For anyone creating something new, here’s a wonderful video from Ira Glass, host and executive producer of This American Life, addressing the horror of having the taste to discern you don’t yet have the skills to create something as great as you imagine it, and how to get past it.

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.

Exactly what I needed to hear this month! Thanks Colleen Wainwright, whose Communicatrix site and newsletter (where I first saw this) are also full of excellent, actionable gifts for anyone trying to communicate and create anything worthwhile.

• Funky Forest, interactive ecosystem installation by Emily Gobeille and Theodore Watson
  Funky Forest’ is an interactive ecosystem where children create trees with their body and then divert the water flowing from the waterfall to the trees to keep them alive. The health of the trees contributes to the overall health of the forest and the typ
  (tags: interactive installation Art interface digital forest ecosystem education environment socialsoftware water)