In Short

In a world which is becoming increasingly fragmented and using technology for collaboration, there’s still no substitute for real life human connections to help our creative growth.

In Depth

Collaboration has become somewhat of a buzz word in the modern creative sector. Often intrinsically linked with some form of technology. We’ve allowed the word to be hijacked as a marketing term, and in doing so we are in danger of not realising how vital in-person collaboration is to our growth.

A personal story. Part COVID, part age, part a bad flight experience, I’d decided that I’d be happy to go to any meeting as long as I didn’t have to leave home. Joking aside, I was somewhat serious. What could travelling offer when I have video conferencing software, approvals software and endless amounts of cloud storage? I also have an almost limitless amount of messaging applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, Texting et al. Of course I also speak on the phone if I want to, for many that’s too old school, but it’s still my favourite form of communication. I like to hear the tone of voice and the nuances in the words that can remove any miscommunication often found in the written word.

All of the above examples do make a strong case for not needing to travel. Add to this the lowering of my carbon footprint and there’s a pretty compelling case for being a creative hermit.

This week reminded me of how wrong that thinking is.

Push And Pull

I was in London for meetings with various producers and engineers at studios such as Pinewood, Air Studios and Strongroom. I also had coffee and meals with several professionals. In those few days I learnt so many new things, that I doubt I would have learnt stuck working on my own.

One of the problems of working alone is that one is often working in a pull environment. I’m using the term pull as it’s used in the world of digital communications. What I mean by pull, is that if one needs to learn or discover something it’s often done in a very intentional way. I come across a problem when working on a project and I then go looking for a solution. It’s a very selective way of learning and discovery, it’s learning on a need-to-know basis. I’m less likely to discover something by accident, or be taken down a path of discovery much futher than solving the problem at hand. It’s very utilitarian and doesn’t really allow one to go off the beaten track. I’ve often justified it to myself by thinking that I’m not filling my mind up with stuff I don’t need to know.

Of course technology tries to replicate discovery using algorithms on social media, or music and video services, for example, to serve us with new information. However, on the whole, those algorithms serve as an echo-chamber, offering us with things to discover based on what they know about our taste and behaviour patterns. So, I’m likely to see a lot of dog related stuff on my feeds, I love dogs. Less likely to see cats, not a fan. Really unlikely to see giraffes, it’s not that I dislike them, but the algorithm isn’t ever likely to show me giraffe stuff.

The other half of messaging technology is push technology. With pull technology data arrives when requested, whereas push data arrives unrequested.

My meetings with people were the human equivalent of push. Pushing theories, ideas, and techniques at me. There was no algorithm filtering the stuff either, so this week I’ve been getting plenty of giraffes.

Self Made?

I’ve spoken before about this, but I dislike the term ‘self made person.’ The reason is that I’m not self made, no one is. I am the amalgamation of millions of conversations, music I’ve heard, things I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, poetry, memes, art, travel moments and more. All of these have contributed to shaping my thinking and made me who I am thus far.

The problem for a creative when living like a hermit is that it reduces the chance of discovering the giraffes, and not even an algorithm is going to fix that - they are too deterministic. Whereas our interactions with people, especially when we’re not trying to do stuff but just be together, are far messier. Often it’s in those messy moments that we are exposed to new ideas. They are not always better, but they are often different.

It’s in those moments that we have ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that before.’ Or; ‘wow, that’s a great idea.’ We get pushed out of our comfort zones and into considering different points of view. We also find out about new things. As I sat talking to engineers and producers, I kept having those moments.

A couple of examples; I heard a vinyl record cut at half speed for the first time. We compared it against the regular pressing and the difference was night and day. I was sitting in the mastering suite of audio guru Barry Grint at Air Studios in London. Ten minutes before I hadn’t ever given the idea of half speed mastering a second thought and now I was listening and a convert. Once I had heard it I wanted to know how it worked and Barry kindly talked me through it. He also showed me some other stuff, like using delta and phase to check your work.

The day before, we sat in, what I can only describe as the astonishing sounding mix room of friend, and super talented mixer Jonas Westling. He’s also tall and good looking, it’s enough to make me want to hate him. Anyway, he was playing some mixes he’d been doing. As we sat listening questions were flying from those in the room; mostly based on “how the f*ck did you get that sound?” We’d then talk about compression techniques, reverb, and other stuff. We shared tracks we loved from different artist and had a listening session, pushing new audio experiences into each other.

I doubt that had I been at home, those experiences, that have now informed and inspired me, would have ever happened. Most of the time I’m busy on a project and the learning and discovery is pull based, I do it when I need to. As I’ve already said, computers can help me ‘discover’ but algorithms limit it to a world I’m already in.

Uninvited Growth

Being around real people means stuff gets pushed univited into us, we are suddenly surprised by something that a few minutes earlier we’d never given a second thought. Suddenly my world of dogs is now filled with, metaphorically speaking, giraffes, hippos, and heaven forbid a few cats too!

I know that COVID has left a lasting effect on many lives, many of us are less willing to travel, to leave the comfort of our studios and so we rely on internet connections for our input. I think it’s a mistake and we are poorer for it.

So I want to encourage those of you, who like me, have got a little too comfortable being creative in our slippers, to make the effort to connect with real people. I think the benefits far outweigh the cost. If you’re sitting in your studio relying on a digital connection to feed your creative soul then think about the things you could be missing, the giraffes. Stuff you don’t even know you are missing, the uninvited growth.

Algorithms are cool, people are better!