Besides maintaining one of the web’s most visited blogs and holding numerous live events, he now has a new book out: PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God. For the 5th book he’s been busy doing various radio and television hits, including an appearance on the Today show. All of the buzz is well deserved, as his book debuted at #1 on the New York Times best seller list and still remains there two weeks later.

I was lucky enough to get the chance to chat with him and talk about what he’s been up to.

Since we first corresponded through e-mails back in January, Warren has expanded PostSecret’s online presence from it’s blog and online community with Facebook pages and a Twitter account. “PostSecret has been doing a lot of innovative stuff online- cutting edge stuff in the virtual world, social media,” says Warren and while his Twitter account is less than a year old he already has over 211,300 followers. He’s already become a Twitter pro, using his new iPhone to capture behind the scenes moments of his first national television interview. “I thought it was a cool juxtaposition because if somebody was following me on Twitter they could see it from my perspective then see it live on NBC like everybody else does- it’s like sharing the secrets behind the show.”

Frank has become a fan of Twitter and believes it is at the cusp of changing the way we communicate, “I think it’s a another unique communication tool that allows us to have new kinds of conversation I think eventually  it’s going to look nothing like it does now I think we are just at the beginning of how it evolves into something more significant.” Warren believes that Twitter still needs to work on ways to help users find the most interesting content easier, “Twitter is in desperate need of tools to raise the awareness of those that are sending the most interesting and experimental tweets.” Frank also came up with a new term for the many registered accounts that are relatively inactive:  Zombie Followers.

The idea for Confession on Life, Death, and God originally started as a PostSecret exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Looking at the 300 postcards in the exhibit, Warren noticed how secrets sent into the project have become more spiritual- and it became the theme of his latest book. For the next two years Frank solicited and collected secrets for the book and spent a lot of time selecting and arranging what would be included. Frank shared with me some layouts that stuck out to him, for instance pages 120-127 share a theme with birds and cages (get the book and see if you can find it.) There’s another interesting comparison on page 142 & page 143- but I’ll let you figure that one out. You can see Frank certainly put together this book with a meticulous eye.

After reading the copy of the book he sent to me, I found the book to be as thought-inspiring and insightful as the secrets he posts on the blog or his Twitter account. It is definitely an interesting book to check-out if you are a fan of PostSecret, or if you’ve never even heard of the project.

You can pick-up copies of the book on Amazon, B&N, Borders, or any other fine retailer (except Wal-Mart, where he’s banned- but it isn’t slowing him down.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zA54vb-eCY[/youtube]

Well Frank is coming out with a new book this fall called, “PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God.” It will be another collection of postcards submitted to him along the themes of religion and spirituality.
The book just got listed on Amazon for pre-order, the book doesn’t come out til October. Even thought it’s a few months out Frank says that any early support, “can really help the project grow and last.”

You can also grab a sneak peek at his current project this Friday at the Hillyer Art Space. An exhibition of postcards will be on display start May 1st and running through June 26. Those that want to meet the man behind the postcards can stop by between 7 Pm – 8:30 PM and he’ll be there singing books. You can also purchase one of his other four books or fill out a blank postcard and leave him your own secrets.

After our first conversation, Frank Warren encouraged me to come out and experience one of his PostSecret Live events and I agreed. So my friend Wendi and I trekked down to the Lisner Auditorium where he was about to speak in front of a sold out crowd.

I walked in and saw him onstage, playing with his MacBook as he tested some videos and slides to be used. At the moment I found him he was playing the Dirty Little Secrets video that features his PostSecret postcards.

I wasn’t the only one there to hang out with him, a camera crew was nearby busy filming his routine, a sign that his fame is growing by leaps, not bounds. Warren’s story is so unique: a man who collects secrets sent to him to share with himself and the world. As they are posted on his PostSecret blog, he becomes not only the most trusted man in America, but perhaps a conduit and sounding board for thousands. He is always willing to listen to anything that anyone would like to share with him.

