Thursday was a pretty productive day. I was about to use a livestream as a coworking session to get moving on a hairy programming project! I got my music hardware and software to talk to each other, mostly on purpose! I dug deeper into the mysteries of Google Hangouts! However, I’m starting to think that I’m emphasizing too much process, to the point it is starting to feel self-indulgent. So next week I’d like to try to get back to simple making as the point of the Groundhog Day Resolution posts. There’s two reasons for this I can think of.

Best Practices for Value

Although sharing process is really important to me, I am reminded that it can also be really boring to read if you don’t know what every moving piece does. These past couple of weeks have been a lot of fun for ME, but I don’t think they are fun to read about every single day. For one thing, who has the time to read so much heavy-duty process? Rather than present the raw discoveries as they happen, the real value comes from presenting packaged discoveries. This is a far better use of people’s time, and in hindsight it is a reliable indicator of value. In other words, the more utility/inspiration generated for the amount of time/effort expended, the greater its value.

In practical terms, this suggests that my daily public output might benefit from this list of suggested best practices that I just made up:

• shorter, focused blog pieces
• distilled to a picture and a caption
• easy-to-download and access useful bits of design
• a clearer hierarchy of existing content that can be searched by application
• a guaranteed takeaway for every two sentences read
• connections that are drawn directly, rather than left to be inferred
• connected to larger, more detailed bodies of knowledge.

This is apparent to me after 10-or-so days of sharing a lot of research I’ve been doing on the livestreaming investigations I’ve been doing. It’s interesting to ME, but I don’t think it’s the best way to deliver value. If anything, I feel my value delivery levels of dropped off because I am getting into pretty esoteric territory. While I’m glad I pushed myself to research and try the world of livestreaming, I think it’s time to turn my attention to the next challenge. Something smaller and more tangible that can be explained with a picture and a caption.

Stuff Learned and GHDR Points Earned

I am now in great shape to live stream or podcast anything I want at a moment’s notice Now to learn how to make GOOD content in that realm! I’m going to consider this a major closure goal that I hadn’t seen coming, and award if 50 points.

Points, however, are not on my mind. The next goals I work on, I think, should be more about making and sharing smaller artifacts. These past couple weeks have been really process- and learning-focused. Here’s a screen shot that metaphorically summarizes process-oriented posting:

Now this is an interesting screen capture for the many inter-related settings that are shown on this screen; I arranged the screenshot so I could remember how everything is related. It is sublimely nerdy in how it captures every dialog box on the same screen so I can later make a awesome reference diagram.

Compare that to this picture though:

That’s the CW&T Pen Type B, machined out of brass, that I received about a month ago. It’s a beautiful piece of functional art, made by a family-owned machine shop somewhere on the East coast. Why haven’t I written about this more? Well, it’s because there’s a balance between showcasing inspiration and grinding through process mastery that I have yet to find.

Which picture elicits more of a response? For me, it’s the second one. There is a place for process-heavy posts, but I want to put those aside for a while so I can emphasize showing or making tangible things that elicit a response. After all, “making things” is the whole reason to have process in the first place. I’m not sure what the right balance will be, but I think trying to follow the best practices list is a good start. My working theory is that one needs both inspiration and process in equal measure every day.