Case Studies/Behance
One of the best practices we observe among the most productive creative teams is to “share ideas liberally.” We even wrote an article about it. CC-licensing is a simple and reliable way to support collaboration while empowering creatives to manage their work as they see fit. — Scott Belsky, CEO at Behance
Overview
Behance has a variety of online incarnations:
All of these properties are meant to promote action and creation from creative professionals. The Behance network in particular emphasizes using CC licenses as a means to share your group.
License Usage
The Behance Network has CC-licensing built into its UI and allows creators to choose from the suite of CC licences when they apply a license to their creative works. AS such, a variety of licences are represented.
Motivations
Behance believes that for creative professionals, the sharing of work is incredibly important. CEo/founder Scott Belsky has said "the CC licensing system has empowered creative professionals in the Network to broadcast their work on their own terms and in a way that fosters cross-pollination and artistic integrity." He wrote a more in-depth article on his opinions on sharing for the Behance Magazine:
- The philosophy to "share ideas liberally" defies the age-old instinct to keep ideas secret. However, the creative person's tendency to jump from idea-to-idea-to-idea causes most ideas to die in isolation. Creative professionals should take every opportunity to communicate new ideas broadly, seek feedback, and develop a sense of accountability.
- Share your ideas liberally. The benefits from accountability and feedback outweigh the risk that someone steals your idea! Many productive creative professionals and entrepreneurs claim that they become more committed to their ideas after telling people about them! The fact is that great ideas are plentiful, and very few people have the discipline and resources to make them happen. When you feel accountable to others, you are more likely to stay focused.
- Broadcast your idea to generate valuable feedback. Great ideas don't develop in isolation. You can become drunk on your own kool-aid without any candid feedback from others. A critical component of pushing ideas forward is gathering feedback to refine the idea.
- Engage a few "partners" in every project. The more people you work with, the more pressure you will feel to provide further updates (and have some progress to report)! Why do publishers insist on offering advances to authors even when the author prefers to put off the advance in favor of a more lenient time schedule? The importance of deadlines has been a common theme across Behance's profiles of creative professionals (check out Lincoln Mayne, Eli Attie, or Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu as examples). It is no surprise that novels are less likely to end up in a drawer, half-written, when there is an advance cashed and a deadline looming. Use other people and externally-generated deadlines as a way to boost your accountability!
