Most people want you to make something cheap, write something short, share something funny, and fit in.
But the people you serve… they might want something else.
The few people you need to thrive in your work might want you to write something they’ll remember for a long time, or to take them on a journey that’s thrilling and challenging and unique.
Or perhaps these are the people that want to buy something that costs a lot but is worth more than it costs.
It’s okay to say, “it’s not for you,” to most people.
In fact, that’s the only way to do work that matters.
It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the restaurant to limit the number of trips that people take so that the restaurant can become sustainable.
It’s possible to argue for systemic changes to cultural systems while also doing what classical economics posits that people do–which is focus on self-interest.
In fact, it’s this very conflict that requires us to argue for systemic change.
• Notice what happened and then decide to do something with that insight.
Thirty years ago, AOL was my company’s biggest client. They charged users $3 an hour to use their precursor to the internet, and paid content providers a royalty based on time spent on their ‘site.’
We invented a breakthrough game that was played in a chat room. Our testing showed that people (millions of people, probably) would play it for hours at a time. We developed a series of games with AOL that were fun and engaging, and were a few weeks from launch. It was certainly the most profitable project I had worked on to date.
And then AOL changed to flat rate monthly pricing. And the royalties went to zero.
“Well, that happened.”
The sunk costs were real, but the sunk costs didn’t matter. What mattered was that our project was built on a foundation that had disappeared. In less than an hour, we walked away from all of it, which enabled us to build the tools and products we needed.
The world is changing faster than ever. Sometimes for the better. Always giving us a choice to react or respond.
The way we think about our priorities makes a huge difference.
Leaders of every stripe make one thing more than any other: decisions.
In any environment with constraints (which is, actually, any environment), the decisions about time and resources–about what to do next–change everything.
How do we decide what’s next? Is it based on urgency, proximity or values? First in/first out is not a strategy, it’s an excuse. Even worse is the one about the squeaky wheels.
I’m guessing because ‘taking’ a photo sometimes feels like a taking. The creativity, skill and effort that goes into making a distinctive arrangement might feel uncompensated when someone simply takes the work and posts it.
This misses the real point, though.
Once you’ve made something worth photographing, having the idea captured and spread helps you, it doesn’t hurt. More than ever, people are paying for famous, even if it’s as prosaic as a famous bouquet, produced by the originator of the design.
The hard part is making something worthy, not protecting it from cameras.
The thing that your product or service delivers could be called performance, and it’s made of two components:
–The story and expectations and cultural impact of what you do (the story).
–The deliverables that are objectively measured (the spec).
It helps to have both.
Many hard-working freelancers are confused about their story. Either they insist that their work is even better than it is, and they’re frustrated when others don’t embrace it, or they undersell the value of their presence, professionalism and effort.
And many institutions, particularly those that measure the wrong things, put an enormous effort into what the lab specs show, but forget to invest in a narrative that encourages consumers to give them the benefit of the doubt.
What would happen if public transportation were free?
What if it were paid for by congestion pricing, digitally implemented?
What if public toilets were safe, beautiful, well-appointed and consistently maintained?
What if there were a tax on empty storefronts, payable after three months of vacancy?
Shortly after the invention of the car, society made many decisions about how cities should work. These choices led to parking lots, suburbs and a definition of what a normal city was supposed to be like. Robert Moses and others pushed for a specific sort of urban environment.
It’s surprising how quickly and inexpensively that could begin to change.
Doing the same thing since the dawn of the expressway, year after year, without seeing the pattern, is a little Groundhog’s Dayish.
