In one of my entrepreneurship courses, my professor offered this thought: entrepreneurs are in the game either for the money or for the fame; decide which, because each alternative might lead to different choices, goals, and metrics for success. This dichotomy comes up constantly, but I believe it’s incomplete.
In a recent research study regarding the minds of creative people, a UK psychologist claims, “Creativity is uncomfortable. It is their dissatisfaction with the present that drives them on to make changes.” This presents a 3rd motivation for entrepreneurship, and the motivation I’m most familiar with; it’s the desire to create art, or to make the world a better place.
We’ve created the perfect storm of circumstances to give rise to a new Bohemian movement, this time in technology and design innovation.
For the unfamiliar, Wikipedia describes Bohemianism as “the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits, with few permanent ties. Bohemians can be wanderers, adventurers, or vagabonds.”
‘The Cult of the Amateur,’ ‘Grindhopping,’ and ‘The Long Tail,’ among others, describe the cultural and technological shifts that make this movement possible, citing the rise of self-publishing, viral promotion, citizen journalism, freelance lifestyles, social media, bootstrap entrepreneurship, fragmented distribution, and niche customer engagement. For the first time in modern history, it’s normal for a large number of professionals to be free agents, digital nomads surfing from project to project.
Sure some entrepreneurs are in it for the money or the fame, but I believe a large number of visionaries like myself are in it for the art – to create something remarkable and revolutionary, or elegant and everlasting. Like Bohemians before us, the joy comes not from the reward, but from the self-satisfaction of creating a priceless gift. We’re driven by the gnawing dissatisfaction that our interactions with the world, companies, people, products and services don’t pan out the way we expect them to. We can’t help ourselves, we’re burdened with the uncomfortable realization of technology’s potential.
Tags: edgecrafting, innovation, interaction
Visit any karaoke studio and you’ll find a notebook full of songs, listed alphabetically by title or artist. While this architecture is useful for searching, it’s nearly useless for browsing, which is the prime behavior pattern for patrons.
