Build the Dumb Thing

I was driving to pick up my son from school today, and as is my way, a truly, truly dumb idea popped into my head.

I'm not going to go into it right now, since I am going to build it this weekend, but it did prompt me to write this post, since I am a big proponent of building the absurd. The question is why. Allow me to grab this soapbox and learn you something friends.

In Defense of Fun

The main aspect of building something dumb, is the sheer fun of it. If you have been in this industry as long as I have, your days are filled with mission critical, super serious work. This is great and all, I mean, that's why we have careers, but it tends to wring all the joy out of making when that much pressure and focus is forced on you.

A side effect of this constant seriousness is that it tends to infect your non-work time. Which you need to have. Not every waking moment can or should be work. I say this all the time, but if your job involves problem solving, it is a creative endeavor, and you are a creative.

Creatives need to recharge. I can't stress this enough.

Musicians listen to other people's music and most importantly just play for fun. Whether it's rocking out their favorite song on whatever instrument they happen to employ, to joining a jam session, musicians recharge.

Designers and developers desperately need the same thing.

Enter the Dumb Thing

It can be anything really, but my dumb things tend to be technically interesting and challenging, while having minimal usefulness. I'm odd.

A great example of this is SocialDungeon, a Twitter based game that allowed people to award points to each other via an account on Twitter. It was fun, stupid and something I had never attempted before, building a game.

Some people jumped in to play, but ultimately it was dumb, so no one really played it but me, and then when twitter went to hell, I just shut it down. But I had a metric crapton, or rather 907.185 crapkilograms, of fun figuring it out. I learned quite a bit as well.

It was recharging, which is what I needed more than anything.

So, I guess what I'm saying is if you find yourself in a slump, no creativity or enthusiasm for what you are doing... take a minute and make something dumb.

You'll thank me later.