Gone Swimming
A trip to the Outer Banks with 40 creators.
Hey honeys and hustlers,
I got to meet one of my creative heroes this month, Dann Petty. I took a little trip to the Outer Banks for Epicurrence - a 3-day non-conference event for designers and creators. On this “inspiration break,” I got to watch the sunrise at the beach, explore Manteo, and hear some curated artist talks at the end of each night (some of these moments are featured in this video). While we weren’t allowed to record the talks, I can share a few of my favorite takeaways. Here are some things that stuck with me from my time with some of the top designers in the creator and tech space:
People are googling "how to make friends" more and more. On the second night, I suggested that we go around the dinner table and share 1 personal win, 1 professional win, and 1 ask and people really enjoyed that. Rose, thorn, and rosebud is another format like this that typically does really well in a group setting or as a writing prompt.
"Humans are not resources." We're creative, relationship-oriented, valuable people.
Social media is flawed for one common reason: you don't know the rules of the game. You don't know what you get rewarded for. Your success on a platform really depends on your willingness to lean into the platform and invest. People hide these things because they are either insecure about the factors they reward or because they believe the variables won’t align with the people adding value to the platform.
“Work is going to be based on what you can do not what you have done.” I somewhat agree with this. I think my version of this would be, “You rent your title, you own your character.” Titles are confusing and not standardized in the creative and marketing space. Education and experience are also relative to actual skill sets.
AI can't replace taste, curation, and creativity. This has been articulated in a variety of ways here in this newsletter, but it’s worth it to emphasize as AI increasingly becomes a part of our online reality. The things that make you human are your ability to translate your experiences and values.
“Sometimes people feel embarrassed by what they don't know about entrepreneurship.” Teaching allows you to reflect on what you've learned, and there will always be people who want to learn from you specifically. The things that feel like second-nature to you, are completely new to someone else.
"I wanted to deal with the consequences of my actions, but I didn't want to change my behavior." Oof. Sometimes we’re so quick to want solutions to a problem without having to actually address what caused the problem, so we run the risk of putting ourselves in the same situation.
There's an industry-wide gap in mid-level talent. High agency/senior people are better at working with less communication because they have more experience. They often charge more or command higher salaries, but it’s often worth it to pay more for the right person. I feel like there’s a way to bridge the gap between early-stage creators and higher-experienced creators, and it largely goes back to Issa Rae’s statement about “networking across.” Finding people who are at a similar level of experience as you so that you can grow together helps you create consistently better work and a more natural creative flow. I think there’s more to be said about finding complimentary creators, asking other creators to work for free on passion projects, and how to raise a budget for small projects. Another time.
A bonus: The founders of Contra and Pactto were in attendance and I highly recommend checking out their platforms. Contra is like Fiverr or Upwork on steroids, in the best way. Pactto is like Loom and Frame.io had a baby. They’re not paying me to say this, yet. I just really believe they’re building platforms that are really exciting for creators and creative teams. Some short videos below to get a quick idea of what they offer creators:
I’ve been traveling a lot this month for creator events like this, I can’t wait to share more about them in the coming articles!
Please Hustle Responsibly,
🤙🏾✨
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