As other press outlets show up and line up for interviews there’s still a sense of humbleness to the man behind the Germantown-based blog. Before retiring to his dressing room for interviews he walks to the back of the house to personally thank all of the ushers and staff working the event.

The dressing room backstage is a plain white room with leather couches. Frank invites special guests, press, and myself to sitdown with him as he gathers his notes for the presentation. There’s a coffee table in the middle of the room with a copy of the Washington City Paper. It was open to a photo of Frank and a story on tonight’s event opposite an article on former VP candidate Sarah Palin. As I point it out he dismisses it casually, “When I see my photo in the paper I don’t really see me, I see PostSecret.” He’s simply glad to see the project get some publicity and once again displays his humbleness.

After asking for a Coke he proceeds to talk to the various press members that fire off questions and record quotes to use later. A writer asks if he ever felt a burden to be the one that is sent so much personal information and thoughts. He jokes that while he doesn’t see it as a burden,”I have been having some recent back pain- maybe it’s from carrying all these secrets for so long.”

More questions probe into the secrets themselves, “Do you ever think some of the secrets are made-up? That people are making up secrets in hopes of making the blog?,” one reporter asks. To respond to that question he pulls out a small gray box and opens it. Inside are various e-mails and postcards. He pulls out an e-mail and reads it to the crowd, “Dear Frank, I sent you a secret awhile ago but I wanted to tell you that it’s no longer true.” For Frank the act of sharing secrets with him is just as important, if not more, as the secret itself.

“The act of sharing is one step in a personal story or journey.” He hopes that even just the act of sharing a secret with someone else is therapeutic and one step closer to helping one face one’s true fears.

Meanwhile the lobby fills with GW students and fans from far and wide that wait for the doors to open. At the head of the line are Carla and Katie, two students from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Not only are they fans of the website and art exhibits, the two trekked down the Beltway in hopes of meeting Frank to deliver him postcards of secrets they had designed and had tucked away in their bags.

Daria, a GW sophomore, traveled a bit further to see Frank. A native of Trinidad, she was a fan of the site back home before coming to the US to study at George Washington. Going to college in DC brought her that much closer to her favorite blog, “I’m a nerd for PostSecret… as soon as I knew I was going to GW, I wanted to meet Frank and maybe intern for him,” she said.

The house opens, the auditorium quickly fills up, and Frank walks out to the cheers of hundreds of adoring fans. His talk explores the PostSecret project further, with videos and postcards that weren’t allowed to be published, what Frank calls “the secret Secrets.” Along with the visuals, Frank offers his own personal thoughts and insights on the impact of his project and what he’s learned about humanity and the idea of sharing one’s intimate details.

At the end of the show he shares with the audience a personal secret of his own, but there is one secret that is left to be discovered after the show is over. Before the show Frank took 200 actual postcards sent to PostSecret and inserted them into the PostSecret books that were for sale in the lobby. As fans pick up copies to have autographed at a post show signing, a surprise awaits them between the pages of secrets.

Kristen Adams and Lisa Lustig from Fairfax, VA are two George Mason alumni who decided on attending to the show after hearing about it days before. They were lucky to grab tickets before it completely sold out. After getting their books signed they thumbed through the newly purchased items and ran across the postcard. At first they take it for as a promotional item. “I thought the secret was fake, but when I took it out, I realized it was a real secret. I feel special that I’m not entrusted with someone’s secret!” remarked the surprised Lustig.

Tamara and Rebeka, two GW freshmen were so excited to find an actual PostSecret postcard that they are reconsidering the purpose of their recent purchases- as gifts for family members. Rebeka explained, “This was going to be a gift for my sister but now that I have a real PostSecret secret- it’s mine now!”

But the secrets I’m about to tell you about are much more interesting than those you’d find at the place above.

They are the secrets held by you and; I, the secrets held by the person checking out your groceries, your neighbor, the waitress at Applebee’s. I’m talking about the secrets of the everyday person.

