Projects and Projections

So, yes, I have been spending a portion of my free-time lately thinking about making an app, but my “day job” (inverted commas because it often means working into the evening) involves being a video camera operator / video maker.

Yesterday I rolled into Auckland’s CBD to interview a woman who, with 5 other start-uppers, had been accepted on a two week-long entrepreneurship program in Thailand.

“What is her business all about?” I asked the reporter I was with.

“She's developed an app to help people find restaurants that are owner-operated, as opposed to being part of a chain or franchise.” He said.

“Ok, sounds curious." I answered. "What about the other entrepreneurs, what are theirs about?”

“Well, there is one from Tauranga who has made an app to help people locate sites of cultural significance…” Hmmm, another app, I thought a little gingerly.

Then of the next three projects he listed, two of them were also apps.

I planned to finish the description site for my own app idea that night, and then was going to start letting people know about it the next day, but I suddenly felt quite despondent about the whole situation.

“Far out” I thought, “Everyone and their dog has a damn app idea.” Maybe people will just smile and nod when I send my one out into the world, while thinking “yeah that’s great, another app idea to add to the app idea pie-in-the-sky warehouse. How about you get back to us once you have actually taken it a few more steps down the track."

But then I thought, as I negotiated road-works on our way down to the waterfront, "Wait a second, this goes totally against a big chunk of what my projects idea is all about, namely, the act of putting our aspirations out there. Holding them up as a talking point, helping to make them much more robust and bringing a life to them so there is so much more to them when its time to take them to the next stage."

Yes, I think, my idea might be just one of a million ideas in that warehouse, and it might end up that a whole lot of other ideas deserve resource more, but I know that at the very least I need to put my money where my mouth is, because I am convinced that normalising the broadcasting of big goals is part of what is needed to give our world a much needed shake-up.

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