5 things I’ve been thinking about
(These are mostly self realisations that new thoughts for the masses. Forgive me, I’m young.)
1. Outside
As many of you know, I’m on super holiday time. 4 months of nothing, which sounds ludicrously indulgent. Except it’s actually my first, as I skipped university. Excluding festivals, I’ve spent previous summers behind my desk working on the Most Important Project Of My Life So Far. The biggest thing I’ve learnt on my time off so far is just how good outside is. But you all knew that, so I don’t need to elaborate.
2. Exclusivity
I tend to defend those who aren’t there to defend themselves. Having moved into Shoreditch, I’ve started defending the locals. Therefore I’ve been thinking about the pretension, exclusivity and rudeness of those doing interesting things.
I like to think I’ve done a few interesting things, and something I’m learning slowly and painfully is when to include what people when, if at all. I used to start something by involving as many people as possible, in a hope to validate it by numbers. This is how to move a project towards the average. So it helps to be able to push people away. Whether these attributes are acquired by, or a part of the spirit of, those who do things I do not know, but it’s a thought. That I’ve been thinking about.
3. Hackdays
Thinking back, the first Rewired State was my first foray into the previous point. I spent a full day researching everyone that had signed up to participate and harshly choosing who to come. It didn’t please everyone, and I had to be discrete about it, but I think it made the day what it was.
And this is still my biggest bit of advice to those hosting their own hack days. And that’s all I do now, advise.
ANNOUNCEMENT: I plan for Music Hack Day London 2010 to be the last hackday that I have anything to do with organising.
4. How we move forward
During a late night game of “I have never”, we paused so that Jon and Jamie off of The Skints could have a heart to heart that they would be too drunk to remember. During this, me and a visiting friend who’s studying Art History got to discussing Art, Design and Science. I drew out our thinking into a diagram, which I’ve Omnigraffled and put below. I’m a little worried I’ve made some obvious faux pas in it, or that it might even offend someone somehow, so bear that in mind.
5. Standing on the shoulders of invisible giants
The above then gets me thinking of how I jump on the shoulders of giants, but yet am quiet ignorant of the giants. Too young and too eager to just get on with it than to stare in awe at those before me. I don’t think this is a massive flaw, but it has started fueling a healthy dose of self doubt over my thinkings, and as I’ve been spending a bit more time around giants, when I mis-quote them, it stings.
I’m having thoughts on how to fix this, but these thoughts are far too young to told to you, filthy commoner.
Running a start up is like having a baby. The idea is the inception and, like inception, any old moron can come up with a decent one.
The public school boy, Corona in hand, top shirt buttons undone, full of feelings of rebellion as they shun the banking world their upbringing promised them to go be an ‘entrepreneur’, to say “I’ve had an idea, now all I need is someone to write the code” is the equivalent of approaching a potential soulmate, dick in hand and yelling “I’VE GOT A BONER!”
