This morning, as I perused my LinkedIn profile, I got to thinking about what a huge time sink that site is, and wondered what the actual benefits to me are. So far, it seems like nothing.
A friend of mine is constantly popping up in my network updates because she connects to so many people. WTF Meg? How do you have time to work if you’re always social networking?
And you reader? What are you gaining from your addiction to connectivity?
Reminds me of the root beer lady, Dorothy Molter. She lived in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Ely, Minnesota (note: in an area only accessible by canoe) for 56 years until her death in 1986. She was visited by more than 7,000 people each year, and she served them all homemade root beer. Fucking genius.
Even in complete isolation, people sought her out. Talk about viral. Today there’s a museum and someone has taken over making the soda, but I bet it doesn’t taste the same…
The spectrum of knowledge that we’re supposed to be aware of is so much broader today than Dorothy ever could have imagined. But even if she had been utilizing the Web somehow, it may have ruined the innocence of her creativity.
Still, the Boguskys of the world know how to harness the power of their resources, namely the people around them. I was speaking with a friend this morning who owns his own shop, but admitted that he hired people much smarter than himself to keep things moving. It forces him to trust them, and them to work (but in a free-from-too-much-top-down-bullshit kind of way) things out together. A far cry from the hive-mind mentality that’s brought down more than one company. And almost reminiscent of Molter — let the people do the work in their way, and grow you will.
So many shops tout having a single idyllic goal in mind, one ideal to uphold. One mantra. Makes no sense to me, because when you’ve got so many people with individual goals, making them fixate on one seems totalitarian, at best. After all, we’re all trying to pay the rent so we can do what we really love. If you’re lucky, what you really love is already paying the rent.
This fundamental factor is one that keeps me from certain companies, namely death stars with tons of corporate bullshit, which I’d trade for small office politics any day of the week. We don’t want to be Acme Advertising, we want to be ourselves. That’s how creativity thrives, when there are no rules placed on the fountains of ideas (read: addies) that birth great rivers, rife with award (and account) winning work. Rootbeer.