The Wisdom of Crowds?
SteveAlthough not a Broadway fan, (I think the last Broadway show I actually saw was 'Showboat', you know the 'Ol Man River one), I am a big comics fan, and such have been casually following the saga of the 'Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark' show, a Broadway musical adaptation of Marvel Comics most famous hero.
You may have heard something about this show, even if you are not a Broadway fan - the backstory is quite interesting. It's filled with mega-stars from U2 (Bono and The Edge), writing the music, a series of mishaps and injuries to several actors during preview performances, middling to scathing reviews from audiences and critics, and finally a major re-architecting of the show and the replacement of the show's original director Julie Taymor.
Ms. Taymor's ouster as the director and leader of the production not only says as much about her creative vision, (or lack thereof I suppose), as it does about the role and influence that audiences have over the creative process and results of that process, and how these audience voices are amplified in the social media age.
Last week Ms. Taymor offered a couple of very interesting observations about the show and her dismissal, and I think these insights might also have more broad implications for leaders and creatives of all stripes.
First - on the immediate feedback loop of social media:
"It's a new time," she said. "Twitter and Facebook and blogging just trump you. It's incredibly difficult to be under a shot-glass and a microscope like that. When you’re trying to break new ground, the immediate answers that audiences give are never going to be good.”
Second - on succumbing to the pressure of social feedback:
"There's always something people don't like. It’s very scary if people are going more towards that, to have audiences tell you how to make a show. Shakespeare would have been appalled."
Getting past the notion that Ms. Taymor sort of compared a musical about a comic book hero to Shakespeare, I think she does make some important points, or at least raises some good questions. It has never been easier for fans, customers, citizens, employees, candidates - any engaged group of people to gather and wield significant influence over organizations, institutions, and leaders. We have seen this play out time and time again in the corporate world, particularly in the areas of branding and logo re-design.
But, as Ms. Taymor suggests, is that always a good thing? As a leader, or anyone that is involved in creation of products, services, processes, art, literature, whatever - when is staying true to your vision and version of the truth and what you believe in more important than bending to the will of the crowd? Sure, Taymor's 'Spider-Man' may have been a bad show, but is it at all possible that the more accessible, simpler version that now exists is artistically at least, inferior to her creation and vision?
Shakespeare probably did not run 'Romeo and Juliet' by a focus group and he certainly did not monitor the buzz on Twitter.
The question today is do we always have to listen to all the shouting online?
Or can we believe in our creativity, decision making, and direction despite some heat on the backchannel?
Reader Comments (4)
Great post Steve. The hardest thing to do when designing anything for a company or organization is to design by committee. In fact it is pretty much impossible to make everyone happy. Chances are, as you meander through the problem-solving process, your solutions will be derailed, fragment and possibly never resemble the original direction. When this meandering wears down the motivation to beautifully execute you are probably staring mediocre reviews in the face. Or worse, blasted by social media.
On the opposite side of this coin is the recently de-bunked new Gap logo. The launch of the new logo sent a firestorm attack proclaiming it to be hideous and amateurish. And it was. I find it hard to believe there was not someone out there in the logo development process saying "This is not a good solution." So then what do they do? Try to crowd-source a design. Fail #2.
My thought is that with criticism comes one of three things: 1. Your solution has really missed the mark and you have ignored some good advice. or 2. The criticism is rooted in design flaws and by listening your solution might be made even better. and 3. The critics have no idea what they are talking about. Though that could result in #1.
Collaborative solutions are rooted in strong vision and great leadership. And when you create a hit you want it to go viral! The crowd's opinion is not going away. Be ready to be under the microscope.
This is a hard one. One comment I'd like to make is that Dickens, Doyle, Shakespeare, Tolstoy et al all wrote for the masses. We think of them now as high brow geniuses, but they often published in cheap magazines with soap opera style cliff hangar endings to every chapter, mixed up the action, opened eyes to exotic locations, wrote cracking drama (as fast paced as they could). They entertained. They wanted to be entertaining, and to be heard by as many people as possible (which in turn made them wealthy - some of them). Art is a business like every other, just one made mysterious by the romance we all have with imagination. When Dickens toured America, he was bigger than the U2 (and moaned about the crowds mobbing him everywhere he went). My point is that it's always wrong to put these up on a pedestal: art wants to be heard/seen/loved/hated/feared. Media make that reception instant. They make the creation a cocreation (this is what you asked for). The truth though is, even with all the cast and crew and preachy musicians in the world, sometimes what you do just sucks. And if you've spent a lot and are big shots, it makes the crowd revel in the fall more. Human nature. But human nature now in your face writ large with no hiding place. Actually, what this signifies to me is the end of our romantic view of the artist. Another wake up call and dash of realism. Businesses can't get away with poor products anymore. Neither can artists. Seems fair to me.
Great Post and I agree with the sentiment. As I understand it, Shakepeare's comtemporary audiences didn't sit in polite reverence, but conversed and interjected as they saw fit - so you might argue we've come full circle. Facebook is the Globe Theatre but with a greater audience capacity.
@Lyn - Thanks for breaking it down that way. I know that you as a creative designer deal with issues like these all the time, and have super perspective and insight.
@Stuart - Very good points as well. I agree that our perception hundreds of years later is going to be quite a bit different than the contemporaries of Shakespeare and the like. Thanks very much for sharing your observations.
@John - I love that comparison of Facebook to the old Globe theater - well said!