Social Media as a Social Experiment

Ken Sheetz

I am a Hollywood filmmaker on social media hiatus. When the recession hit and film money went scarce I started BuzzBroz - The Art of Social Media services.  So named as I thought my real-life brother Fred would come to work with me in LA and leave his factory job in Wisconsin.  Fred was not up for transplanting himself, but the name stuck.

Unlike my past incarnations in business as an interior corporate architect turned real estate developer, this time around I did not want to focus on large corporate work.  I'd done that gig, as a driven man doing a billion in biz, creating the headquarters for Target Stores, Allied Mills, Chase Bank Chicago (Then Manny Hanny), huge law firms like Bell Boyd & LLoyd and the topper, Oprah's Harpo Studios.

Working at a smaller relaxed more human scale however proved challenging.  Convincing people of the value of social media's power wasn't the only hard part.  People are flat out tight on cash with the banks sitting on all we taxpayers gave them to horde.  Don't get me started on politics!  I love poking fun at politicians on my hit Kids Talk Politics channel, cruising for 2 million views by year end.

But I prevailed in the "jobless recovery" (talk about political BS) by cutting my lifestyle to Spartan.  I traded in my luxury wheels for a bike, and lost 30 pounds in the bargain.  I gave up my apartment, after finding a home for my little chihuahua, and began bartering for rooms in return for social media. And the social experiment of barter for social media was born.

The barter experiment has proven a huge challenge at times. Not everyone gets the value of clicks for a room.  At times I've worked so hard earning the roof over my head I don't create the time to earn money for basics like food and medicine.

That's my fault not the barter system.  I love happy clients, but I need to worry about a happy Ken going forward.  I've started a new YouTube channel today called The Zen of Ken.  I hope you'll check it out.  I can vlog there more freely than on my Imagitv, DiscoverMe, BuzzBroz, KidsTalk Politics, and DreamShield2012 channels with over 3 million views in combination.

Happily, I've settled into my best barter for living space yet at BushWillows. It's an amazing place I have here with a private balcony overlooking the Shadow Hills, north of LA.  Here's a comedic video I shot on the amazing property.

Deluxe!  Yes, the experiment is working.  After 11.11.11 I will begin traveling to other countries in this fashion staying at resorts, joined by my DreamShield partner, a master of scared ceremony, Laura De Leon.
To give you an overview of how this social media work all took an amazing turn for the spiritual I'd not foreseen, my first featured video on The Zen of Ken is from a speech I gave last year.  The 10.10.10 DreamShield event that grew out of a vision while on social media assignment I had in Italy of angels, very special ET angels, who set me on a mission of fostering social media to help reduce 2012 fears spawned by mainstream media.

I don't know where this life changing vision came from or the dozens of others visiosn I've had since and which I blog about at DreamShield on WordPress.  Could it be angels or my Overactive imagination (name of my film company), UFOs, cell phones scrambling our brains or simply too much coffee causing the visions?

Who cares?  I've learned over the last year it doesn't really matter.  People are comforted by the vision I had in Italy of a gentle 2012 and want to play with us, meditate with us on a better tomorrow.  This world needs to change, and social media, and how it connects us as a world, is, more than ever, a part of that change.

Namaste

New Sheetz Documentary Announced

Morgan Spurlock led the way as the subject of his own documentary on the fast food world with SUPER SIZE me.  Now, as one of the leaders of 2012 experience called DreamShield, I am about to travel to Chicago to raise money for a doc.

What makes this doc, working title GATEWAY TO 2012, for the planetary meditations we doing leading to 2012, not the end of the world according to the angelic voices whispering in my ear, is I will be sharing amazing visions I am having in these powerful meditations and exporing where they might be coming from and what the heck they might mean to me personally, those I love and the world.

Update: It's late 2014 as I write this and I've been away from this blog for 2 years working on an incredible project for Dr. Patrick Flanagan called the NEO Neurophone.  More to follow.

MJ and KW

Am I the Michael Jordan of real estate?  I ruled the city of Chicago with over 1 billion worth of real estate deals back in the early 90's.

After a bad recession I got fed up and tried my hand at my high school dream career, filmmaking.

