An Experiment, Live, at The End of Work
An “idea party” over there all day today. Barbara Sher, whom I assisted many years ago in writing her first wildly popular book Wishcraft, discovered that people could actually reach their impossible dreams by crowdsourcing them (a word that didn’t exist yet then)—putting them out there where other people, who don’t have our own personal negativity and blind spots, could rather easily come up with ideas we’d never have thought of, and contacts we’d never have found on our own, that added up to a doable new enterprise.
We’re trying to adapt that strategy for the post-work era, when the impossible dream often seems to be simply generating an income. Many of us are going to have to figure out how to do that outside the shrinking “job” structure (we freelancers have a head start, of course, because we’ve been doing it most of our lives). The End of Work is one place to refine the strategy. The blog host, Ron, is the guinea pig. We’ll do more. It’s actually fun and surprisingly easy to come up with ideas for someone else, because you yourself have nothing to lose. So have at it. Ron has posted his “ingredients list” — skills and interests — so let’s see what we can hypothetically cook up. Comments will be open all day. Nutty ideas are welcome (they often lead to less nutty ones), and the only censorship is of cynicism and “this’ll never work” negativity. By all means feel that way if you must — just don’t express it at the idea party, because it turns the beer to vinegar. If you need to vent, do it here.
Ambiance 
wj said,
October 13, 2011 at 9:48 pm
If you’ve never tried brainstorming, head on over and find a new way to have fun!
Stephanie said,
October 14, 2011 at 12:48 am
For some reason I can’t comment over there….but I was thinking, what about project managing IT/ gaming projects? One of the things they frequently are looking for is someone with It experience who can manage projects.
amba12 said,
October 14, 2011 at 12:52 am
Maybe your first comment is just awaiting approval; I’ll check and fix it. That’s a good idea.
amba12 said,
October 14, 2011 at 12:55 am
Odd, I don’t see any comments pending . . . don’t understand why you wouldn’t be able to comment. What happened when you tried?
Icepick said,
October 14, 2011 at 2:27 am
It might be a browser issue. I had problems here on my laptop for a while before I noticed that I was running an old version of IE for some reason. Switched to Chrome (and later the latest version of IE) and saw the problems clear up. I didn’t have that specific problem, but you never know. The IT, it is wacky.
wj said,
October 14, 2011 at 10:52 am
Computers are a snare and a delusion. It’s obvious they will never catch on!
And I speak as one who has spent a career working on them. ;-)
Icepick said,
October 14, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Clearly a passing fad. I’m going back to my knitting now.
mockturtle said,
October 14, 2011 at 9:07 pm
Don’t you feel the Muse tugging at your sleeve? I just know you’ve got another book in you….
karen said,
October 14, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Funny you should mention knitting, ice. I saw a shop that offered lessons and thought– maybe i could do that.
amba12 said,
October 14, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Mockturtle: Who, me?
mockturtle said,
October 14, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Of course! :-)
Icepick said,
October 15, 2011 at 1:03 am
Don’t rush her, mockturtle. With her genetics she has time.
Icepick said,
October 15, 2011 at 1:06 am
Funny you should mention knitting, ice. I saw a shop that offered lessons and thought– maybe i could do that.
I’m pretty sure knitting is beyond my abilities. Maybe if I had learned when I was younger….
amba12 said,
October 15, 2011 at 1:23 am
Speaking of knitting . . .
amba12 said,
October 15, 2011 at 1:24 am
Mockturtle, while half asleep I had this thought that if I ever wrote a book about life with J it should be called 10,001 Transylvanian Nights. I still don’t know if that’s an inspired title or the sort of goofy thing that only makes sense when you’re half asleep.
mockturtle said,
October 15, 2011 at 11:49 pm
10,001 Transylvanian Nights Love it! Obviously inspired! :-)
kngfish said,
October 16, 2011 at 12:33 pm
10,001 Transylvanian Nights This casts our bloggeress as a kind of Vampire Scheherazade….
Scheherazadenfreunde There’s a book title searching for a subject….
karen said,
October 16, 2011 at 2:22 pm
… Scheherazade….
Easy for you to say!!
Uh, rather than use this computer for a google search,, can YOU explain that? Hmmmm- an idea. Write a book/dictionary for the ignorant of this world(me)w/words taken from this blog, say. Words the average jo(sephine) wouldn’t know.
You’ve already got the title;0P!!
karen said,
October 16, 2011 at 2:53 pm
… & illustrate it w/comics a la the wimpy diary kid.
kngfish said,
October 16, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Sure Karen… Scheherazade is the woman who told the 1001 Tales of The Arabian Knights fame…
wj said,
October 16, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Arabs had Knights? Who knew? ;-)
mockturtle said,
October 16, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Arabian Nights, I think he/she meant. Scheherezade saved her life by telling her husband an interesting new story every night.
kngfish said,
October 16, 2011 at 6:45 pm
Strange…I coulda swore I wrote Nights…..Damn AutoCorrect!
mockturtle said,
October 16, 2011 at 6:45 pm
Sorry I misspelled her name. Sheherezade, I think.
karen said,
October 16, 2011 at 8:46 pm
The kids have a cool movie called ~The Thief and the Cobbler~. The thief voice is Jonathan Winters:0). Very animated and colourful, that movie. Gives my youngest (K)nightmares.
mockturtle said,
October 16, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Oh, wow, I always loved Jonathan Winters! Amazing ad-libber. He’s still alive, I think.
kngfish said,
October 16, 2011 at 11:14 pm
“The Citrus Drink that cools you for 1001 Nights….Sheherez-ade”
mockturtle said,
October 17, 2011 at 10:14 am
Yeah, but it’s pronounced ah-deh, if I”m not mistaken. :-)
wj said,
October 17, 2011 at 10:15 am
I knew what you meant. (And I make plenty of typos myself!) But it was too appropriate a quip (in my not very himble opinion) to pass up.
I think one of life’s great irritations is (badly written) software which thinks it knows better than you do what you wanted to type. Although my problem may be that it assumes a rather small vocabulary. Which makes it problematic for all of us here.