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Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

henrikkarlsson.xyz

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Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#31

Post by iamacyborg »

spullara wrote: post #21
grammarxcore wrote: post #3

I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending it to a reasonable amount of time, maybe a business day max, works out pretty well. Sometimes people respond really fast because they’re taking regular breaks and other times they don’t respond all evening because they’re putting on their kid’s birthday party…

I have found that folks like Jensen, Elon, Jobs, etc answer their emails in 5-10 min. You be the judge.

They have EA’s that can go through their inboxes for them and highlight what actually needs a response. Hell they probably draft responses for them too

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#32

Post by nobodywillobsrv »

Kiro wrote: post #30
grammarxcore wrote: post #3

I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending it to a reasonable amount of time, maybe a business day max, works out pretty well. Sometimes people respond really fast because they’re taking regular breaks and other times they don’t respond all evening because they’re putting on their kid’s birthday party…

Unfortunately it's one of those hacks that makes your look like a superhuman. I hate it but obsessively answering emails and messages as soon as possible has given me so many opportunities that it feels like a cheat code. It's nothing reasonable about it but it's just the way things are.

When people complain about this they aren't thinking about how much they love people not answering them. Obviously not everything needs to be answered quickly all the time but the world is full of delays and waiting. Any relief is welcome.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#33

Post by bleakenthusiasm »

grammarxcore wrote: post #3

I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending it to a reasonable amount of time, maybe a business day max, works out pretty well. Sometimes people respond really fast because they’re taking regular breaks and other times they don’t respond all evening because they’re putting on their kid’s birthday party…

I read this as "answer within the hour when preparing an exhibition". If you are in full swing to get an exhibition up and running and this is the time you decide to throw yourself into deep focus work, you are probably hard to work with. I would also assume if some artist told the author "look I know we open on Tuesday, but this Friday we have my kid's birthday so from 4 to 8 I won't be easy to reach", this would probably just be silently dropped from the cou ting of how fast they respond.

On the other hand, without warning going dark for 4 work day hours a few days before exhibition would look terrible if any serious question came up.

So I don't think it's literally responding within the hour, but it comes pretty dang close. You have to keep in mind that being an artist creating art and being an artist setting up an exhibition are basically two different jobs and if you end up doing them in parallel at the same time, that's your problem right there.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#34

Post by anshulbhide »

The article itself is fantastic. However, this is a great example of what makes catnip for HN -

1) Use scientific terms (e.g. vector fields, waves resonance) 2) Cite tech influencers (e.g. Sholto Douglas, Tyler Cowen) 3) Make the subject an abstract novel field that most developers or tech folk don't really pay attention and use #1 and #2 to make it relevant

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#35

Post by itronitron »

grammarxcore wrote: post #3

I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending it to a reasonable amount of time, maybe a business day max, works out pretty well. Sometimes people respond really fast because they’re taking regular breaks and other times they don’t respond all evening because they’re putting on their kid’s birthday party…

Becoming recognized as a good artist depends a great deal on being an effective communicator about one's work. It's sort of self-selecting but it is part of the job.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#36

Post by naming_the_user »

grammarxcore wrote: post #3

I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending it to a reasonable amount of time, maybe a business day max, works out pretty well. Sometimes people respond really fast because they’re taking regular breaks and other times they don’t respond all evening because they’re putting on their kid’s birthday party…

You’re trying to systematise something that is more like basic human nature. It’s like trying to explain why people like attractive people from a utilitarian perspective.

In the real world I just prefer to interact with people who prioritise me over other things and most people are the same.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#37

Post by resonious »

> But if someone else isn’t measuring up, I have no idea how to convince them to do so. So I look for people who have already decided.

This reminded me of the part in Good to Great where one company's success was attributed to setting up a steel factory in a agriculture-heavy area, where the residents were farmers who were already predisposed to working hard.

I'm curious if, on the flip side, anyone has any strategies for "convincing someone to measure up" as the author puts it.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#38

Post by krisoft »

The problem here is that I don’t trust the author on being able to tell who is the “best artist”. Clearly he has opinions. But for example in point 3, he says he can predict which exhibition will be great based on how easy it is to work with the artist. He predicts that some exhibition will be crap and he is right! Which sounds impressive until you notice that he is not measuring his judgement against something objective, but just against his judgement. He decides something will be crap and then he feels crap about it once he sees it. Did others, who did not know that the artist was slow to email back also feel that those exhibitions were mediocre and the others not? Who knows? All we have is this one man’s opinion. Maybe others thought differently.

Even more so in his point 6. He writes “What you see in the biographies of great artists, great writers, great anything is that they are good at figuring out where the vectors align.” Which is just plainly and absolutely not true. There were plenty of people who we now recognise as “great artist” who absolutely could not figure out where the “incentive vectors align”. Thus they lived in abject poverty, or needed to support themselves from something other than their art. But if your definition of “great art” is that it is commercially succesfull then of course what you will find that the “great artist” are all like good businesman. But that doesn’t tell you about what it take to be an artist, just only what you value.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#39

Post by brazzy »

resonious wrote: post #37

> But if someone else isn’t measuring up, I have no idea how to convince them to do so. So I look for people who have already decided. This reminded me of the part in Good to Great where one company's success was attributed to setting up a steel factory in a agriculture-heavy area, where the residents were farmers who were already predisposed to working hard. I'm curious if, on the flip side, anyone has any strategie…

I suspect that would need to be highly specific to the individual, their personality, past experiences and current situation.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#40

Post by freefaler »

Kiro wrote: post #30
grammarxcore wrote: post #3

I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending it to a reasonable amount of time, maybe a business day max, works out pretty well. Sometimes people respond really fast because they’re taking regular breaks and other times they don’t respond all evening because they’re putting on their kid’s birthday party…

Unfortunately it's one of those hacks that makes your look like a superhuman. I hate it but obsessively answering emails and messages as soon as possible has given me so many opportunities that it feels like a cheat code. It's nothing reasonable about it but it's just the way things are.

So how does that work, can you elaborate?

What is the difference if you answer in 10 minutes, 6 hours or 24 hours? Are you competing on time of response so if you're fast you're getting the deal?

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