Creative Assignments Everyday

[JonathanMann]

I hope this doesn't come off as spam or anything, but I'm trying to promote my new site, and SongFight is part of the inspiration for it.

I've always thought that there should be a site where someone was just posting creative assignments everyday. So I made it. The site is called Rock Cookie Bottom. I post small, fun, creative assignments every single day.

Things like:
Write a poem about a clock that comes to life.
Draw an original Megaman robot master.
Send in a picture of yourself on vacation.
Write a short fairytale about a unicorn that falls in love with a giant turtle.

You get the idea. Every two weeks (or so), I collect the best entries and feature them in the "Rock Cookie Bottom Report", which is a show that I host. It's fun. I'm trying to get the word out.

I'm really open to suggestions...on pretty much everything. You probably won't like the site design. I'm using Tumblr. I have the barest bones knowledge of html. Incidentally, if anyone wants to help me redesign it, I'd be much obliged.
But if you have any feedback on how I could make the assignments more enticing, or how I could improve the structure, I'd love to hear it. Or this could be a thread where you suggest future assignments.

http://www.rockcookiebottom.com

[Billy's Little Trip]

Neat idea, Jonathan. As for me, I have too many assignments each day already. Let me know when the assignment is photo chopping someone famous into a zombie. I might find the time for that.

[JonathanMann]

This is definitely something I'm finding. No one has time! Hmmm. Do you think that you'd be willing to work on longer term assignments? I just keep wondering if there's this audience out there that DOES have the time. Somehow. Or something.

[jb]

I had this idea a few years ago where I would buy a hundred or so of those blue books that you use to take essay exams, and I'd send them out to interesting people and ask them to just fill the book with whatever and send them back in the postage-paid envelope I'd include. The blue books got fat lines, and are like ten pages, so it's a nice little project but you're not asking for a novel. Could be an essay, could be a few poems, could be drawings or a collage, whatever struck the person's fancy. I'd then post whatever came back in the mail.

Never got around to trying it though. I do suspect that to get a good response rate I'd need to send out a thousand books and expect a 2% rate of return. That would be plenty to make a cool site. Expensive though.

[nyjm]

I think JB's idea is on a better track. Instead of a series of deadline-type activities, give people an open space, a long, flexible deadline (if any) and a bit of creative impetus. Then, let them at it. As things are completed (so there has to be a clear completion point), your site becomes a collection and exhibition place.

Check out wreck this journal for something of what I'm talking about.

[drë]

ok, it took me most of all afternoon to remember and Google this stupid site i found a while back, but its inline with this idea.

http://colorwar2008.com/

they had a contest called youngme/ nowme.. it was a neat project

http://colorwar2008.com/submissions/youngnow?page=2

[Billy's Little Trip]

I'd send them out to interesting people and ask them to just fill the book with whatever

You might have a better return if you also send them out to uninteresting people. They tend to have more time on their hands.

[Project-D]

Maybe you could take a years (or couple months) worth of ideas, and post them all at once. Then people could find the one they liked and do it. You could post the responses as they came in. Because it's ongoing people could look at the response page and say "oh I could do "X" better than that", so it might motivate more people. So you could "harvest" projects every so often and make a podcast or yearbook, or whatever. I like JB's idea of having a physical object. It would be cool if you could make a book through some of the online book printing sites that people could order.

[JonathanMann]

I sort of knew about color war...it was done by ze frank, who is sort of the like internet genius of getting people to participate in things. I like your idea, jb. The idea of a physical object is enticing. I wonder though if there's a way to take that and make it more online based.
Also: Interesting people with time. That's pretty much the hardest part of this equation, it seems. How do I find them?

[Reist]

I'm gonna be honest ... I cracked up when I saw wheelchair man. Does that make me a terrible person?

[Billy's Little Trip]

I'm gonna be honest ... I cracked up when I saw wheelchair man. Does that make me a terrible person?

Not at all. By the way, anyone up for a game of B ball with Reist's left nut >>

[signboy]

dammit BLT, this is the tird time one of your emoticons has made me spill my rum. Shame on you.

[frankie big face]

I had this idea a few years ago where I would buy a hundred or so of those blue books that you use to take essay exams, and I'd send them out to interesting people and ask them to just fill the book with whatever and send them back in the postage-paid envelope I'd include. The blue books got fat lines, and are like ten pages, so it's a nice little project but you're not asking for a novel. Could be an essay, could be a few poems, could be drawings or a collage, whatever struck the person's fancy. I'd then post whatever came back in the mail.

Never got around to trying it though. I do suspect that to get a good response rate I'd need to send out a thousand books and expect a 2% rate of return. That would be plenty to make a cool site. Expensive though.

Sounds like Post Secret to me. Except that was cheaper. And now it's a book. And he actually did it.

[JonathanMann]

I'm gonna be honest ... I cracked up when I saw wheelchair man. Does that make me a terrible person?

Not at all. By the way, anyone up for a game of B ball with Reist's left nut >>

Wheelchair Man was awesome! He shoots smaller Wheelchairs at you. That's my favorite part. Wow, that emoticon is fantastic. I should post that as a follow up.

Frankie: Post Secret was part of the inspiration. I guess that has the "ongoing" assignment aspect going for it. Probably what helped make it successful. Also, hasn't it been around for a really long time? And by a long time I mean internet years, like 10.

[jb]

It also reminds me of Oblique Strategies.
http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

[JonPorobil]

You know, Jonathan, it's a really cool idea for a site, but I can't help but notice that most of the challenges involve some modicum of ability with the visual arts, and I can't draw or photoshop to save my life. Similarly, I bet most of the people who are submitting their drawings and comics have a hard time writing prose or songs.

Some of the challenges, by the way, don't take much time at all to complete (the Mega Man challenge, or the mask challenge), whereas others might take much longer than a day, assuming the participant is taking himself halfway seriously (a three-panel comic about a gladiator who overthrows his oppressors? Either expect a lot of crappy stick figures, or wait more than a day for that).

If it were all writing/songwriting exercises, I'd be there daily. As it stands, I'm not sure I'm your target audience.