081: Bring on the drama
Tis the season to be thankful for all we have generated
I don’t recommend getting Covid. The second time is not an improvement. But at least I’m not on the Board of OpenAI. That seems far worse. 🙄
As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday I’m grateful for vaccines, my wife’s encouragement to sleep, and the generosity of MCAD colleagues and friends who keep the momentum moving. Huge thanks to Kami Norland and Joseph Rueter for stepping in last night to run rehearsals for next Monday’s big event. You should attend!
Join us as students pitch their startup business ideas Monday, November 27 at 7pm
Here’s the MCAD pitch event website — the event is free and open to the public.
We’ve got ten students. They’ll each have four minutes, and ten slides. And in roughly an hour we’ll all experience the joy, stress and allure of pitching startup ideas. It’s a pivotal moment, a catalyst, a reckoning—and a significant ingredient in the life of any ideas person. Pitching your idea, pitching you, is nerve-wracking, energizing and invaluable.
Next week’s event won’t be Shark Tank. At least, I don’t expect to see fully vetted financials, patent applications, and pre-seed valuations. The goal next week is what I call “attractive legibility.” Each idea should be clear enough, captivating enough, to warrant more—more research, prototyping, exploration. Four minutes and ten slides later the audience is thinking, “Yeah, we get it! Keep digging, there’s something potent there!” (And maybe someone sees enough potential to offer to help?)
It’s akin to a table read for a play. After the dust settles, do we want to see these characters, this drama evolve into further dialogue edits, blocking, and costumes?
I love the fragility and the magic of these moments.
It’s hard enough to have remarkable ideas. Harder still to make them legible enough to share. Never mind gather the courage to present your ideas.
I hope you can join us next week for their presentations.
AI+Creativity Updates
🎭 I think it will work better as an opera than a movie. Last week’s OpenAI board and leadership drama would fuel powerful libretto. Just imagine Ilya Sutskever’s about-face aria. I appreciated Doug O’Laughlin’s character studies; and Matt Levine’s ever witty distinction between “MONEY” and “control.” The rest of it was far above my pay grade.
🤔 I’m fascinated with TLDRAW. In short: You draw/sketch/comp a thing, and it uses GenAI to make that thing real. You’ll need an OpenAI API key. Here’s a TikToker describing it. Here’s a YouTuber testing a video game idea. We’re going to see more of this—simple UX that enables you to describe your intent, and then GenAI builds it much the same what tools like Midjourney turn your words into pixels.
🎉 We’re nine days from the first anniversary of the launch of ChatGPT! I’m thankful for all I’ve been able to explore, iterate, discuss and build—and the connections and conversations which have emerged. Creativity hasn’t moved this fast in decades. Remember when we laughed at the fingers? Then in less than a year, “there’s a GPT for that.” We’re so fortunate.
