Let Go and Haul: Play
Week 30, 2018 – Brooklyn
Journey: where we’re at
We’re rolling out the first “creators” alpha starting tomorrow. It’s here, it’s happening! Huge shouts to the whole team for making this a reality.
If you meet the following criteria and want to kick the tires, just hit reply and I’ll put you on the list :)
You’re comfortable editing photos on your phone and have more than one photo editing app
You’re NOT comfortable editing video on your phone or rarely do it
You’re willing to give us feedback!
Journal: what I learned
I come from a culture of working up to the day before a software release. It’s been that way at every company I’ve worked at. Anton comes from a much more sane culture of being ahead of everything so that you have time to really play with (and break) the software before the deadline. Anton’s way is better. I’m changing my bad habits.
This week was “play week”, something we started doing when we started releasing the first few prototypes at Betaworks. While we’re always playing with what we make, play week is a dedicated week for playing with what we made as well as QA (quality assurance) and getting those NTHs (nice-to-haves) into the app. It’s different than last minute polish, it’s play – building an intuition around what we’re making, what we should make next, and what things it still needs to be a ‘minimum lovable product’ because minimum viable products suck. Maybe MVPs work for some types of software, but not in consumer. Not in entertainment, and definitely not in creative tools. While you never know exactly how people are going to use the thing you make, there needs to be an immediate desire to touch it, try it, play with it.
On the topic of play, I ended up having a bizarre weekend with two (!!!) days of unstructured time. I was supposed to go to Toronto because it’s my sister Monika’s 30th; her partner Adam’s birthday; annnnd my sister Sophie is traveling through town! Here’s the three of them this weekend:
But, because immigration, I’m not able to travel right now. 😢 I waited until the last minute to see if my travel paperwork would magically appear, but no dice. I cancelled my trip the night before and woosh, a whole weekend in Brooklyn with no plans was right before me.
This never happens.
I was pretty exhausted so I slept a lot, and there were a few work things I wanted to get in front of, but otherwise I didn’t have to stick to a schedule and it felt so nice, so playful, so calm to just let my mind wander and do what I felt like doing instead of all the things I needed to do / should do / had planned to do. Most necessary. I need to find a way to do this more often to take care of my creative brain.
There’s so much serendipity in a weekend like that too. I ran into people, had unexpected time to catch up with people, and best – was able to swing by the Holyrad anniversary party with TRASH teammate Kofi.
If you haven’t seem Holyrad’s work yet, you should acquaint yourself immediately. Daryl and her team are doing absolutely stunning photo / video that’s completely redefining what a studio is. Watch the reel.
Jams: what I’m into
I saw Sorry to Bother You last night at my friend Matthew’s suggestion and loved it. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 95% so I guess that means other people love it too. “…with wit and wackiness, it scratches around at the idea of how readily we are all willing to ignore the obvious horror in front of our faces at all times.” – The Guardian
Also, the soundtrack is amazing. Cuz Boots Riley.
Next Sunday is the end of the month so you know what that means, playlist time! I loved all your TV suggestions so much (thank you!), this time I’m going to ask – what’s your jam right now? You know, the song you have stuck on repeat?