Why Do New Media Types Like Multiples

At the risk of sounding overly simplistic, me-thinks because we can…
No seriously, chances are you develop a little something here, here then realize with a little tweak you could plug it into that over there - and as IT turns out - over there is very seldom more than a gesture away.

'Why not stick with one?' - as many reasons as there are projects, maybe more - but every project also has its mundane boring and frustrating bits. Sometimes being able to step away and come back to it from a different perspective and mindset is is usefull.

Then again maybe we're just suckers for punishment ;-)

I know I am so late in answering this but my thing is I get bored easliy and need constant change with my personnel ventures. It has to stay interesting.

Judging from the vast amount of varying opinion, the answer to your question is clear. There is no one answer as it depends on the motives of the individual.

But...

For me I like to compare the opportunities in this arena to a kid playing in a sandbox. There are so many toys, you can't just stick with one. Twittering, Flickring, MySpacing, Blogging, Optimizing, Searching, Podcasting, Squidooing, Tagging, Mashuping, Webmastering, etc. These are some of our sandbox toys that allow us to create the most simple or ellaborate castles and we want them all. I think I've been on the Internet too long today :)

Creativity carries with it a perceptive ability that calls out untapped or unexplored potential. I think for a lot of creative folks it's just too hard ignore that call however busy or engaged one might be.

It could also be a matter of financial necessity if you're trying to make a living at it.

-Jon

Its a natural outgrowth of the way the web works! - It's easy to set up new projects; there's an infinite amount of space to store it in, new ideas crop up a lot, collaborative projects are easliy faciliatated and working with other people is simply a lot of fun!

I only work on one thing. But that one thing needs input from hundreds of other things.

I like the bit above about the customers never knowing what they want, soooo true :)

We have had a Twitter site running for over ten years. I finally stopped auto-refresh. Sure, there's no SMS, no one had cells in those days :)

I think this is the crux of the issue right here- how do we measure success? And I wil post more over at The Parent's Eye View is anyone is interested....

I'm working in my multi-threaded world for a number of reasons. I'll divid them into two categories: Practical and Inspirational.

PRACTICAL

- My bill-paying job in mainstream media is currently
going through tremendous upheaval.
- The economics of being "just" a network news cameraman
don't look good in the long run.

INSPIRATIONAL

- My introduction to social media, internet TV and participatory
communities has opened my eyes to real business
opportunity.
- Managing all of these roles is at once overwhelming and truly
energizing.

It's often difficult to focus well on all of these things at the same time. In fact, I feel like I'm cheating my family of my mental prescense of late. But a tremendous inspiration to me, is all of the people in this space and the simple idea of staying focused on where I see myslef and all of us down the road. We are the new "micro media moguls". I think all of our collective hard work will pay off.

ANOTHER QUESTION:

What percentage of all your projects or distractions fail? How many are successful? How do you measure both?

Motivation. The fact that we are trying new media means that we are willing and motivated to try new things. We are naturally drawn to them. We are all similar people which is why we all do similar things. It is also why we get along so well.

I've tried to set aside projects and do just one at a time, but then I spend time thinking about what I've set aside, jotting down notes and ideas, completely sidetracking myself from what I should be doing. So I think I work better if I allow myself to jump from project to project, in the long run I accomplish more.

Ok, so as for your next question: If I had fewer projects, would I do them better?

I had a powerful realisation just 2 days ago that one of the reasons I procrastinate and do everything at the last minute is because then I don't have to see whether I'm as good as I'd like to think I am at stuff. I can just say, "Oh, I was in a rush, and I had lots of other things on my mind, so this was the best I could do under the circumstances. But if I'd had the time... I could have made something AMAZING."

But I'll never have the time to test to see whether I'm as good as I think I am because I'll just keep taking on new projects and ideas and writing long comments like this instead of taking that time. Asshole.

Fewer projects would be bad for me. I would procrastinate more.

Now, If I get fed up working on X, I can bop over to project Y and be productive there until I can face X again.

More projects also gives me the opportunity to work with a larger variety of people, and I enjoy that (mostly)!

I've always thought it was an Over Achiever syndrome. Then someone told me recently that they thought I was ADD. Gotta love labels.

For me, I think it is a deep-rooted fear that I do not exist unless I'm creating and producing and that once I'm gone, I will not be remembered unless I leave some footprints behind. I'm also incredibly passionate about taking the seed of an idea and then making something tangible out of it, sharing it with others, watching/feeling its impact. I just have so many ideas so my life is a jungle. Throw a baby in the mix, and you've got total madness.

The hardest part of doing multiple things? Not knowing what to tell people I do. I finally narrowed it down to Writer/Consultant but the list can go on and on. Usually have to tailor my "job title" to my audience.

