SXSW: Making Your Short Attention-Span Pay Big Dividends
Jim Coudal: Follow ideas to their conclusion.
They started with Western State but needed discs so they made JewelBoxing and then they started The Show but they needed ads to The Deck emerged out of this. These ideas make money but most of their ideas don't, they are just fun. They had a phone number where people could read lines from movies. they have a phone number where people can read poetry and one morning they had a poem read by Zadie Smith. It didn't make any money but it was a great day at work.
Let shiny objects attract you and make cool things with them.
So how do you do this?
- Paint bathrooms with chalkboard paint
- The Book
Use the book as a holding place for ideas that can't happen right now. If you write it down, you're making it real. Any oddball idea should be written down. Authenticate and legitimate this kind of thinking. Treat it like a sketchbook for ideas.
I'm not writing it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now
Sometimes ideas just get written down to be in the book with the knowledge that they will never be real.
Brendan Dawes: Keep a drive of random inspiration.
Here's a little story to help. About ten years ago he got this idea to do a site about Saul Bass. He put this together and through this work made a number of connections with great people. Because of the short attention span thing the domain expired, and this happened three times.
Someone emailed him saying he wanted a better site to cover Saul Bass and kind-of insulted Brendan's project. Right now the other one is still under construction. The point is to just do it.
Make your short attention span let you get things to happen. Even half-assed, just do it!
Short attention span is also about constraints. Having too much freedom is usually very very bad.
This is how he got into computing. Did lot's of odd jobs and got a computer from his grandfather.
He turned it on and saw this cursor flashing. Sitting there. Baiting him to just start typing code. This was back in the days of BASIC. Within the first hour he had written a program. He went into the Dixons electronics shop and made the computers say "COCK" or "PENIS" and then would leave the store. It was so empowering to get to use technology to do whatever, to truly experiment.
These days he dabbles in everything, PHP, Javascript, Photoshop, etc.
So why do we have to watch DVDs in a DVD player? He wrote a program that took every frame from a DVD and then displayed each frame one pixel wide. So what else can you do? He wrote a program to show the movie in typography instead of pixels. Then they took every frame and printed it out as small pixel squares laid out in a grid.
What was great about this project, that took hardly any time, is that it got picked up by all kinds of press. They attributed all kinds of intention to what he was doing which is great but really he's just experimenting and having fun.
He was asked to do a presentation at a conference and they wanted something cutting edge. He looked around the room and said "I'll interface playdo with a computer" and they went for it.
The night before the session he managed to do it. Using a webcam he wrote a program that plays a kungfu movie at different speeds based on how much playdo is on screen.
Someone asked what the point was and he didn't know what to say. The point it to just see what would happen.
He took a picture of the bottom of a McDonalds bag and made a Google search box out of it. It's totally unusable but it's hilarious. He then did FLAMAZON, it's far sexier than Amazon.
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. Edgar Allen Poe
[AUDIENCE QUESTION TIME]
JC: If you wake up in the morning and write your dreams down you remember them, if you wait they vanish. This is the same with creativity. You have to load up and get as much stuff as you can.
Q: So how does one get the skills necessary to be able to make this random projects?
JC: There is craft and the creative part. You have to have a set of skills. Those are developed by working and doing it over and over again.
BD: I just know a little bit of many things. It's important that you surround yourself with people who know craft. It's not just about the idea. The execution matters. So he has a team that pick up after him. It's how you apply your spare time. Use the time in the morning to learn something every day. It doesn't matter what language, just learn something, and algorithm, anything. Wasting time is important too but make a little goal and do it.
Q: Is this meandering with a purpose? Is a good way to save on the learning curve to just ask people?
JC: Definitely. Someone with experience to teach you can't be beat.
Q: As a business owner how do you manage this stuff?
JC: I get pissed off if people aren't browsing the web. Part of being at Coudal is screwing around all day. Things get done but the office is like a preschool Montessori. This is without constraints, the hearbeat of the company is the endless stream of links.
Q: Do you surround yourself with people who don't have a long attention span?
JC: You need different kinds of people to make it work. There's a great story of a famous Japanese designer who had fifty designers all work on the same project. He would have hundreds of comps done and go into a meeting, show them all, and then give them his design and say here it is.
Q: So how do you plug this into a team?
BD: Talking. One thing is to talk and show things to eachother all the time. Do this every week. It is very important to show off what you are doing and where a project is to people who aren't involved in it.
There is no brainstorming technique right now, it's mostly flying by the seat of our pants.
There is not secret formula.
JC: The team has to know they are pulling on the same end of the rope. It is cultural and just as important as the money aspect. It is easier to manage infighting in a small group.
BD: Everyone sits together. No offices. If you get one person who upsets this delicate culture you should fire them.
Q: How do you balance breadth and depth? How do you decide to wrap up with something.
JC: The burst of enthusiasm is addictive but you also know when the other thing is happening. Photoshop tennis was really popular but they wanted to do other things.
Q: Do you share the book with other people?
JC: Oh no. The book is sacred. Everyone keeps sketchbooks but The Book is secret and special.
BD: Open source is great but there is an advantage to insularity.
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Who is this guy?
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