another person, so why not sound like one?
(I know, I know, most everything these days is spin. I've played the game, too, for years. Sometimes I still do, and putting on the dizzy is especially expected when you're promoting yourself or your business, but aren't you sick to death of it? I sure am.)
Okay, first item, my first name is Richard and my last name is Farley, and I am in the habit of referring to myself as 'Richard D. Farley' (my middle name is David), but I don't do it to sound formal. I started it back when I was a kid because there were other Richard Farleys in my family, an uncle and a cousin. It's a bit pointless, and I realize now it always was, but I didn't understand that then, and so, old habits are hard to break, and I will probably continue to refer to myself as 'Richard D. Farley' at least for the foreseeable future.
Sorry, went off on a tangent there.
This is an old picture of me. I will try to update this with something more recent sometime soon.
Next item, before I get around to giving you a bit more background information about, er, Richard D. Farley, let me begin by confessing that, although my emphasis here on this site will be on internet marketing, I am certainly not an internet marketing guru. I have had some modest success at it from time to time, but it is only very recently that I've begun to make marketing on the internet a priority (the existence of this website being some of the proof of that).
A little more about good ol' me in a minute (assuming you are still be interested, oh, about 60 seconds from now).
Next item, why do I call my company MythoSpheres Development? What's it mean, and isn't it a strange thing to call a company?
Well, there are some pretty strangely named companies around, but yeah, I suppose it is. So how do I explain it?
To begin, I've had an almost life-long interest in writing, or more specifically, fiction writing, and over the years that interest has led to a growing fascination with the concepts of story and mythology in general. In recent years I've gradually come to realize that everyone is a story teller, in one sense or another — even the writers and scribes of many of the world's religious traditions, just for example, made ample use of the telling of stories — and not only that realization, but also a realization that the quality of my life, or really, the quality of all our lives I think, has very much to do with the stories and mythologies we weave around ourselves and those around us.
That understanding is one of the primary reasons I chose, for the company's slogan, the phrase 'because imagination is everything,' because I am gradually coming to believe, collectively and individually, it is who we imagine we are and are becoming, and what we imagine we are capable of, that ultimately determine our destinies. (Well, okay, maybe not entirely, but to a greater degree than most of us generally acknowledge.)
Add to all this an opportunity several years ago to write for a software company about, of all things, mythology, and, well, you see where this is going, don't you?
Although I never finished that series of articles due to that company selling out to another owner, I had nevertheless come up with a title for the series of articles, "Music of the MythoSpheres." This was, of course, a play on the Pythagorean concept of the music of the spheres. So when I felt that I needed a new name for my company, the name MythoSpheres was a given, and since I wasn't exactly sure what my emphasis was going to be at the time, or even why I would want to artificially limit the endeavor, the word Development came quickly after.
So there you have it, MythoSpheres Development.
It might mean story development, or video game development, or it might mean software development, or website development, or business development, or even personal development, i.e., personal improvement, human potential, that sort of thing.
It might even mean several or all of those things. That's certainly how things seem to be shaping up at the moment.
Next item, or back to the previous subject about, er, Richard D. Farley, and why you might want to consider doing business with me. As I said, I am not an internet marketing guru, and unlike about 99% of those guys, I'm not even doing this because I'm trying to get fabulously wealthy. Of course I went through that acquisitive stage when I was very young. I am, after all, a born and bred American. But I quickly discovered I cared a lot more about doing satisfying work than making a lot of money, sometimes even to my financial detriment. (You can ask my ex-wife about that!)
So the having-lots-of-money thing is quite okay if it happens, but I'm a creative sort at heart. I'm a thinker, writer, graphic artist and sometime coder at heart, and I'd probably be doing that exclusive of marketing except that I prefer to intuit and invest my energies in my own projects (as opposed to the more usual route of just being a hired hand), and when you do that sort of thing, because you have, from time to time, your own products and services to sell, you have to actively seek out potential customers and clients to keep food on the table, and a roof over your head, and so on… so, you know, I'm just out to make a decent living doing, mostly and hopefully, the creative kind of work I most enjoy.
So to sum up, I'm not a marketing guru, and I'm not seeking untold wealth so, while I have had some modest success marketing on the internet and I'll no doubt try to sell you on this or that if you stick around very long, I have a whole lot less incentive to lie to you or spin everything the way a lot of marketers do.
So that's a reason why you might want to consider doing business with me.