If you're only going to do ONE thing, then I'd suggest doing the HARDEST thing first. ;)

That way, all the rest will be a walk in the park ;)

Because:
a) We are multi-faceted people not content to only focus on one facet of ourselves;
b) We are tinkerers, explorers, hackers (in the original positive sense of the world) who are interested in how we can change and use things;
c) We are learning huge amounts of (info? knowledge?) by our varied activities.
d) We have come to understand that creative insight can often come in the most unusual and odd ways... and very often NOT when you are focused on the problem at hand. I like what Chris MacDonald wrote: "Juxtaposed context breeds brilliance". We understand that what we learn in one area may assist in another. Synthesizing disparate pieces of knowledge unlocks doors. We understand the beauty and power of synergy.
e) We realize that in this crazy chaotic business climate, it's not enough to have a Plan A and Plan B- you also need Plans C, D and E.
f) We are social people (many, perhaps most, extroverts) interested in the lives and stories of other people.
g) We are having fun.

In answer to your "new question", yes, you can generally do fewer projects better... the right mix (i.e. how many) will vary for each person based on his/her capacity for handling chaos.

To be honest, I think it has something to do with being easily distracted. Sometimes it seems as if opportunities that at one time...OOOH LOOK, A BUTTERFLY!

What was I saying?

I remember when I took a Philosophy of Art class and my teacher made me aware of something that I had never given much thought to before. He said that creative people live in a dimension from the average person and those who are active in that dimesion stray from the norm even further. It not only gives the average person cause to believe that this creative individual is weird but it gives the creative person the feeling of euphoria that they are achieving their goals. What better way to have ultimate euphoria but to see as many of your ideas come to life. Even though many of your projects may not have the outcome you would have wanted, just imagine the feeling you get when they do.

My first thought about multiple projects is the ADHD factor- I work on multliple channels at once by nature. I sometimes lose focus if there's only one thing going on, but when the number of things on the to do list gets over 14, I can decompensate as well. (or 1,312 to be exact...)

When your plate is full, you are forced to manage your time better than when it's empty. Sometimes we need this sense of pressure, sometimes the ne new thing tips the whole balance in chaos.

I manage by only doing the things I love now- it makes it easy to give up the little stuff. I have a few things I need to get rid of ASAP, as they are non-value add to me on any level, and as soon as I can extricate myself from them, I will. But I did make commitments to some things a long time ago, before Podcamps came to rule my heart and mind.

If I had fewer projects, would I manage them better? Probably. The thing I miss most is the just hanging out doing nothing time; that has gotten rare and can leave me feeling a bit frantic. But I know it's also my fault for being compulsive about some things. Sometimes, managing things and projects better is more about friendsourcing and delegating than it is about control- what can you give to someone else and not make yourself crazy about at the same time?

I've long thought the women's lib promise that "You can have it all" was a lie of sorts- You may be able to have it all, but realistically, you can't have it all at the same time. This means looking at things on a time scale; what can you do now, and what must you put off to a slightly longer time frame?
I just have to be careful when I volunteer myself for something to know what it entails, and also be willing to outsource when I need to and without guilt.

Just for the record, I'm officially adopting Chris MacDonald's "serial/parallel project creator" line in lieu of my bad/old "experienced juggler of hats" one.

. . . but who snitched about my crazy cat lady behavior?

From a creativity and energy standpoint, I have limits. I found that doing a weekly sketch show has caused my personal blog and vlog to languish. I don't think I've posted a new vlog since starting Good Commitment in January.

All my energy, aside from my day job, marriage, beer drinking and occasional sleep go toward writing, shooting, acting, editing, etc the next week's show. I don't have anything left for something else. Maybe I should quit that day job...

There are so many amazing ways people are answering this. Very exciting to read. It's interesting that no one jumped on and said, "I only work on one thing."

NEW QUESTION for those of you coming back to read the comments:

If you had fewer projects (not just one, but fewer), would you do them better?

What's the ideal mix?

I didn't choose to do so many projects but they chose me. I also find that you can experiment with new smaller projects that augment the success of other big umbrella projects. It's my nature to give a new application, idea or client a chance to prove value and evolve. It's fun to be part of all of it.

I like to freelance as a way to see what everyone is thinking about doing and to pay the bills. I also podcast on wine-tasting travel, I make short films, I write lyrics, and I make jewelry.

I'll also add that I like to 'dovetail' knowledge which I acquire from one project idea to the next.

ie: The skills learned from one ALWAYS benefits or inspires the next.

Good value! :)

I was gonna post a comment but I've got too many other things to do.

