Jul 22, 2014 #imprintpresents Jeff Hamada at the Downtown Independent recap
Last Friday, Jeff Hamada came to town and gave a special lunchtime #imprintpresents talk at the Downtown Independent. After being introduced by Imprint Culture Lab’s own Julia Huang, the Vancouver, BC-based founder of booooooom.com did not boast about his hugely popular art website or even his own art. Instead, he talked about failure.
Telling stories about closing his eyes while riding his bicycle home when he was a little kid and jumping off cliffs with pals in Hawaii more recently even though he isn’t a very good swimmer, Jeff described a history of doing things that are a bad idea and setting himself up for failure. Or hopefully near failure, as in the case of Jeff faking his way through his first “real” job until a boss helped him get up to speed. In his opinion, playing it safe and avoiding disappointment is a surefire way to keep from reaching one’s potential. It’s also less fun.
But it isn’t easy to do things differently, consider new ideas, or change in general. Jeff shared that he is actually afraid of being afraid of change. And these days, even looking up a topic with Google or exploring images on Instagram leads to results patterned after your tastes and past by algorithms. In these cases, the results are rigged to avoid change.
So how does Jeff run Canada’s biggest art-related website without becoming predictable or complacent? By respecting his audience and treating them as peers–or at least neighbors–he allows the site to be led by users rather than dictate its course himself with an iron fist. (It’s a big deal to Jeff to not show art that is made to look like something booooooom.com would cover.) Likewise, he is afraid of merchandizing and monetizing the site to the point of losing focus. “I’d love to be a millionaire,” he said when asked about making T-shirts and other licensed gear. “But there are a million other things I want to do as well.”
Jeff revealed that to him success isn’t the best part of a process anyway. It’s the moment just before the success and inevitable letdown. By never peaking and always growing, he will continue to enjoy what he does and evolve as a businessperson, artist, and human. And that is a lesson that anyone can benefit from.
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