The Brian Shaler Blog

Technology changes the way we do things. The fact that it does is not an astounding revelation. However, it is always fascinating to see how it does.

When we think about “creativity” from a classical perspective, we might picture a person creating a piece of artwork, whether it is a painting, a piece of music, a novel, etc. In the past, creative collaboration occurred on a very small scale, if at all. Today, the creativity landscape is shifting, thanks to the tools we have at our disposal with modern technology. One of the key ways technology has changed the world is communication. This opens the door for a type of collaboration that was not possible before.

How does this impact our view of “creativity”?

Unlike the past, where a creative, highly-skilled individual — or a small group of highly-skilled individuals — would develop a work of art, we can now develop tools that allow millions of people to contribute to a single project.

One example of this is Drawball.com. Drawball, which launched in late 2005, allows anyone to pick up a virtual airbrush and paint graffiti on one giant digital wall. While the majority of users contribute little more than a mess of scribbles, there is a “hall of fame” area that showcases some of the best drawings spotted on the wall.

Another example, though on a much smaller scale, is BrainFuel.tv’s Caption Contest Fridays (with spin-off site Caption Fridays). Every week, there is a new photo that begs the question “What’s going on here?” and visitors are encouraged to make up a caption to explain what is going on in the photo. It is great to go through the comments at the end of the day to see what the blog’s readers had written.

This concept is fascinating and motivated me to start small, for-fun projects like Crappy Graphs (where visitors can draw their own ‘crappy graphs’) and TwitLibs (where visitors choose words or phrases to fill in the blanks in my sentences). I am constantly surprised by how great (or how terrible) the visitor submissions are.

Crappy Graphs started out as a blog where I drew and posted my own graphs. After releasing the user submission tool that allows users to draw graphs in my design/template, the best visitor-submitted graphs found their own way out onto the internet and now draw in more traffic than the main blog itself. That means collectively, Crappy Graphs’ visitors are funny than the original Crappy Grapher, me.

It is clear to me that none of us are as creative as all of us.

In the web development industry, most companies build applications for their clients but deep down inside want to build the “next big application” for themselves. The client work pays the bills now and the internal project will rake in millions — when or if the team can get around to building it.

I hear about these ideas all the time and doing so usually reminds me of an episode of Ze Frank’s “the show” entitled “Brain Crack“:

It is very common for the exciting, innovative idea to be put on the back burner repeatedly. We all do it. Somehow, you have to be able to say no to the money you could be making with client work today and spend time on your internal project which will pay off in the future.

Nothing is free. Time is money.

Spending time on your internal project will cost real money. Therefore, this expenditure must be viewed as an investment. Any work you turn down to make room in your schedule for development of the project would be considered the cost of this investment.

Do not abandon the process.

Another common pitfall when trying to build an internal project is management. People often think that you can build it on the side — poke at it for a few minutes here and there between other things. If the project is relatively simple, this may be possible. Generally not.

Once people free themselves of clients and work on their internal projects, they generally neglect to use a standard development process. Without a client breathing down their necks, developers often want to forget about deadlines, schedules, meetings, reviews, and setting up milestones.

A development team is a machine that thrives on structure. Making schedules, determining features, and having meetings are pivotal for a smooth development cycle. The normal structure needs to be maintained for internal projects. In order to be productive, you must treat yourself like you would a client because you are your own client. Schedule reviews. Set deadlines and milestones. Allocate time in your schedule as if it was paid client work.

Do not procrastinate. There is no time like the present.

Many people do the client work now and plan for the internal project later.

When? Later.

The part of Ze Frank’s “Brain Crack” video that most people should be able to relate to is the part where he says “You can tell yourself that you don’t have the time or resources to do them right.” Generally, this is just an excuse to procrastinate. You can make the time. You probably have the resources to at least get started. If you do not have the resources, you should be working on that right now.

You can do it. You are just uncomfortable with the sacrifices you will have to make to get your idea off the ground. The only way you can get it off the ground is by making those sacrifices and investing the time.