IT’S THE END OF THE LIKE BUTTON AS WE KNOW IT — AND WE FEEL MORE THAN FINE.
By Stephanie Wruck
It all started when two friends decided to go beyond the like button.
Anthony Molden met Alfredo Weeks when they were both teaching a highly collaborative course at the Columbus College of Art & Design, in Columbus, Ohio. The goal was to improve the student’s understanding regarding their own artistic practices in relation to the business world. How could they succeed in the art world without knowing how to properly navigate the business world? Learning the basic pillars of entrepreneurial practices is just as vital as the designing skills. One compliments the other, allowing young artists to also see themselves as confident entrepreneurs. In the midst of talking art and business, Anthony asked Alfredo for help.
The app for uCollabit was still in the brainstorming stages when Anthony shared it with Alfredo. After several talks over coffee, they decided to team up and create something together, specifically targeted for college art students to freely connect and collaborate, removing likes and followers while breeding more meaningful and genuine interactions. The app is a service that encompasses interaction online through messaging, shared resources, posts and ideas that allow users to collaborate in a productive manner. Transitioning from college to the real world can be extremely challenging, particularly for art students. uCollabit aims to build sustainability among creative art students, helping them get not only more knowledge, but mainly more opportunity and reliable networks.
Molden, holds a Masters of Business Administration and he immediately saw a need for a tool that enables art students to actually live off their craft while meeting other like-minded creators. Weeks, a contemporary artist himself and a Creative Strategist, was interested right away.
As an artist and content creator myself, I needed to learn more about their work and the app — this is my chat with them. Meet uCollabit.
Hey guys! I was wondering — was there ever a “light bulb” moment the two of you had together or the idea for app grew more organically over time and conversations?
ANTHONY — Yeah, I think there were a lot of those! After our first class together, we met at a local coffee shop about once a week and just had brainstorming sessions. I had a lot of the ideas already in my head, but Alfredo was able to take them and make them more relevant and cool, if you will. It was there we made a lot of collaborative decisions on the best direction.
ALFREDO — A moment for me was when we were teaching together and how Anthony reacted when I offered to help with uCollabit. It seemed like it was the first time anyone said “I will help you” to him. So I did not only feel like I wanted to help Anthony, I felt that I needed to help and I’m glad I did. With the concept I think there were many “a-ha” moments. Sitting, sharing ideas over coffee almost every week for close to two years seemed like every week I’d have that “a-ha” moment. I think that was one of my greatest motivations as well.
The mission behind the app itself is very bold — to help art students and creators to prosper in their careers and navigate the art world better. Why do you believe is so important to provide this tool to artists today?
ALFREDO — The importance in providing this tool for artists today is that everyone seems to believe that after a month of reading, all of the sudden they’re some scholar or Guru of some kind. It creates a culture of “ I know better” because I have more followers, shares and likes than you. It’s so shallow, and people have lost the will to just say “I don’t know shit, let me work with someone who knows something better than me.”
ANTHONY — Alfredo has been an adjunct professor for quite some time before I came in the picture, but for me, dealing with young art students, you see the fear, and the lack of confidence in themselves about their art. You feel for them because many of them have so much talent but they do not realize it. It made me want to help them as much as possible. Additionally, I think we take art for granted but it is in everything we do, so we need to take that seriously and get creators working together.
Tell us a little bit more about the focus on removing the like button — how do you see the like button across all social media platforms are impacting the work of artists, especially young up and coming ones?
ANTHONY — First off, let me say I like social media but I don’t like how humans are using it or how it was designed to be used. It is more about validation from others and about the show rather than building a solid foundation of relationships and taking more time to work your craft for whatever it is. I think the first thing we thought of when we were building the platform was to remove all the cheap stuff and force our users to actually interact in a meaningful way.
ALFREDO — Removing the like button is everything that sets us apart from other platforms. It allows users to share their interests through collaborating, engaging and building something, rather than just liking or following someone just because of who posted it. Once you have your social media groups and people you follow, many of us become like sheep in clicking on that like button. While at the same time many of us fail to make things happen through our social media engagements.
Taking into consideration the current social and technological world we live in — in your opinion, what’s the main challenge that creatives face today?
ALFREDO — The main challenge I think creatives face today is over stimulation and the will to say “I don’t know”. We have a whole world of information at a click of a button, every kind of painting, website, book, etc is at our disposal. On one side, it’s great for inspiration and direction, but at the same time I think it makes us jaded with so many resources. The same thing with the never-ending scroll - we simply don’t know when to stop. Even when we get caught up in this scroll culture, I think it relates with the idea of what we know versus how many posts we’ve seen.
ANTHONY — I would say weeding through all the noise. We are all creative, so there’s this huge push for more and more content and I think people get lost in that. I think there is a lot of talent out there but we need to change our definition of fame and success. Personally, for me, I would rather have 5 people that really love my work rather than 1,000 that think it’s just okay.
The idea of bridging entrepreneurship with art is so important — it truly saddens me to see the amount of frustrated artists struggling to pay rent, let alone focus on their craft. Do you think that this lack of substantial resources aimed towards professionals in creative fields repels younger generations to pursue art related careers?
ANTHONY — I think there are resources out there but I don’t know how many are moving people forward. We want to truly invest in creators, helping in every way we can. We think this is the start of that with this platform.
ALFREDO — Today people are turning away from the arts as a profession due to the lack of funding in education.The resources artists have are extremely limited and it all starts from way back in elementary school. Funding for the arts are being stripped from every corner of society. You get an artist to add “culture” to some gentrified neighborhood while schools are lacking funding to inspire the next generation of artists in those neighborhoods. Artists are used and abused by society. I think what many fail to believe is that artists are born not made. If we fail to offer resources for artists to prosper I think more people will look away from the arts as a career except for well off families who can fund and support an up and coming artist. If we don’t fix this cultural mishap the art world will only be full of elitist ( if not already) who sometimes can only wish to engage in real world experiences that are associated with financial, social and ethnic struggles.
What’s your favorite thing about the app? Anything you think we should be extra excited about?
ANTHONY — I love the aesthetic of it so far, it feels like it was made by an artist and it certainly was. From a technical perspective, the “roadmap” concept I think will be very impactful to the social landscape of how we interact. It’s funny because Alfredo and I have so much we want to bring to the table, so I think people will be excited about where the app is headed.
Currently uCollabit isn’t available for download. We are working on growing our user testing model before we launch. We’re asking for anyone who is interested to visit www.ucollabit.com and subscribe to our newsletter for events and release dates. Also be sure to follow us @ucollabit on Instagram and facebook. We have a vision, let’s start collaborating, without distraction, only real connections.