After having envisioned art on the blockchain many years ago (and not doing anything with this vision), I recently decided to finally drop my first NFT collection. After all, nothing beats practical experience in order to learn something new. I approached this undertaking as I do with any product I work on, so naturally the first step was to perform some research. During this research I was exposed to numerous NFT collections. Glancing past the copycats and people looking to get rich quick, I rediscovered what I learned in the past on Instagram, Vine, TikTok and similar products. When properly motivated, people can be very creative.
Looking at the future, people will be in need of a new set of skills that were not required in the past. With the speed in which new technologies are introduced, the job market is rapidly changing and chances are that the skills our kids are being taught today will be irrelevant by the time they leave school. Imagining the opportunities this new world offers, It’s fair to assume that creativity is a core skill needed to navigate the future job market. In fact, creativity is currently one of the top soft skills companies are looking for in potential employees.
How can we teach future generations creativity? The first thing would be to look at our educational system. While a lot of private institutions are putting more emphasis on soft skills, headed by creative thinking, the public school system still has a long way to go. The introduction of platforms like Youtube, back at the start of this century, and the many UGC-platforms that have followed since, have provided a new form of extracurricular activity that could potentially fill this gap (at the risk of disclosing my age; GeoCities was another great example). At an early age, kids are educating themselves on how to create content using a set of hard skills like writing, filming and editing, combined with an abundance of creativity. Just spend one afternoon looking at any of these platforms and you’ll see my point. Among the piles of mindless nonsense, there’s a lot of funny, interesting and truly creative content.
Creativity as a business model
The best incentive to develop a new skill is getting rewarded. That’s just the way we’re programmed. While people get “rewarded” on the existing platforms with likes and followers, translating that into money is for most still close to impossible. The NFT market has the potential to change that. It’s true that not everyone will be able to make money selling NFTs, but at least the relationship between the act of creation and payment for this creation is very straightforward. I believe this has the potential to be the start of something that will motivate more people to develop creativity as a skill. Can’t wait to see where this is going.
Meanwhile you can check out my first NFT collection on OpenSea.