We collectively have addictive personalities relating to our work. Everyone is a little different so your mileage may vary. The freshness of a new project with possibilities and meaty challenge? That's like someone else's cigarette. I hate the term "serial entrepreneur" just sounds so cheesy, as if the only goal is to make a bunch of money. Serial/parallel project creator, that works.

Another great by-product is the unintended ways multiple projects augment each other. Was just listening to a biography about Einstein on NPR, did you catch yesterday's Fresh Air? If he wasn't in that patent office, reviewing applications for clock synchronization, looking out the window at the trains coming and going, might he not have formulated his theory on space/time relativity? Juxtaposed context breeds brilliance. And lack of sleep. And crazy cat lady behavior. Just remember to bathe once and a while and apply deodorant.

Because if you throw a bunch of crap at a wall, a little might stick :)

-Jeff
http://blog.zemote.com

for me one has led to another..... sick to death of waiting for other people to make my dreams come true I sat down to write a film, the purpose of which was to create a profound and important creative opportunity for me... and for all my friends who I believed in and who also were still struggling artists (In fact I turned down more than one producer who wanted me to cast celebrities instead of my friends)..that dream is still in progress but my passion for my project and my determination to make it happen inspired me to think out of the box. A user generated web site was born, the hope being to build a community around the ideas of the film before we had even shot a frame, so that when the film was finished (I have raised $100,000 of the $350,000 I need to shoot) my market would already be established. From there sprang the idea of my vodcast... which seems to have taken over everything at this point!!!!! Next...????!!!!!

For me, it comes from two main sources: first, i don't have a clue where the money is in this industry. everything is so young, fresh and without market leaders, that it is wise to spread your investment.
the second reason is simple - it is so much fun to do tons of projects in parallel, see what works and what not, and try to stay ahead of the curve.

Creative brains are always popping with multiple ideas, different ways of looking at things, moments of insight. I truly think it all comes down to the way we're hard wired.

But ah the luxury we have in our ability to share this! Think about how much easier it is to feed and grow those brain sparks, not to mention exist in a world where we may not be the norm, than it was when Leonardo was struggling with his need to invent, create, express himself in multiple ways.

Also... I think that the solo nature of a lot of creative work means that you aren't constrained by perceived peer pressure from work colleagues to focus solely on the project that they're working on. You're not 'betraying' one set of people by working on something else.

And I guess it gets a little lonely when you're working away on something by yourself and more projects means more social contact.

I have a lot of ideas, and I fall passionately in love with some of them.

The thrill of coming up with ideas, and thinking about the possibilities is better than the process of implementing something.

So when I'm working on making a project a reality - often largely by myself - and feeling frustrated by the slog of doing it by myself, I'll find myself freshening up my mind by sitting on the toilet or in the bath or on the stoop with a coffee and a fag and falling in love with more ideas. Then I might tentatively embark on advancing some of them - or I might suddenly work obsessively on advancing and exploring an idea that I feel particularly excited about.

So at any one time, I've got a lot of things knocking around my head.

And that's just my OWN ideas, let alone the things I see other people doing and want to get involved in - or otherwise boring work projects that I try to think up cool ways of enlivening (and thus make needlessly complicated).

I'm addicted to the high of falling in love with ideas, and with the thrill of interacting with other people to make them a reality.

Because I can't say no to:
a.) cool projects
b.) cool men
c.) another round

It's because I am completely insane.

I sometimes get too many ideas in my head. Often, I need to 'make room' by initiating an idea for 'real' (be in tangible or virtual - like code)

Though all the ideas can be maddening, I also get HUGE amounts of energy from having them and especially implementing - even if it's just to make a start. Not all ideas make it to a screen though, which is why I need cloning or funding.

Who knows, a few of them just might might some money.

Most ideas I have had have always led to better things, be it a greater knowledge and understanding of something, or a new job.

I'm a self-made 'citizen geek/programmer' - self-taught on the web and trial and error. I left college studying Manufacturing Systems Engineering ( I wanted to design robots) and failed on Computing (in Turbo Pascal)

Opportunity ROCKS! - used to be my motto. And indeed it did. And thankfully still does.

Always having a new idea based around a new technology will make you 'Future-Proof'. ;)

Chris....these aren't multiple projects...they are a mash up of creative forces. Not everything works. Not everything sticks. One project has energy that feeds part of another project. And from that collective but unrelated energy, comes the possibility for something new.

So there!

For me, it is usually because of technical delays. I started as a painter, I'd get to a point on a painting where I had to stop for the paint to dry before I go further with it - I'd pull out another canvas, work for a while. Now, on my projects there are often delays while I wait for others to complete their contribution or to review my progress or perhaps a technical need, like rendering might force a pause. Rather than stop work all together, I prefer to move to another project. This is often mentally refreshing. Another important benefit of maintaining simultaneous multiple open projects is that a breakthrough in one often informs the others - I think it makes for better work altogether.

