With a year and a half of progress under Cyan Pictures‘ belt, I’m doing what any aspiring mogul would: expanding the empire. Adding to the indie film end of things, I’ll be slowly piecing together Cyan Publishing and Cyan Records, sibling book and music companies, under a broader Cyan Arts banner. I’m still piecing together business plans for both organizations, but they, like Cyan Pictures, will be built around five simple core beliefs:

1. Art isn’t just important, it’s also effective, as one of the best ways to make people think, ask questions, and look at the world and themselves in new ways.
2. The goal of art, then, should be to make as many people think as much as possible. That means art that’s either good or popular isn’t sufficient; art needs to be both.
3. Technology can be a powerful tool, both in creating art and in bringing it into people’s lives. Too many companies are wasting time hiding from new technologies, or actively fighting them, rather than searching for ways to harness them productively.
4. While established voices should always have a chance to continue expressing themselves, it’s also crucially important to find and showcase emerging ones.
5. Artists and customers both prefer to deal with companies that have a sense of integrity and a sense of fun, companies that do the right thing, and have a good time doing it.

For a number of reasons, I’ve always kept this blog relatively business-free, but it’s a policy I’m hereby officially changing (with apologies to readers who’ll be bored to tears by work-related posts). In the next couple of months, as these companies come together (and as, in my parallel non-profiteer life, the Indigo Foundation notches things up), you’ll hear about it here first.

Time to get to work.