I’ve finished my presentation for Friday’s PSFK Conference Asia – and one of the last slides comes from a comment that was left on the site the other day. Gabriel Amadeus said:
“[Creator?] Hey, that’s me! Not that I am successful at it or anything, but I much prefer to be a jack of all trades instead of specializing in “vector illustration”, “interactive flash”, or “band posters”.
“In the past week I’ve designed flyers, banners, screenprinted shirts, welded a homemade bakfiets (dutch cargo bike), organized a scavenger hunt, planned a freakbike booth at the Oregon Manifest, and applied for a bunch of design jobs.
“None of which I got.”
I thought it went way beyond conjuring the spirit of the movement – it hints at the future of both our work and play. Our work is becoming our play and vice versa. And if it doesn’t then you will be one of those ones who just has a job.
Lots of comments here about the Creator Class.
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I think it’s the merging of work/play that has kept me doing what I do for 10 years.
The people at my agency never have the same day twice. In the past couple if weeks we’ve created blogs, bought 8 thousand hats, thought about how to sell deodorant, created a print ad, designed an interactive booth, wondered about festive lighting amongst a load of other bits and pieces.
It’s very motivating. I’m aware we’re lucky to be able have work like this.
For more “traditional” job roles I’d suggest job sharing and swapping as a way to keep people happy and engaged in what they’re doing.
I’ve done a score of monotonous jobs in the past, from bar work to door-to-door sales. All of which would have been more bearable if I only had to do them twice/three times a week before heading off to do some other completely unrelated task (gardening, making posters, whatever).
I’d like to see a website that offers job swapping. I’m sure people would be happier for it.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:13 pm