It is the nature of the creative process. In new media projects, one is juggling mixed-media assets - graphics, photos, video, text, code, visual information often in collaborative publishing environments with multiple content creators. Trends change dynamically, design styles reflect individual perspectives, and multi-tasking is the norm. Adding multiple projects into the mix stimulates interaction and creative energy. Project production is anything but a linear process and possibly reflects the natural neural pathways of creative minds.

I've always been involved in a hundred things at the same time, it seems. I think I get the trait from my parents, who, when I was growing up, were always on the go with this community group or that charity, organizing events, attending events, all while working full time jobs and raising two kids. Even in their retirement, they have barely slowed down. They just take more vacations now.

For me, it's more than just "keeping busy". My business partner and I were just joking yesterday, that between the two of us, it seems as if we know just about everybody in our city. Or at least we know someone who knows someone. We are well connected because we have worked on so much stuff. It's critical to be involved in order to build your network. And now that we are doing our many projects for a living, it's even more important to have a lot on the go.

i think it's because creative projects (art, code, events, whatever...) tend to flow iteratively w/ differing velocities, thus your able to start them at different times, stack them one on top of the other, yet be performing different aspects of each from a timeline perspective - so for example, while deciding on the concept for one, building another, testing another and productionalizing another (really simplifying the whole concept-to-production flow) - it maximizes the person or team doing the multiple projects of course - but thats ok, multitasking is in itself an artform...

Oh and i forgot to mention. it seems to be a trend for non-geek types to get involved in multiple project work for PR, it makes them look like they know what they are doing. Yet really behind the scenes only a few people are actually doing the work, the rest are trying to look cool of it. :)

You know who you are people. :)

It could be that it feeds some people's creative process. Cross-pollinating between projects or something. It could also be as simple as short attention span.

I find that I need to put difficult projects down when I get stuck and do something else so when I come back, I can discern the issues better. I can't really do more than one significant project at the same time. It takes me a day sometimes, to make a context switch and get fully back into another problem space.

Our business approach has been to run with the ideas that excite us, and we see what sticks. It has enabled us to be extremely agile and maximize opportunities when they come; the rest sits on the back-burner until further development is warranted.

We're also kind of spastic. :)

Dead easy. Without all these elobrate answers.

"because most of the time paying un(web) clients have no idea what they want from a website and getting information from the client can take a long time to gather"

Simple.

I will add this also, that creative types are open to a mass of new information with "beta" websites like twitter which highlight great ideas and usage of new ways of working. This sparks the creative gene and in turn makes you wanna get "involved"

I have often said that I would make a horrible 9to5'er. I am sure its because of my need for constant change. Beside a half dozen podcasts, I have a video production company, a computer services company, oh yeah - and a new gig with the "soon-to-be" 800lb gorilla of podcasting. Those are just the paying gigs... the hobbies are waaaay too numerous to mention.

Bottom line is that I love having a rich life that is full of uncertainly and the kind of experiences that the clock-punchers of the world can only imagine. I think us creatives are hard-wired to need stimulation... which is why we are drawn to the tools provided by the internet. (Gotta run... three meetings this morning, including a meditation session with a visiting Tibetan monk - don't worry, I will be recording it.) Fun stuff.

From a business perspective, you never know where the next big thing will come from. You never know who you'll meet or under what circumstances, so you branch out, diversify, and in the process of doing so, learn more about what's possible.

I'd get so bored working on one thing, I have a very low threshold before I get plain bored. Put me in a straight 9-5 and I'll slowely melt into a zombie.

So by juggling lots of things, or spinning multiple plates in the air, I can shift from one to the other with high energy levels, and not long one fall.

That's one reason, the other could well be financial streams, and not wanting to miss out on opportunities.

So I run Audiocourses.com, with a team of staff helping me out, I'm busy upgrading thephonecam.com with humpa, to remove adult, I operate malebits.com and various other sites and blogs. I lecture in UK Universities, I podcast, I run an island in SecondLife, I'm helping to organise PodcampUK, I play guitar, I run.. .. dayum!

hmmm I need to think about this, perhaps too many plates, but I always make time for the family.

I think it's just that people in this space are used to an overload of things. Look at whats happening right now with Twitter and Jaiku. Do we really need both, do we really need to be on Facebook, MySpace, Friendster etc? This environment is just so conducive to multitasking it makes it easier. I also think that you have to act on an idea when you get it. If you don't it's either forgotten or someone beats you to it. And hey if you get a chance to work with some really cool people who's gonna pass that up?