Clients and Coworkers

Recently this video came across my gReader. It's a couple years old but I love it. Of course because of the client headache story arc, but also because of what it says about people dealing with "creative" situations.

Everyone likes to believe they are creative and when they are given a project to let that show, they strike. And while people feel they are creative, they generally worry that others, and definitely unknowns, are either not creative or need some hand-holding. Sometimes creative license leads to great things, sometimes bad things, sometimes project leads are so uncomfortable in the group mindset they micro-manage the project to death. I think we all know how painful that can be.

Prior to my new job I've always worked in media production environments. Coworkers have always been some variation on my talents. The Foundation is much more of a classic work environment; numbers, clients, budgets... I am an outlier as employee talents go. I rarely deal with the business side of the office, most of my time is spent on the creative/communication side. It's interesting. Most of the people I work with on projects do not know how far video and interactive media can push the final product. Sometimes I feel since they don't know me very well, and they have little experience in my area, they don't have any trust or confidence in my abilities. Naturally, that's frustrating but after stepping back and realizing I'm a wildcard to them, I get it.

I got so accustom to the culture of working with other media producers that now I need to completely recalibrate my production methods to fit into a new, more rigid system. Eventually my square talents will fit into this round hole. I just need to let others fill their creative fantasies and learn through that process everything my position has to offer. Just like this video above, sometimes coworkers and clients need to have faith that their collaborator knows what they're doing and knows why they are doing it a certain way.