Some will criticise, because that's what they do; others will muse and offer critique-based solutions.
"That doesn't work because you've broken the line".
And then there's your own internal alter ego.
For some people, it's just never enough.
When did Pollock know that was the last brush stroke?
How could the four year old know she'd finished her master piece: a sun flower?
When is enough, enough?
Bouncers
Firstly the critic who offers nothing does not help you. If you can, continue the journey.
The one who offers you a reason why it doesn't work, is the friend to hang onto.
They constitute the "bouncers". You bounce ideas off them and they come good.
And at some point you begin to question yourself as if your list of bouncers surrounded you.
You become your own best critiic.
Natures bouncers congregate
PhD seminars, The Smart Lab, is exactly like that.
Non ellitist, which cuts against the grain of thinking, each person has a defined goal and in the midst of others is trying to find new windows, clear direction.
And all the while, surrounded by people who ask questions, simple ones: why does that do this?
Flâneur flâneuse kila mapping, New forms of music Online, online spaces, perfomers using their dance to create digital paintings, Virtual Nomads visualisation.
I did not understand all, but I got let into a new world, out of my confort zone, which in turn sparked new ideas and I was always all too ready to say: I don't understand".
The package on Ron Edwards and his virtual worlds and how videojournalism would work inside is but one example of the adage: if you want to know about water don't ask a fish.
The solutions for what we often might try to achive live beyond the boundaries of what I already know, that at least is something I have come to appreaciate.
Hillman Curtis' Flash expertise, Rob Chiu's amazing Motion Graphics... peoples whose experience play into the hands of videojournalism, which simply can't be a manifestation of an old language refined for a new era.
Getting your bouncers to work
We often get so wrapped up with own ideas we miss the tree from the woods.
Here is where your bouncer works. They don't mollycuddle you, wrap you with cotton bud comments, or turn their nose.
They're trying to get you into a space where you might realise your own flaws, and in cases explain better your own understanding at convincing them.
At Smart Lab we had these 10 minute presentations, punctuated by immediate and overnight feedback from the 20 or so other cohorts.
It was as exhilirating as it was nerve wracking.
The experience is one to adopt. In some cases it already exists now, online, through comments and emails from those we establish a bond and relationship with.
Three more rules to add to the evolving manifest of web and videojournalism.
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