I’ve been doing creative work as my core livelihood since 1994, which is like 198 internet years (1 temporal year = 11 internet years, because everyone knows the internet turns things up to 11).
In doing creative work, I give and receive a ton of feedback.
Sometimes in the necessary rush of making and shipping things, it’s easy to take “it’s not there yet” feedback the wrong way – which is a very effective way to poison a project or a team.
This morning I started writing down some important touchpoints to keep in mind when having these sorts of conversations.
Without further ado, I give you a shitty first draft of…
Zug’s laws of creative feedback
1) Making things people love is hard.
2) When we work to make things together, you will hear a lot of “it’s not there yet” from me.
3) “It’s not there yet” is NOT code for “you suck + should be fired + never allowed to procreate”
4) It is not possible for me to say “it’s not there yet” out of anything other than deep gratitude – that you’ve chosen the ass kicking work of birthing “awesome” into the universe is humbling.
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