Tag: internet

The perfect website for creatives?

I think I have found it.

If you are a struggling artist, you might be able to get funding/support for your work, Kickstarter-style at Drip (https://d.rip/discover)

The site is owned by Kickstarter and it just re-launched – it aims to support people (rather than projects ala Kickstarter) with a focus on creatives.

Right now it is in an invite only launch phase, but when this opens up to the public, it will be awesome. I encourage the dedicated writers and creatives out there to try and get support through Drip one day.

Good if…

Drinking is good if you can stop after a couple.

Listening to podcasts is good if you have set a time and a place for regularly listening to them.

Technology is good if you use it, rather than it using you.

Exercise is good if you have had enough sleep and food to carry you through.

Relationships are good if you can look after yourself.

The internet is good if you create as well as consume.

 

Congestion

One of the most frustrating situations is congestion – gridlock. I recently went to Johannesburg for a day of meetings. I wanted to organise 4 different meetings with clients and potential clients while I was in the city, but the traffic situation meant I could only plan for 2 meetings in the whole day. Congestion of roads.

Apparently it only takes four people in a hundred to choose not to drive on the roads each day to ease gridlock. A 4% decrease in mindless cramming let’s the traffic flow.

Bear with me here, but I think our brains work in similar ways. If we take 4% of our time spent on marginal ideas, distractions, wastes of time – and instead spend it on a few minutes of good stuff – imagine the cumulative effect? If you stopped watching TV for just 10 mins a night of reading good books – every night – the ideas would flow. If you stopped scrolling through your Facebook feed for just 10 mins of creating something new every day – imagine the cumulative effect.

The kicker is that once we start with something productive and force ourselves to do it for 10 minutes, we are far more likely to keep doing it.

Ease the congestion and noise in your brain for just a tiny amount each and every day. It works.

Writing and loyalty rewards

I have recently started to take part in a loyalty rewards program. So much so, that I am a little obsessive over the points-claiming process – it’s because if i get enough points through exercise, then I get free coffee 🙂

Gamifying a loyalty process is useful in that it can alter behaviour. What was once a chore becomes a goal and my behaviour leans towards the gaining of points. However, true loyalty still only comes from the payback meeting expectations. A free coffee a week is enough for me to go and exercise daily, along with the knowledge that I am getting fitter. If i only got a glass of water as a reward, I might not be so loyal.

When we look at writing as the process, there is no shortcut to building loyalty. As a reader I don’t know of any loyalty reward points for following one author over another, other than the promise of more material to come. As a writer, the consistent drip, drip, dripping of content will build a readership. Giving them more than expected with a purchase will build an evangelical fan.

And when in doubt, throwing in a free coffee seems to work wonders 🙂

Monday music

I have eclectic musical tastes. My father worked in the music industry for a long time in the 70’s and 80’s so I have a lot of old school rock in my collection. My mum loves classical music, and my grandma was a great pianist so I listen to some choral and baroque classical music – and my personal passion is blues and soul. Old school. I have also recently started listening to hip hop.

A look at the charts – the top ten on Google Play – is fairly meaningless to me now. Nobody is pushing the boundaries of any genre, and art is scarce when the aim is to appeal to the most number of people possible. When this is the case, inevitably the songs start to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Safe bets are placed like the countless sequels in the cinema.

That said, I like Rihanna and DJ Khaled’s song, Grateful. Also, Charlie Puth’s Attention is pretty good.

Web strategy

Unfortunately, we don’t have one by default.

Whether we are publishing, socialising, photographing, working – our default setting seems to be to just use a device as it is given to us, and without discrimination to pay attention to any and all notifications that show up on the screen.

The thing is, just like any tool, the internet can be used in the wrong way and achieve unwanted outcomes. Wasted time, wasted money, misinformation to name a few.

We all have exposure to the internet, whether we like it or not. Therefore forming a strategy to turn it to your advantage is worth it. This goes for the individual, the family and the corporation.

Worth noting also that on the internet privacy is dead, so “default public” is the best stance on anything web-based.