Frank Warren doesn’t know all of them, but he does get an awful lot of them.

Frank Warren is the creator of PostSecret, a blog where he posts anonymous postcards that are sent to him. Every Sunday he will post 20 homemade postcards from the past week, each postcard reveals a person secret from the anonymous sender. In 2008 PostSecret won four Weblog Awards including Best Blog and Best Net Art. In 2007 Forbes Magazine ranked Frank #11 in their Web Celeb 25. He outranked Lonely Girl Jessica Lee Rose that year- maybe she can vent some her thoughts to him about it.

I was recently invited by Frank to talk about PostSecret and go behind the scenes of what makes PostSecret work. I have to admit I was rather nervous, he’s probably the biggest person I’ve got to meet besides the cable pundits I work with on a daily basis.

I traveled out to Germantown to meet with him and I was welcomed at the door by a tall man with glasses and a smile. The family dog was also in a rush to welcome me.

After exchanging pleasantries I saw that this was a man who was mild mannered, welcoming, and pleasant. He spoke with a childlike enthusiasm that still exists after collecting secrets for many years. The ease I had talking to him told me that he was the perfect sort of man to tell a secret too.

We walked out to check his mail, a task we all do everyday except for Frank there’s more waiting for him then credit card offers and Valpaks.

He reached into the box and pulled out two big bricks of postcards bound by rubber bands. Frank grabs the mail without any surprise of the volume. “I get about 1,000 postcards a week and in the past 4 years I’ve gotten over 300,000 postcards.” Frank has already had to replace his mailbox due to the volume of mail he’s received. Let’s hope mailbox #2 makes it through 2009.

“I get between 100 to 200 postcards everyday from places all over the world,” says Frank as we start to head inside. I find it surprising that the whole mail operation goes rather unnoticed by his neighbors, in fact it’s as anonymous as the secrets he receives. When I asked Frank how his neighbors handle any requests to collect mail during vacations he told me that they are mostly unaware of the project.

“They kind know there’s something kinda special about the mailbox… if they are aware about the project it’s usually from their sons or daughters who told them about it. I guarantee you when I ask my neighbors to collect my mail when I’m gone it’s like nobody else’s mailbox they are ever going to go into- so it’s kinda like a special surprise for them.”

Forget the neighbors, what does the Postal Service think about a guy who receives hundreds of postcards every day? While Frank has a great relationship with Kathy, the mail carrier who delivers his secrets, sorting through the pile reveals possible evidence that others might be getting a sneak peek at the secrets at the post office:

“This whole pile comes and it’s arranged properly almost as if the Postal employees have been going through them- and sometimes I’ll get an interesting one on top, as if they made their own selection,” Frank explains as he points out how the postcards are all facing in a certain direction as if they have been read.

Frank Warren hasn’t always been a collecting of secrets. The Arizona born-Illinois native went to UC Berkley where he graduated with a degree in social science. To pay for school he worked part time handling medical information. The work led him to Washington, DC after college and he started his own business . After 20 years in business he recently decided to close it to focus more on PostSecret:

“Well I had this business that I started 20 years ago called Instant Information Systems and we just closed it down about a week ago. I’ve been working on secrets 50 hours a week so I haven’t had time for anything else for 3-4 years.”

The secrets started in November 2004. Frank found himself a rut, tired of the monotony of his business. “I daydreamed of something more creative,” explains Frank. He decided to embark on an art project for Artomatic, a local DC art forum. He passed out postcards at public places including Metro stations. These postcards invited people to anonymously write their secrets down and send them back to Warren. For Frank, the idea of people and their secrets was a way not only to look at society but a way to look at himself.

“It’s been a way for me to explore secrets of my own life- so maybe the real reason I’ve been drawn to this project, drawn to other people’s secrets, is that it is a better way to understand the parts of myself I’m hiding from myself.”

