[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 11min]

Great ideas can be born again, and again, become lost, stored away, found, discarded, and become re-incarnated in another form. Sure it’s important to create many great ideas (ideally systematically from multiple people so as to increase quality), but it’s more important that they’re acted upon or something done with them (at least place them in a concrete idea bank for later!). Scott Belsky of Behance and the author of Making Ideas Happen, speaks on this subject from a professional perspective.

Presentation Notes

  • The project plateau is a trough where either next step actions happen, or a new idea is generated so as to keep us feeling good and creative.
  • Seek Restraints. Once available, value them. Metaphorical box boundaries help us think in term of constraints which depict the real world, not the fallacy of greenfield economic, rational man or organization.
  • Break the Project Down into Finite Pieces. Tangible + Beautiful. Think of short time windows. Go conceptually from projects -> Increments -> Milestones -> Tasks. Software sucks for this. Use whiteboards, physical metaphors.
  • Short-circuit your Reward System. The personal need for financial/other rewards create expectations and feelings of entitlement, when none may arise at all, and thinking about them may hinder one’s level of personal involvement due to these feelings or desires.
  • Foster your Team’s Immune System. The protagonists are surely important to have, but we need to nurture and value the skeptics because they protect the system from harm. Maintain both devil’s and angel’s advocates.
  • Seek Competition. Find other folks or organizations who are also working on a similar idea, which may or may not be more advanced than yours. They’ll give you inspiration on where to go, or perhaps the drive to get “there” first.
  • Foster Accountability. We need to share our ideas liberally, in order to get other people to hold us accountable to them. Unfortunately in real life, we tend to keep ideas secret. But if we share them, it helps us believe in them more, even if someone runs away with it to develop further.
  • What Entails the Creative Process? Having an idea. And surviving the project plateau.
    1% Natural: Creativity
    99% Acquired Discipline: Organization, Community, Leadership