But like Jordan, without much in the way of funding to compete with the bigs I'm only an OK player in film, like MJ was an OK baseball player.  Jordan would return to basketball and former greatness with another championship.  Perhaps after 2012 I'll do the same and try my hand at real estate again.

BTW, sure glad I missed this past real estate cycle.

Hollywood Can Wait

Next month it will be eight years that I've been in Hollywood.
But Hollywood's on the back burner while I devote time to DreamShield which I began blogging about here but that's grown into a global phenomenon with a website and blog of its own.

Where all this growing to according to the messages I am getting from my "higher self" is to help the many light workers, busy over all the planet, do the work of raising human consciousness to be able to do the job of nurturing and protecting our world.

The mission: by 12/12/12 is to have 1 billion people meditating together for 10 seconds.

Follow what I am up to on the new blog DreamShieldorg.wordpress.com.

The Real Thing

7 Years ago when I first came to Hollywood, stars a twinkle in my blue eyes, I brought my hot off the press screenplay with me, THE REAL THING.  An action-packed dark comedy about a Coca-Cola addict.

Hero of the tale is Reverend Fear.  He's the smarmy head a drug rehab clinic. He looks down on the junkies he treats. One day Coca-Cola is discontinued and Reverend Fear then learns what it feels like not to be able to get his fix. There's a fizzy mix up as the preacher tries to buy Coca-Cola on the black market... but ends up instead with a huge shipment of, you guessed it, coke. 


Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Surprise! No Hollywood studio bit.  One lower level exec worried Coke would sue.  Doh!  Someone can be addicted to this blog if it's good enough.

What's your take?  Could Coke sue for making a fictional tale involving their product, which is perhaps in fact addictive for the sugar/corn syrup and caffeine?  Any experts out there with some free legal advice for a free can of Coke? And if Coke did sue, wouldn't that be awesome publicity?

That's why when I saw this video that lambastes every corp in America I really got a thrill.  These are the kind of ballsy in-your-face producers I need to get the script for THE REAL THING to.  Oh, and yeah, this short won the Oscar and opened Sundance.

Sip on that Coca-Cola.

Childhood Revisited for Charity

I had a father and mother who loved me, but who were both so caught up dealing with my dad's drinking issues that it left me feeling like an orphan.

So here's the very personal story of my family's troubles, told from the POV of the soul of my first house, thanks to what I learned from Connie Miller's amazing Souldrama workshops.

Please give to The Cool Change Foundation to help prevent families, like mine, from suffering needlessly.

Soul Surfing at Souldrama LBI

By Ken Sheetz

I began covering Souldrama events around the world just a few short months ago thanks to my BuzzBroz.com client and pal Bradley Quick introducing me to guide to the soul Souldrama founder Connie Miller.


This journey was cross country to Long Beach Island, New Jersey. The group was 90% American, people from coast to coast but mainly from New Jersey, with one student from Greece.

What made this event extra special for me as a Hollywood filmmaker was that Barnet Bain, producer of WHAT DREAMS MAY COME was in attendance and shared a viewing and discussion of the film deep metaphysical premise. Barnet is one of the true Hollywood visionaries and it was an honor to have him present and acting out key roles in all our dramas. His facilitation of Souldrama LBI was a triumph of the soul for him and for the brilliant Connie Miller for letting it evolve soulfully.



What was cool for me was to see how we all carry on the dramas of our life like some internal never ending show. It was, dare I say, far more exciting than going to the the typical commercialized, un-Barnet Bain-like, Hollywood movies to look, unflitered, deep, deep into the hearts of people who were mostly strangers until the group formed, but who felt like family as the 8 days drew to a close.



I got Barnet interested in Souldrama after hearing him speak on a radio talk show which I cover. And I was thrilled he got and gave so much from the event on LBI, an affluent island near Atlantic City that has 18 miles of beautiful beaches to enjoy.

In fact, I had such a wonderful time that I rescheduled an assignment in Malibu to enjoy the entire 8 days workshop and honored myself and the group by taking the time to properly finish this chapter of my work on myself, exemplified by this drawing of a safe house for my inner child that Barnet Bain and I created together.