Shiny Interview: Meghan Asha from TMI Weekly

Last week, we showed you TMI Weekly, a new project from Julia Allison, Meghan Asha and Mary Rambin producing three minute films on subjects as diverse as green gadgets and 'adult proms'. Now we've managed to grab a few minutes of Head Geek Meghan Asha's time, posing her all our NonSociety and TMI-related questions. Read on for her thoughts on putting your life on the internet, how CES changed her life and why it all began with a scrapbook.

Q: Nonsociety and TMI look like interesting projects. Could you explain to us a bit about what they're about, and what you hope to achieve?

A: NonSociety is the next version of an online personality driven magazine, we employ every piece of technology available to make it engaging to our readers (i.e. mobile posting, photos, videos, live streaming, text, quotes, audio files, and links). Eventually, we will do the same with other contributors with various interests (i.e. a Ballerina, a Comedian, a Travel Expert, etc.). They will write from their perspective giving our audience a more in-depth idea into their lives. TMI Weekly has been called a well-packaged chat show (at three minutes an episode, calling it a "talk show" seems like a stretch) - it's the next iteration of talk shows for a new online generation.

We're hoping with both these platforms we will entertain, inform, and inspire our readers to 'Live Differently'. In that we mean, do what makes you happy, create a career and life without the boundaries of conventional thinking. The way we as a society now communicate with the development of the Internet, vastly differs to how our parents used to communicate. We now defy society's boundaries, hence creating an alternate society that has limitless possibilities, in essence what we like to call NonSociety.

Q: You're billed as 'the geeky one'. We're all self-proclaimed geeks here at Shiny Shiny, so you're obviously a girl after our own heart. What's your geeky background?

A: I come from a Geek FILLED family! My father is an engineer, so most of my youth was spent with him bonding at the tech and aerospace museums. Coming from Silicon Valley, I grew up around weekend soapbox car spectacles where all the tech companies in our area would have races to see which one could make the fastest car using their knowledge of physics. That being said, I resisted technology in college, setting my sites on a career in finance. After working for a small hedge fund in Beverly Hills, I landed a prestigious spot at one of the best tech-focused hedge funds in Manhattan.

It was a fascinating time, but my real love was interacting with people rather than spreadsheets, so on a whim in January, I busted out of cubical life and followed my passion for gadgets by attending the Consumer Electronics Show. It was at that point, I knew, I could never go back to finance; I had a perpetual smile on my face that weekend learning about different companies and products. Thank goodness for Julia, she was the one that gave me the courage to take the plunge and do what I love. For me there's nothing more exhilarating than new ideas and innovation.


Q: How will people be able to interact with you through NonSociety and TMI?

A: Nonsociety recently launched community pages (Question of the Day and Advice Box) to make sure that there is a place for our readers to comment and ask questions. Our readers not only have the ability to comment in text form, but also post responses with videos, photos, links, and music. Being able to post in various forms, will hopefully employ more interaction within the NonSociety community. As for TMI we will address the posted comments at the beginning of the show and respond to them in within the comment threads.

Q: Exactly how much of your life will you be putting online? Are there areas that are off limits or is it all fair game?

A: I'm the most private out of all three of girls. I've struggled and still struggle with putting so much of myself out there for others to dissect. I doubt that anyone would look particularly balanced if they blogged their life on a day-to-day basis. In a way, this is a social experiment; I've pondered the question of what amount/ type of information is acceptable to put on the web. When I get uncomfortable with the amount of personal information I have on my blog, I focus on writing about gadgets and new websites that could benefit (or at least) entertain my readers. Julia and Mary put more of themselves online because their comfort with net exposure is different than mine. It vacillates, some days I feel everything is fair game, other days I want to remain completely anonymous and do straight product reviews. Obviously, I will never specifically name people that wish to remain anonymous, but there still needs to be a level of transparency offered to our audience. Our goal is to make TMI and NonSociety as authentic and relatable as possible.

Q: Are you worried about putting your life online - for instance, the lack of privacy, or the potential for 'flaming' from Internet trolls?

A: Obviously there's a hesitation when exposing your private life to people you don't know. But, we've gotten such a positive response from our personal perspectives that it's worth the risk. Nowadays, there is so much personal information being transmitted over the Internet that it's just as easy to track down someone with a social networking profile, as it is to track me.

Q: How will you be working with the other two women involved, Mary Rambin and Julia Allison?

A: Julia and Mary are my partners and best friends, we're now like sisters: we fight, we makeup, we laugh, we work hard together. Each of us come from entirely different backgrounds and has VERY different perspectives. We're equal partners in this, so we each focus on specific areas behind the scenes to keep NonSociety and TMI on track. One thing that is special about our relationship is that we're EXTREMELY supportive of one another. My hope is that we can serve as a role model to other young woman, encouraging them to band together in business to achieve their dreams.

Q: Do you think you approach the potential of the Internet in a different way as a woman I.e. as a means of sharing your life and communicating?

A: Women are fundamentally drawn to communicating and the Internet is the newest innovation that allows us to do just that- COMMUNICATE. I introduced my girlfriends to both Skype and Twitter, and they now use these services more than I do. There are some aspects of NonSociety that read as an online journal. Both Julia and I were huge scrapbookers in high school; sometimes I like to equate what we're doing as an online personal scrapbook for the world to see.