As we're one day from the ten-year anniversary of the founding of the ULA, my attitudes toward that project have evolved. I see it as a positive, in the sense that it was great practice. For me it served as a rehearsal for a possible other, better project.
Its core principle worked: the maximum amount of noise in the shortest possible time period. This is the essence of promotion.
The biggest mistake was in not creating an efficient organization. There in fact was no organization, no efficiency. All was chaos, so that when noise was made, there was no way to fully take advantage of it, nor to long sustain it. Markets-- the world itself-- are a clash of systems. To compete with a status quo, you need a better system. Everything better across the board: better product; better packaging; better personalities. Most of all, better, more colorful noise about what you're doing.
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This might be somewhat ironic coming from the professional organizer, but, I have to say, my experience with things like the ULA have led me to think that as powerful as a tight organization could be, personalities these days just don't lend themselves to it. I'm working to do my own thing... a lone gun, because I just don't find people sticking together like they should around projects like the ULA.
In the ULA, it usually seemed that everyone's real agenda was to get them behind their personal agenda. So, fine... I'm just going to own it. I'm not going to try to lead. Just try to do.
Unfortunately, what you say is likely true.
The problem is that everyone's an expert. Writers who know nothing about anything are experts, in their own heads. The ULA was never a sled pulling in one direction-- every ULA sled dog was pulling a different way, and the sled just sat there.
I had thought that once I constructed a track record, of things like all the Page Six write-ups, that ULAers would follow my lead. Sure, I was wrong about half of what I was doing, or more, but enough would click that it was better than nothing at all. It's for sure that after I left the ULA has gone nowhere.
A certain poet was even eager to squeeze me out of the Philly action. I didn't have the energy to fight. He got the ULA. What did he do with it? Nothing.
Still, as I say, it was a good experience. The world IS made up of competing systems. It's much harder to create a system by oneself. But doable, perhaps. We'll see. I'm throwing my line in a couple different directions and want to see if anything clicks.
Good luck with your projects!
p.s. I still believe that Philly is the perfect geo spot/launching pad for lit endeavors, has many advantages, and so we're at least in the right place. The minute I returned to Detroit in '07 I felt disconnected from the world.
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