After collecting secrets, he created his Artomatic display, various postcards hung on wire, each with personal secrets from parts unknown. However the secrets didn’t stop coming. So Frank created a blog to display some of the secrets and now it’s one of the biggest ad-free blogs on the net.

For a man that runs one of the most popular blogs on the web he’s still able to live a normal life in Montgomery County. Besides an incident at the local Panera Bread, most people have no idea who Frank Warren is. However thousands of those people have trusted him enough to share with him their deepest secrets. However for Frank it’s not about him.

“Sometimes people look at me funny now and I think they know something but they don’t say it- but I don’t try and advertise myself, when I first started PostSecret I would write my own little comments and stuff but now I don’t do that. I never had my picture on the website or my writing- I just reflect what people are mailing me.”

To Frank, it’s not about fame or money but about respecting and honoring the secrets he shares and the site. That’s why you’ll find no merchandise or ads (I bet hundreds of those secrets would make great T-Shirts).

When the All-American Rejects approached Frank to use some of the postcards for their Dirty Little Secret music video he turned down the money and instead offered use of the postcards in exchange for a donation to The National Hopeline Network. The postcards you see in the video are real “secrets” and Frank was able to use some of the set pieces from the music video to raise even more money for Hopeline, where Frank worked as a volunteer.

Frank has used the attention and spotlight he’s received to help bring attention to the issue of suicide- a problem that Warren calls, “America’s secret.”

Not only has the success of the blog spawn numerous best-selling books, it has created a movement of open communication and secret-sharing.

The PostSecret Community is an online forum where members share and discuss secrets. Frank Warren’s MySpace page is littered with comments of fans that leave their cell phone numbers and invitations for others to share secrets with them. It appears that others want to follow in Frank Warren’s footsteps as a confident to strangers far and wide. Frank took notice and encouraged the community to share through his blog.

Erin Mellor lives in North Carolina and decided to reach out and text a stranger, “Its liberating! The people I’ve talked to can often relate in some way or another.” After being able to share some of her secrets with others, she wanted to repay the favor- and posted her AOL Instant Messenger screen name on the PostSecret MySpace page. It wasn’t too long before others started to confide, “Once I posted [my screen name] I got messages from different people within a few hours. Some people chat first and are a little shy about sharing, while others just send me their secret in the first little blurb of message. I guess for some, its easier to just get it out, otherwise you might not do it at all, like pulling off a band-aid, or something”

In sharing secrets, Frank has created an environment where people can be truly honest and open with one another- without fear of rejection.

“PostSecret creates this model of a safe, non-judgmental place to share your secrets where you don’t feel weird or different or strange or alone.”

Warren sees this movement as an ushering in of a new generation, a generation of people that have nothing to hide and are more willing to bare-all than our parents.

“It’s a generational shift-like adults don’t get it, but young people today are so much more confident about sharing the parts of themselves that parents would never talk about. You can see it everyday on Facebook and MySpace. We are just a much more open society than we used to be- and in most cases I think it’s healthy. I think part of it is a search for authenticity. Young people want to know what’s real, they want to know what’s phony, they want to know who is a hypocrite and who’s real.”

The movement isn’t confined to the Internet- people are writing secrets and leaving them in copies of PostSecret books, and PostSecret Live events are attracting enormous crowds for the chance to hear stories from Frank and to step up to the microphone and confess secrets to the audience. Frank tells me it’s a very therapeutic experience.

“There is so much emotion in the room, people will share a secret, walk back to their seat and strangers will hug them, there is so much warmth- a sense of support. There is something spiritual about it.”

If you want to catch Frank he’ll be speaking at the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University next Friday, January 23rd at 7:30 PM. Tickets are on sale for only $10. I highly urge everyone to show up and learn more about the man behinds the secrets and perhaps you’ll get a chance to tell him your secret. I will be there with Frank next week and I hope to tell you all more about it in Part 2 of my story.

Video: Frank Warren checks his mail for secrets