I would consider myself a creative person and by virtue of human nature’s desire for shared commonality, I surround myself with people who are creative and passionate just as I am. Just as many others do, I have a large number of projects in the proverbial cooker. Not all of them will ever see the nightlight much less the light of day, but those are generally projects that were half-baked and quite possibly, down the line, will get repurposed for something more fully developed.

Those half-baked projects? You won’t hear anything about them. Sure, you may see a hint in the sidebar or a “vague” tweet, maybe I’ll ask you to take a look at something or ask for your input privately, but unless I’m ready for it to go public I’m pretty much mum on it.

The other day someone broadly shared, with some hype, a project they were working on. Because I like them, share commonality with them, and generally support them in what they do I clicked over. I found a half-baked project that is not my own. This is not the first time I’ve seen this from this creator and, although it pains me to write this, it is going to be the last.

Now Seth Godin famously insisted that you should, “Ship often. Ship lousy stuff, but ship. Ship constantly” as a way to defeat self-doubt. I get that whole idea… but there is a cost to shipping. Sure you may only measure it in time, in whatever costs are associated with that which is being shipped. There is also a cost to reputation, especially when you have announced or shared every shipment hyped with the megaphone of Social Media.

This must be weird coming from the guy who admittedly treats some of his projects like little guinea pigs, but even my guinea pigs are developed to a consumable level that can be considered beyond “beta“. At least I like to think so.

So seriously, keep your half-baked stuff to yourself. I’m saying this because I like you, want to support you, hope to believe in you, but don’t want you to squander your Social Media reputation on me or anyone else.

However, any and all pints of Ben & Jerry’s Half-Baked ice cream will be gladly accepted.