In his Beyond Play presentation at An Event Apart Austin TX 2013, Joshua Davis shared his path to success through creativity and ongoing play. Here's my notes from his talk:
- What is the opposite of work? For most adults it is play. But for kids, the opposite of work is: lazy, home, relaxed, boring, etc.
- Play is trying things, failure is part of the equal. But it provides the opportunity to discover the unknown.
- The kind of work you do, is what you'll get hired to do. So it's a good idea to do what what you love.
- The industry wants to replicate rather than innovate. If you spend too much time in work, and not play -you'll never find the next thing. To get the next idea, you have to experiment.
- Computers today can surpass what the human hand can do.
- Play allows you to define the trend rather react to it. When you make things for yourself and get them into the wild, others will find you and hire you.
- Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without loosing your enthusiasm -Winston Churchill.
- Today's technologies allows you to play in lots of new ways. Tools like Kinect and Leap Motion bring computing into the real world.
- Never let your success get in the way of your creativity. If you shut down play, you'll never find new forms.
- Be willing to be the student, even when you've mastered skills.