It feels like there’s been a push towards getting people to start creating their own content. Platforms like YouTube + the Internet make it a lot easier for people to start.
Growing an audience, though, seems hard because there’s not often a lot of free attention. Most of the competition is zero-sum between different content. People only have so much free time, so minutes they spend engaging with your stuff is minutes they don’t spend engaging in other people’s stuff.
There’s a cynical viewpoint here which is something like “If you don’t think you’re creating Good Content, don’t broadcast it! We have enough low-quality stuff as it is, out there.”
I think people often want to create, though. It’s one of the default responses people have if you ask them “Say you could live comfortably without needing to work. What would you do then?” (“Well, I’d write. Or I’d learn to play an instrument...”)
Often, though, implementation takes far more time than coming up with the initial idea. There is an asymmetry across many fields where the actual ideation is done by only a small group of people. This then requires maybe 10X as many people to actually put into practice. (EX: the people who design the look/feel of a piece of software at a company vs those who build it.)
Thus, if you want people to join your project (which is of course great because you came up with it), you’ll need to convince other people to go with you. On the flip side, I think there’s a skill worth practicing where you let go of idea ownership. Stuff is going to get done, and you’re going to be doing it; whoever came up with the idea might be less important than whether or not you want the stuff to happen.
But maybe the desire for individual ideation points to something important. A really large amount of people seem to want to partake in creative endeavors.
Years ago, I participated at making open-source computer games. My experience suggests that if you want people to join your project, you should show them that you are able to do the project alone, if necessary.
You should make, as soon as possible, a version 0.01 of the game, containing a playable first level with ugly graphics. That demonstrates that given enough time, you would be able to complete the game (you could complete the code, and you could hire someone to do graphics and music). Thus people who decide about joining you have a signal that their contribution in this project will be meaningful: that likely one day their work will be a part of a complete product. (Another way to achieve the same outcome is to already have another project complete, and make that known. But you can’t do this with your first project, obviously.)
For the contributor, it is a sad experience if they spend time and energy on your project, and it never gets completed. People who got burned like this will be looking for red flags. “All talk and no code” is pretty bad, even if you have detailed plans and tons of beautiful pictures or 3D models. (I knew a group of people who spent the first year doing detailed 3D models containing thousands of polygons, without writing a single line of code. The models were truly beautiful. But after the year, when they started writing code, they found out that actually the hardware existing at that moment was unable to draw one such model in real time… and they planned to have hundreds. The project was never finished. You want to find out this kind of bad news as soon as possible.)
I think this generalizes outside of computer games like this: convince people that the project would eventually get completed even without their help, preferably by doing a smaller version of what you want to do. If you want to write a book, write the first chapter. If you want to draw a comic, draw a few characters and then an example page or two of the story. If you want to organize a summer camp, organize a small party...
And I completely agree that sometimes (actually, quite often) the right thing to do is to join someone else’s project. But then you need to examine the red flags.
But maybe the desire for individual ideation points to something important. A really large amount of people seem to want to partake in creative endeavors.
Creative work is a signal of many things. Most directly, the skills you are using, but also self-discipline and long-term thinking (that you spent your time learning the skill, instead of e.g. reading social networks in your free time), social skills (if the project requires cooperation and support of other people), and also wealth (the less time and energy you waste doing your daily job, the more you can spend on your hobby). Of course people would be happy to radiate these signals.
But I am afraid it is a zero-sum game. I mean, from the perspective of the creative people competing for the audience. If as a side effect, many cool things are produced, that is a positive externality.
It feels like there’s been a push towards getting people to start creating their own content. Platforms like YouTube + the Internet make it a lot easier for people to start.
Growing an audience, though, seems hard because there’s not often a lot of free attention. Most of the competition is zero-sum between different content. People only have so much free time, so minutes they spend engaging with your stuff is minutes they don’t spend engaging in other people’s stuff.
There’s a cynical viewpoint here which is something like “If you don’t think you’re creating Good Content, don’t broadcast it! We have enough low-quality stuff as it is, out there.”
I think people often want to create, though. It’s one of the default responses people have if you ask them “Say you could live comfortably without needing to work. What would you do then?” (“Well, I’d write. Or I’d learn to play an instrument...”)
Often, though, implementation takes far more time than coming up with the initial idea. There is an asymmetry across many fields where the actual ideation is done by only a small group of people. This then requires maybe 10X as many people to actually put into practice. (EX: the people who design the look/feel of a piece of software at a company vs those who build it.)
Thus, if you want people to join your project (which is of course great because you came up with it), you’ll need to convince other people to go with you. On the flip side, I think there’s a skill worth practicing where you let go of idea ownership. Stuff is going to get done, and you’re going to be doing it; whoever came up with the idea might be less important than whether or not you want the stuff to happen.
But maybe the desire for individual ideation points to something important. A really large amount of people seem to want to partake in creative endeavors.
Years ago, I participated at making open-source computer games. My experience suggests that if you want people to join your project, you should show them that you are able to do the project alone, if necessary.
You should make, as soon as possible, a version 0.01 of the game, containing a playable first level with ugly graphics. That demonstrates that given enough time, you would be able to complete the game (you could complete the code, and you could hire someone to do graphics and music). Thus people who decide about joining you have a signal that their contribution in this project will be meaningful: that likely one day their work will be a part of a complete product. (Another way to achieve the same outcome is to already have another project complete, and make that known. But you can’t do this with your first project, obviously.)
For the contributor, it is a sad experience if they spend time and energy on your project, and it never gets completed. People who got burned like this will be looking for red flags. “All talk and no code” is pretty bad, even if you have detailed plans and tons of beautiful pictures or 3D models. (I knew a group of people who spent the first year doing detailed 3D models containing thousands of polygons, without writing a single line of code. The models were truly beautiful. But after the year, when they started writing code, they found out that actually the hardware existing at that moment was unable to draw one such model in real time… and they planned to have hundreds. The project was never finished. You want to find out this kind of bad news as soon as possible.)
I think this generalizes outside of computer games like this: convince people that the project would eventually get completed even without their help, preferably by doing a smaller version of what you want to do. If you want to write a book, write the first chapter. If you want to draw a comic, draw a few characters and then an example page or two of the story. If you want to organize a summer camp, organize a small party...
And I completely agree that sometimes (actually, quite often) the right thing to do is to join someone else’s project. But then you need to examine the red flags.
Creative work is a signal of many things. Most directly, the skills you are using, but also self-discipline and long-term thinking (that you spent your time learning the skill, instead of e.g. reading social networks in your free time), social skills (if the project requires cooperation and support of other people), and also wealth (the less time and energy you waste doing your daily job, the more you can spend on your hobby). Of course people would be happy to radiate these signals.
But I am afraid it is a zero-sum game. I mean, from the perspective of the creative people competing for the audience. If as a side effect, many cool things are produced, that is a positive externality.
Your advice about demonstrating that you are capable alone is really interesting. Thanks for the extended examples!