Adam Note: I’m traveling for work and now I surprisingly have downtime to write.
Someone asked on a forum I visit if it’s better to make a couple of quality podcasts or to make a bunch of average podcasts? There are mixed answers, but I do think the framing is wrong. A lot of people think quality is the only thing people will pay attention to but quantity gives you better reach. There are case studies on both. One of the replies was from the founder of the group who used to do daily podcast episodes and ended up with over 1000. He posted a story derived from the book Art and Fear by David Bayles
This story from the book Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland popped up in a favorite technology blog yesterday:
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
So what does that mean? It means creating with intent will lead to better quality work. As a professional, you have a choice to put effort into what you create. As a scientist, you are paid to not only conduct, but analyze data. The ones who make the big bucks use their findings to then improve it and make something they’re proud of.
Mindfulness
There are a lot of people in the world that are scheduled to make crap. I would say the majority of the working world’s only job is to create something and not imagine the possibilities. The simple McDonalds patty must be produced the same and the simple cupcake from that fancy bakery can’t alienate their customers so they have to produce the same thing.
Putting mindfulness in a daily task is setting an intention that your work will be better. This involves setting a goal but also having the chance to listen to what people say.
To go further, without setting a goal in your work, your work becomes hard to define. This can be as simple as “I want 80% of people to like what I make” to as specific as “I need marketing to be excited about my scientific presentation”. These goals are made so that every iteration you present, you are mindful of not only the excellent content you produce, but also the feedback you get from the people who see you work. Mindfulness when it comes to feedback is probably the most vital. When someone says what you create “sucks”, you have to process that feedback without emotion, and then put emotion to how to improve what you make. It’s a very hard skill to master and I would say that throughout my life, this has been the most important skill I’ve ever mastered.
Being mindful of how people react to the sample, you have to filter the signals and the noise. Some people might just not like soy protein but if your basis is mostly soy, then it’s just not for them. People wanted shorter podcasts for My Food Job Rocks, but I didn’t want that because I felt like my guests wouldn’t have a good time being interviewed which paid off tremendously. This is understanding the values of what you want internally versus what the world wants.
Iterations
How many iterations does it take to get something that tastes good from you to your friends? How much between your friends to a statistical study? And how much from that to a pilot run?
Iterations are the basis of perfecting your skill set. In this context, an iteration is a piece of work that can be criticized by others. It can be your coworkers telling you what they notice from your new experiment but it can also be a full report on what 100s of people think, or it could be the sales data for product number one. All of these are considered iterations.
What is great about iterations is that iterations can only get better. Getting feedback to make it tastier or healthier is important and will improve your product. The smaller your impact is, the faster you can iterate which is why startups are known to go fast, and companies with a massive influence go much slower. They have to cater to more opinions, which takes time but that’s not to say that in the background, iteration is going on.
How much iteration is too much? It’s hard to say and it depends on who you choose to listen to and who you choose not to listen to. It’s a big risk not following orders but it’s also a big letdown to see those orders fail at the starting line because you didn’t take the initiative to go through with your iteration. But what if your iteration flows? Or what if it succeeds?
This is a hard skill to master but it differentiates the leaders from the followers. But there’s an art to it and the only way to practice it, is to do it a bunch of times.
Art
Art isn’t just painting or sculpting. Everything you do can be art. You have a choice to invoke art into your work. Whether it’s giving a speech, designing an SOP or even saying hi to a friend, you have a choice to invoke an edge of personality that shows the world you’re really good at this. Some company cultures don’t like this, which is a shame but that’s the way it goes. Others that let you express your art can allow you to flourish.
Do note that good art must meet the technical criteria. The reason why Pop music is popular is that it satisfies technical criteria. The chord progression, the tempo, and the beats music follow a certain criteria to be exceptional and the audio quality has to be of a certain standard for it to be loved. Artists can impart a part of their personality or drama, but they always have to be technical standards. Deviating from that standard is always risky, but people do it, and it can be rewarding.
When we compare this to food products, food products have to follow the laws of food safety and quality, it has to follow regulations, and it has to generally be well-liked. But adding your art to the products you create gives you the chance to show people you’re better than average. It may be subtle, but adding your art allows you to not only be proud of what you create, but passionate. When you’re passionate about your work, people see that and start to respect that.
Recently, I’ve been playing a game called Ghost of Tsushima. It’s a beautiful game and it follows the rules of a standard open-world game. But there are subtle differences that make the game art. From the way, the main character touches the grass when riding a horse to the rendering of dust that makes the sunsets more opaque. Art is subtle, but for the people who love it, will become your fans for life.