Big news! Ty has a new job.

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Nelson Mandela

I've been slowly letting it out to my confidants, friends, family and trusted network that I've moved on from TopFloorStudio. I am now the Chief Technology Officer (full-time) at a local Asheville company, Trusted Sharing. More on this later in the post. Now, it's important to note here that I've carefully worked out the plan to allow for my clients and folks that relied on TopFloorStudio's service to ease into this transition. In fact if you need services that TopFloorStudio was providing I'm sure I can refer you to someone good. Now that we have that over with; lets get into the good stuff.

Last year I spent more time than I ever have soul-searching and discovering who I am and what I am passionate about. This work is some of the most important I've ever done. After a trip to Bhutan and after a year, some answers really started to culminate. My inner-work paid off and I started to recognize patterns about my past that helped me plan a course moving forward. Here are some of the insights that came to me:

• My work in the past with developing social networks, app development, organization development and creating movements (TEDxAsheville, Green Drinks) were threads of what I was passionate about. What I decided to do was focus on Group Process and tapping / making actionable Collective Intelligence. This led to the creation of the Creative Facilitators group and getting trained in Technology of Participation, Consensus Workshop Method (by the wonderful Kathleen Osta).
• Although I love owning and running an agency based around service, what I've really been interested is working on products in the startup space. My skills and track-record with my clients and past startups gave me the confidence to know that I can be successful in a startup. This led me to do some work around A. is Asheville a place that can support a startup and B. what needs to happen to get it there? You know, let's build Silicon Mountain, sort of thing. This led to the creation of Startup Product Asheville and what turned into a short-lived startup called Wharf.
• My technology background had slowly turned into a management/leadership role over the years. Early on I realized there were programmers who were way better and more dedicated to the craft and that the need for strong management was necessary. This was not new in itself, but what I realized is that I needed to sharpen my skills and to get a new kind of discipline around becoming a worthy C level. It also occurred to me that in the past I had worked harder (sometimes over 60 hours a week) and that what I needed was to work smarter. This lead me to pursue the Stanford Advanced Project Management certification. My travel out to Silicon Valley for this course (which I'm on the last leg of) has helped me tremendously as I get connected with a growing network (thank you Startup Product, Cindy Solomon) and learn from the best on how to create startup culture. I have nothing but respect for this community.

Nearing the end of 2013 I had found a new focus around a startup I was calling Wharf and also a new direction for TopFloorStudio including a dedication to focusing and building a series of products we were calling the Engagement Directory. What happened after this was unexpected, but the universe has a funny way about leading you exactly where you need to be. A longtime friend, Duncan Work and I re-connected so that I could get his advice for Wharf, my new fledgling startup. What ended up happening was he shared his vision and work he had been doing over the past 2 years on Trusted Sharing. I was blown away by what I saw, the potential for his apps was sky high and immediately got hooked on using TS Feeds. When Duncan offered for me to help I immediately said yes (just an advisor at this point). Then as I got more into it and we had a chance to talk more I realized that this was completely in alignment with what I was currently doing, but also was 2 or 3 levels further down the path than where I was. Duncan had working software, was supported by a patent, had the experience+connection as Chief Scientific Officer at LinkedIn; his deep knowledge around collective intelligence and wisdom were enough to make me re-think EVERYTHING. I had done my work the year before and was open to the opportunity. It was a perfect fit as my skills, experience and trajectory were 100% compatible with Trusted Sharing and so I dove in...

Trusted Sharing is 2 apps, TS Feeds and TS Conversations. TS Feeds allows you to see your twitter (more social networks coming soon) feed through the lens of who you trust. TS Conversations allows you to build conversations that have more breadth and depth, bringing coherence to a deeply fragmented world. TS Conversations helps high-impact facilitators and group catalyst create tools for the world to use.

So, now I am the CTO of Trusted Sharing! Now I hope to enlist you, my community to help us unleash this startup into the world. We hope to build the Startup Community in Asheville, and to connect facilitators and group process heroes all over the world. Asheville is on the pendulum swing to greatness, you can feel it in the air. In my new role I hope to catalyze this at a local level and bring change to the world! Lots more to come on this, follow me on my new twitter account and continue reading this blog to learn more: TyHallock

and by all means sign up and start using http://trustedsharing.com