In fact, I intend here to be so honest about my real thoughts and feelings about the internet marketing business that I know I may be at risk of making some enemies out of some other marketers at some point, and as such, I am seriously considering whether or not to make this a membership-only site.
Clearly, such an arrangement would not assuage any hurt feelings or the hurt reputations of these other marketers, but it would at least spare them the humiliation of being called out in public amongst the most casual and superficial of observers.
Obviously, I haven't decided yet, but if it happens, these pages may, within an instant, disappear without a trace and without notice, and if you haven't signed up by then to be notified, you might just miss out.
So sign up now; and don't worry; I hate spam, so I won't spam you; I won't give away, or sell, your information to anyone; and this is not the opt-in, so-you-can-be-inundated-with-my-daily-marketing-promotions sort of list. I may send you an email now and again, but I expect them to be fairly rare, and only when I feel I have something truly compelling to tell you about.
Another reason is that most of my modest success with internet marketing has come less as a result of hard selling than, in a sense, practically predicting a lot of what has come to pass in the last 10 years or so. It would seem I saw it coming before some other folks did.
Back around 1998, for example, before social media became all the rage, while doing some computer tutoring and consulting, I started (though have never finished) developing what was intended to be a social media application (primarily for writers and researchers). Unfortunately, some health and personal problems got in the way, so the project never really got off the ground. Kind of the story of my life in a nutshell. (Some stripped-down version of that application may be released sometime soon, though the original intent, i.e., the social media aspect of it, may be all but pointless now.)
Another example — back in 1996, I published an article on my website that, if you read it — although it will depend somewhat on how familiar you are with the concept of affiliate marketing — you will see predicted a whole lot of what has transpired since.
I'm not bringing this up to brag. If anything, it is my shame — because, although I saw it coming, I didn't do nearly enough about it. (But that's a whole 'nuther story, involving all sorts of unpleasantness that I won't get into right now.) No, I bring it up because it is another something you might want to know, and because maybe, just maybe, it says something else about me that you might want to think about when you are evaluating whether or not you might want to seriously consider my advice, or whether or not there might be any advantage in doing business with me, now, or even on some other day.
I am not now particularly proud of the layout or design of that article's web page. The truth is I didn't focus much on that at the time. I just wanted to get the article done and get my take on the future of the internet "out there" for my clients; and I am even tempted to apologize for taking so many words to say what might sound like a lot of hyperbole, but if you like, you can read it here just as it was originally published (mistakes, bad formatting and all) back in 1996:
If your browser doesn't support frames, Click Here, then use your browser's Back button to return to this page.
Did you read it? Wow. And this, too? Wow. You're quite the reader, aren't you? And I really overdid it with all that hype, didn't I?
Or did I?
Hmm, given that at the time, affiliate marketing was next to nothing, and today it is a multi-billion dollar industry, I guess not so much. It is in fact arguable that much of what I said then is even more true today.
So once upon a time I had a little vision. Big deal. But that's not the end of the story. I was actually a bit of a visionary even before this. (Okay, I'm a little uncomfortable with the word 'visionary' — but I don't know what else to call it; ever notice how hard it is to talk about your strengths or talents without sounding thoroughly full of yourself? Anyway…) I was an advocate for hypertext, knowledge-based expert systems back in the 1980's, before the world wide web took the world by storm. Frank, do you remember? In 1979, I bought my first personal computer (at Radio Shack) and told a very skeptical friend of mine at the time that within 10 years nearly everyone would be using them, at work, at home, whatever. You should have heard it. I look back now and realize I said it with such enthused conviction I must've sounded like a nut.
And back around 1976 or so, when I was about 18 years old, I told my father he should invest in a brand new company called Genentech, a company that had just developed, through genetic engineering, a microbe for manufacturing human insulin.
I'd read about it in Science News magazine and just had the feeling that it was going to be big.
Unfortunately, my father did not invest, and I wasn't a stock market guy, and didn't have much in the way of money, and I guess I was a bit too naive in those days to understand that I could have invested what little I had myself, or… in any case, it just never occurred to me for some reason.
You might not know this, but a $5,000 investment in Genentech back around 1977 would be worth very many millions of dollars today — many, many, many millions.
Woe is me and darn my old dad.
No. I don't mean the darn part. God rest his soul. He was a professional inventor, and a very good man, and all the hard times since have no doubt made me a far better human being than I ever would've been if that kind of wealth had come so easily.
