Why Do New Media Types Like Multiples

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?

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ;)

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.

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)!

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.

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.

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.

ANOTHER QUESTION:

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

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.

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 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 :)

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!

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

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 :)

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.

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 ;-)