Are You Up to the Daily Create Seven Day Challenge?

I’m bad ass and am kicking sand in your face.

We are just about half way through the first year of the ds106 Daily Create, a site we created to inspire people to do small acts of creative challenges every day. It is something I believed in from the start, from even before we launched the first open section of ds106.

People praise it a lot. Nice.

But the activity is, well, low on the average. When we launched in January, we were pegging over 100 responses a day. It peaks when we start a new section of ds106 (because it is a student required activity). Today’s challenge was one that required less on the software, creative side, and more on just the imagination- Take a picture of a cloud and tell us what it looks like to you.

Seven people responded:

I know the excuse train: “I’m busy.” “It’s summer”. “I’m teaching.” “I forgot.” “I had meetings” “I forgot my camera” “I never went outside”.

Those are crap. I kick sand in your face. Weak. Do you think you will ever get strong and imaginative if you do not flex a little creative muscle every day?

You do realize I am in character here, right?

This has been on my mind because I have been immersed in filling out the schedule for the rest of the year, doing another 180+ in advance (this was driven by the fact we needed to have a year’s worth to put on the calendars people asked for in the ds106 Kickstarter).

But really, for all the people that comment, tweet about it, I’d think we’d see more than 6 per day.

So in a fit of irrational outbursts, I tweeted this challenge:

Who's up to Daily Create challenge? Who can do 7 in a row starting tomorrow? Are you weak? Afraid? I dare ya http://t.co/unepFusm

— Alan Levine (@cogdog) July 11, 2012

So here it is. I dare you. I know what you are thinking. Did e fire 6 shots or 5. In all this excitement I lost track myself (oops, wrong movie).

Starting Wednesday, July 10, I dare you to do the Daily Create for the next 7 days in a row.

To compete, what you should do is write a blog post at te end of the week that embeds all the media for your 7 days, and then write something that draws a connection or makes a story out of all 7. Return here and leave a link in a comment.

What’s the prize? Nothing. The experience is its own reward. Okay, I will amp it up. I will perform a song out of the results of every one who shares their 7 days od Daily Creating right here.

What is the Daily Create?

Each Daily Create is a prompt for you to post a photography or drawing to flickr, a video to YouTube, or an audio recording to Sound cloud, each tagged or grouped in a way that aggregate them to the main site.

We announce the new challenge every day at 10:00am EST, you can check the site, sign up for email, or follow @ds106TDC on twitter. These are all things that should take no more than 15 minutes to complete. They are typically media that you just post, not things you toil away editing. The magic is in how you interpret the challenge, and how you go about your day looking or listening for the creative inspiration that will satisfy it.

This is perhaps the most low barrier way to participate in ds106, but more than that, if you do this on a regular basis (and seriously, non one but Norm does it every day), I can almost guarantee you will see the world differently and your creative skills over time will improve in any or all forms.

So are you up to 7? Do you feel creative…. punk?

And why only 7? Can you do more?

Spread the word, and step up to the challenge. I’m it it.

I will see you at http://tdc.ds106.us/, I am the one kicking sand in your face.

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