So, back on topic, I guess lots of folks around have similar stories, and have had similar insights, and — well, I guess most of them are very rich today.
Wait. Really?
Well, it's certainly the case of Bill Gates, and some others, but the point is, I've always taken in a lot of information and have creative and critical thoughts about that information sometimes, and I have a bit of a track record of occasionally seeing things that are coming a little before a lot of others do (sometimes even when I don't realize that's what I'm doing), and if any of that sounds like I'm blowing my own horn, hey, cut me some slack. I really don't have a lot materially (the only thing too many in this culture seem to value) to show for my life at this point, so at least let me ponder about what might've been if I'd been a little less naive or a little more self-aware.
It's not like I'm coming across as arrogant about it, is it?
I hope not. Because seeing what is coming, for however much it may be potentially worth, isn't much good without acting on that understanding, and for various reasons, e.g., because I was naive, because much of my life I often wasn't very monetarily oriented or really looking for ways to profit from it, or whatever, I've kind of come out — at least from that all-too-familiar, American, money-is-everything perspective — the big capital-L "Loser" in all of this.
But maybe not exactly. I've had some fun along the way. Some creative satisfaction, some interesting experiences and some very interesting and exceptional friends. I've written and published a novel, have two more in progress (at least one of which is — fingers croxxed — surely destined to be a bestseller!; yeah, well, one can dream…), have done a little illustration and graphic design along the way, have won a few awards, worked as a CAD draftsman, an editor, a copywriter, a technical writer, a graphic designer and a software developer, and of course working at all this various internet marketing stuff. And, best of all, I can look at myself in the mirror in the morning and know that through all the hard knocks I've come to some understandings and conclusions about life, and about people, and about this ol' world and how it works, that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Anyway, none of the above constitutes a resume or curriculum vitae or biography. None of it clues you in as to all my various jobs, challenges, triumphs and tragedies. Maybe I'll get around to posting something about this or that success or failure at some point, if and when that seems necessary or appropriate, but let me just say for now that it's been a helluva ride and just leave things there for the time being.
The point is, today is what is most important. And tomorrow. Everything else is just prologue.
And focusing on today and tomorrow brings me to the next item — my mission, or the mission statement of MythoSpheres Development.
To wit, here it is then: I don't have one.
Okay, not exactly. I haven't worked that particular story all out yet. But it's something to do with helping others grow even as I grow, and helping others maximize their potentials even as I strive to maximize my own. It has to do with publishing, and software development, and website development, and personal development, and marketing, and educating and entertaining and inspiring and being as helpful to people as I know how to be, and trying to bring and maintain my own sense of integrity and communal effort and, yes, I will say it — on hopefully more than rare occasions, my vision — to my business, and my associates, and your business, and your associates, to these things called the internet, called website development, called web publishing, or net promotion, or social media, and, well, this whole big shebang called life.
So… if any of that sounds like something you think you might want to be a part of, sign up now just to secure your place in it. And to reiterate the above, no worries; I hate spam; I won't let your information fall into anyone else's hands; and this is not the be-inundated-with-my-daily-marketing-promotions list. I expect any communications from me to be fairly rare, and only when I have something compelling to say.
Otherwise, I hope you'll check back sometime. That way, if and when I flesh that mission statement out a little better, you'll be among the first to know. Who knows? You might decide to join with me after all?
Meanwhile, here's a few last dizzy words that, perhaps, sound ever so slightly more businessy:
MythoSpheres Development (formally known as, IdeaTech Creative Technologies), in one form or another, has been on the "net" for more than 25 years.* The enterprise administers, programs and publishes information, content, and design for various web sites with an emphasis on education, entertainment, health, and personal and business development.
While, by choice, it has often been a one- (or a very few)-person operation, there have been friends and associates along the way, a few of whom can still be called upon for assistance for special projects or when deadlines get tight. MythoSpheres Development, in a former incarnation, has published entertainment and software products in the past, and its principals hope to bring more products to market in the future. Though as of October 2009, this particular site represents a new side of the business and the content is only beginning, we hope you enjoy your stay! Our ultimate mission is to help you grow with us and maximize your personal and business potential in every way imaginable.
Because imagination really is everything.
* Technically, the online experience began with the old locally owned bulletin board systems (BBS), and the commercial experience, before the world wide web came into existence, selling and distributing AutoCAD shareware software utilities through CompuServe.