What I Learned This Year 2011 #55: David Slayden

I am typing this with one hand. My right hand. The fingers of my left hand are peeking out from a navy blue arm sling trimmed with white piping––all of which is supported by a white velcro-covered strap draped over my right shoulder. Sling is an adaptive word. It can be a noun or a verb. In this case, it’s a noun. My damaged left shoulder is unable to support my arm, so the sling is doing the job instead. I am generally displeased, both about the injury and the style choices. I would have preferred an all-black sling but that would have required shopping around and there’s only so much time in a given day, particularly when I already spend more effort than I thought possible on previously simple, unconscious tasks: like putting on socks or threading a belt through the loops on the backside of my jeans.

I cannot open jars, nor can I drink wine if my wife is traveling because, yes, operating a corkscrew is now beyond my current capabilities. Needless to say, I have switched to screw tops.

I was skate skiing––the roller ski version––and a moment’s lapse in attention resulted in a full back flip and a hard landing on concrete at the base of a swift descent. My instinctive response was to brace my fall with my left hand, arm stretched out behind me. At impact, it felt like a long steel rod had been shoved through my palm up the length of my arm and into the back of my head. Fractured shoulder. Severed tendon. A three-centimeter tear in the rotator cuff. The surgery lasted over three hours. The PT will take considerably longer.

At this point, descriptive introductions like this one are invariably the setup for a life lesson learned, an insight gained through searing pain, suffering, and reflection, followed by eventual redemption—especially in a year-end piece that is part of a series titled “”What I Learned This Year.” In short, the standard “moral of the story is....”

I should have had speed reducers installed on the skis.

It needs to be said here that speed reducers are not brakes. Rather, they serve to increase or decrease resistance to the wheels, a function which I now understand can be particularly useful downhill on a hard, unforgiving surface.

I wasn’t exactly disdainful when the salesperson asked me if I wanted the reducers, but the thought bubble floating above my head was: “Why would I want to reduce my speed?” I answered with a simple “No.” I’m now rethinking that response and what engendered it––not because it was necessarily a wrong response but because it was automatic. I didn’t think it through.

I love to go fast. I’ve always loved to go fast. And as soon as I am released by my doctors to be active again, I will go fast. Again. But I am now exceptionally aware of the shortfall of automatic responses. Mindfulness matters, and not just when big moments happen and big decisions need to be made but also in the small, in-between moments of everyday life. Everything matters. Life is actually lived in the particulars, although summarized in generalities. No matter what, it’s a good idea to pay attention to the details. My parents were strong on values and never passed up an opportunity to point out that actions––any actions––are always followed by consequences good or bad. I saw things differently. Everything is an opportunity for learning.

From the beginning, BDW has been on a very fast track. We wanted to make an impact and we wanted to do it quickly. When we opened our doors in 2009, our anthem was ”Start here. Change everything.” In truth, we had enough money to last four months.

We were Boulder Digital Works and deliberately disruptive. Our intent was to create a revolution in learning fueled by digital technologies. Much of what we did was in focus and purpose driven but, looking back, too much of it was automatic. Internally, our mantra was “Speed. Focus. Agility.” but the emphasis was primarily on speed. For the past six months, we’ve been looking back, assessing and also reflecting, gaining focus.

For reference, here’s a short list of what we’ve done since our inception.

• Since October 2009, we have had a total of 46 students enroll in our graduate program. That’s an average of 23 students per year.

• We have created and produced 20 executive workshops in Boulder, New York, Amsterdam, Toronto, Miami and Vancouver for approximately 1,600 people.

• We have also created and developed interactive projects for Microsoft, Toyota, State of Colorado Office of Economic Development, Suuthe, Justin’s Nut Butters, SpyderLynk, Open Road Media, IXDA and Fearless Cottage.

• We’ve been covered by The New York Times two times, along with USA Today, MediaPost, Publishers Weekly, Boards, Advertising Age, AdWeek, Marketing Week, Creativity, and, of course, The Denver Egotist.

We are now two years and two months old, and we celebrated this anniversary quietly by changing our name from Boulder Digital Works to BDW. This decision was less of a change than a simple acceptance that everyone refers to us as BDW anyway. But more significantly the change to BDW is a recognition that we’ve evolved and it’s time to publicly recognize and act on that evolution. Calling yourself digital seemed necessary and appropriate two years ago. Today it feels redundant, a distinction without a difference. Everything’s digital.

We are no longer the brand new edgy kid in the neighborhood. We are maturing and growing and that is a good thing. We do remain experimental. That won’t change. BDW now is best described as a post digital studio in the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder. We are what happens when a university thinks and acts like a startup, using Agile Methodologies and Lean Startup principles to develop creative uses of technology that bridge physical and digital environments. BDW generates people, projects and solutions for the 21st-century creative industries, and we do all of this in what is best described as a new culture of learning. In April of 2012, we will move to a new and raw location in Boulder where we can design and build immersive experiences that connect life on the screen with life off the screen. We will be welding as well as developing. You’re all invited.

This is real stuff. Our work is significant and necessary and we intend to last and grow and always be evolving. We’re grateful to TDE for the attention and support they’ve given us and while the better title for this piece is “What we have learned so far,” we’re more than happy to have it appear under their excellent annual series “What I Learned This Year.” So here that is, along with our best wishes to the creative community for a prosperous and happy 2012.

Musicians play. Everybody else works.

The future of work really is play.

People do not like change but they fear uncertainty. Uncertainty is scary.

The world is in permanent beta.

Thinking and doing is better than thinking versus doing.

We are designer-makers not makers OR designers.

Post-industrial society is becoming increasingly like pre-industrial society.

Dogs in the workplace are better than cats in the workplace.

Everyone should have their own garage band.

What goes around really does come around.

We are happier when we do less, better than when we do more faster.

It is much more rewarding to execute an idea and fail than to continue thinking.

What we do is who we are.