Craig Lockwood: Plough Your Own Furrow

Craig Lockwood (@craiginwales) was speaking at Dot York about having the confidence and self-belief to do what you want to do, and not worry about what others will think.  These are my notes from his talk.

Howie is a farmer and he couldn't give a fuck about what you think.  The farming industry has a huge sense of community, we have conferences - they have the county shows. He sows a lot of seed, he sees every seed as an opportunity but not every seed will germinate.  A show day is their equivalent of launch day, he couldn't give a fuck about what you think, he knows his bullocks are as good as he can make them.

In 2007 I took advantage of the wild west nature of the iOS app store and made money from quick simple apps.  Farmer's weekly picked up an app and developed a suite of apps for farmers.  I made hay whilst the sun was shining.  There didn't seem to be a community mixing native and web so started Handheld conf to bridge between silos. 

Working alone from home and wrote a blog post wondering if it would be good to have a shared studio (co-working space).  People got in touch and it started to happen.  Put ideas out there and see what happens to them - they won't all come to fruition but some of them might.  Write about your ideas, you never know who might be listening.  Founders' hub eventually found a venue but it wasn't a suitable interior so we knocked down walls, put in electrics, did the air con.  Eventually we had a finished office which is used by the community, everybody is coming together. 

Making time to play is important, little things can become big things.  Playing around with electronics and the Welsh government got in touch asking to run a workshop about risk taking.  People who were looking at 'creative' books were more likely to press a button labelled "do not touch". 

By giving ourselves titles we define ourselves.  Do everything until you find the one thing that makes you happy.  Don't care so much about what people think, get stuff out.  This might not be viable for everybody, start taking steps.  If you can watch four seasons of breaking bad in a weekend you can get your idea out there.

Howie relies on his gut instinct, not what people say on twitter.  Be more like Howie.