Avoiding the pitfalls of crowdsourced creativity.
A good friend of mine and fellow writer, Nicolas Cole, loves to say “create in public”.
To a large extent, this advice holds true. I’ve found that public creation expedites and accelerates growth and your pursuit of your goals.
But there’s such a thing as being too public about your work. And it can actually harm your efforts by creating unnecessary distractions for both you and your audience.
In my years as an author, event host, and journalist, I’ve found that there’s three effective methods for steering your ship back on course when the desire to be public and transparent starts to detract from your overall progress.
1. Focus on the act of creating, not the act of sharing.
This is still the primary goal: you are still creating something. Publicly, privately, in the midst of friends or in the midst of thousands, the goal is creation. Feedback is essential, but don’t get caught up in optimizing the feedback process in the midst of your creative pursuits.
My old boss used to have a saying, “You have to do it before you can do it perfectly.”
Doing something publicly will allow you to understand where you can improve, but may also provide distractions for you to focus on that detract from your main goal.
While sharing is key to receiving feedback and improving, you still must create what you intended to create
2. Remember what your main objective is.
More often than not, this is the root cause of failure: too much on our plates. We are attracted to shiny objects that others tell us will add value to our efforts, and we want them to be as valuable as possible, so we blindly accept.
As an event host, this tendency is all too common, and this reminder has proven to be a key factor in my ability to organize and execute as planned.
If the main goal is to host an event, remember that, in spite of improving your communications and marketing and onsite music or whatever else may need tweaking, your main goal is the event, and hosting it, not being better at audio visual technology or being the best marketer.
When I was writing Stoner Survival, the book almost came to a complete halt with the sheer amount of outdoor survival information I wanted to include. But my main goal was a digestible, quick guide, an introduction to the vast amount of information out there. Reminding myself of this fact helped to streamline the process, and be comfortable with allowing myself to focus on a primary objective, rather than being the most comprehensive resource ever written to date, an almost impossible feat.
Don’t forget your sense of purpose, and your main objective.
3. Tell them what they need to know, then shut up.
Transparency is hailed as the end all be all of relationships with your audience, peers, and loyal supporters. But there is such a thing as being too transparent.
For instance, I often find solitude and and am able to think more clearly in the bathroom, amidst catching up on news and jotting down ideas for the day, but you won’t often hear me say “Hey, I wrote this awesome piece while taking a shit”. Instead, I’d say “this idea came to me during my morning routine”. Both statements are true, but one goes a bit too far.
Similarly, your creative process is unique to you. Some parts of that process may be agreeable to your audience, others might not be. Knowing you fought back and forth with a client or a publisher may make you feel like you are being forthcoming and honest with your audience in pursuit of their best experience, but it often comes off as antagonistic, playing the blame game, or, simply, as negativity.
As Cole points to in his most recent newsletter launch, negativity dissuades engagement while positivity attracts it. You don’t have to share everythingthat’s part of your creation process in order to effectively create in public.
It’s easy, and understandable, to get wrapped up in the process of creation and forget about the creation itself. We get distracted by the amount of irons we’d like to have in the fire, or, in an attempt to be as public and transparent as possible, we share just a bit too much.
Focus on your creation. Remind yourself of your main objective. And share positive progress that allows for perpetual feedback, without dwelling in or airing out your dirty laundry.
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Originally published on BenOwens.co
