In my psych class we talked about technology played a role in creativity. Specifically, how technology could be applied to the 8-stage model of creativity. As a refresher, those 8 stages are:

problem construction

info gathering

conceptual selection

conceptual combination

idea generation

idea evaluation

implementation planning

monitoring

There are many ways that technology helps all of these, but I want focus on one feature of YouTube that allows you to optimize your implementation planning.

When you upload a video to YouTube, you can choose to make it public or unlisted. Unlisted means that only those with the link to the video will be able to see it. One big creator on YouTube, CGP Grey, takes advantage of this to see how his videos will be received and if they’re factually correct before he publishes them to the world. He will upload a video of his with the privacy setting unlisted. This is usually a video that he plans to release later that day or week. Then he sends out that URL through an email list of subscribers who are big fans of his work. These early viewers get to see the video in its raw form, commenting on anything that didn’t make sense or might need further explanation. In this way, CGP Grey is testing out how the implementation of his video will go by releasing a sort of beta version to dedicated viewers before it goes public. This allows him to plan his implementation for the larger audience, and is one example of how YouTube’s technology affects the 8-stage process to allow creators to be more creative.

CGP Grey’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/CGPGrey

How to make videos unlisted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnvlfKY300k