Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality

This book came to my attention when I was looking at Behance.net. It is written by Scott Belsky one of the founders of the Behance network and website. Since it was aimed at the creative professional it immediately piqued my interest. I've still have ideas that I thought about years ago, which are sitting unrealized. I come up with more ideas than I have the time to execute. In my personal life I'm always putting things off.I actually bought the book intending to give it to a friend who is worse than me at executing ideas. A few months later the book was still on my desk, gathering dust and I thought, I wonder if the theories in this book can be applied to making something happen, never mind ideas. Maybe if I read it myself I can start to organise my life a little better. It's not that I'm particularly disorganised but I feel like I could do with a little more control over my creativity.The book is not a step by step program into how to go about generating ideas and then bringing them to fruition, but is rather a guide book made up of anecdotes and advice from various successful creatives across various industries. It is written progressively so that you can grasp the importance of organisation, community and leadership. It is written well and is very easy to read. The plus side and down side is that it's written for a creative individual of any level, from freelancer to business manager. This is great because you get the advice to help you move from one position to the other and caters for both professionals, however it means there is quite a bit of information about running a team that you have to read even if you don't want or need to run a team. Saying that it is surprising how much relevant advice there is that applies to everyone even in the leadership section.The only disappointment if you can even call it that is that the focus on the book is on creative business. If you're a professional creative then you will benefit from this book. There's not really any room here for the hobbyist. It feels like it is more about getting your business or business idea working for you than you working for you. I'm a creative professional with creative ideas outside my work sector and I have learned a lot from this book. I am taking my time to read it, to try to absorb what I can, to learn the lessons and apply them to my life. In the two months since I picked up this book I feel like I have finally started to get myself in order. The problem now is to stop doing the ordering long enough to make my ideas happen. It's a fine balance that you have to work out for yourself.The main thing I have learned from this book, as a creative individual, is not to give yourself such a hard time about not executing ideas. If you are organised enough, then you can prioritise and the projects that are worthy will happen. You will have an enormous sense of achievement from finishing one project, which you can use as enthusiasm to get your next project off the ground.I highly recommend this book for any creative person who wants to break the endless cycle of idea generation without completion. Or even if you want to be more organised.

The best ideas make the most money, right?The sad truth is that ideas that move industries forward are not the result of tremendous creative insight. Rather, it the masterful execution of creative insights that wins – every time. The implications of this truth are the subject of author Scott Belsky’s Wall Street Journal bestseller for 2011.The book describes the three forces that are necessary to make ideas happen: Organisation and execution; Leveraging communal forces; and Leadership in the creative pursuit.Organisation is all about applying order to the elements of a creative project that allows for execution. I know that nothing makes me dump a book faster than an author describing the “most effective way” you can motivate yourself, improve yourself or organize yourself. There is “no most effective way” – there is only the highly idiosyncratic way that works best for you. Beslky is far too smart to talk of “the most effective way”, instead he provides a simple and practical format that will work with your own most effective technique.The best methods for managing creative projects are simple and intuitive. They help you capture your ideas and do something about them – no more, no less. The “Action Method” Belsky describes begins with a simple premise: everything is a project.Every project can be reduced to these three primary components: Action Steps, References, and Backburner items. All of these need to be captured in any way that works for you.“Action Steps” are specific things you must do to move an idea forward and must be captured in writing starting with a verb – “Call Linda to get information on…” Ideas don't reveal themselves only in meetings and neither should Action Steps. You will require some means to capture Action Steps anywhere, any time. You can use your phone or a notebook - anything that is always with you.“References” are pieces of information worth storing, not revering. Most people never refer to the piles of notes they keep anyway. All you need to concern yourself with is how you should identify a Reference so that you can intuitively find it later.“Backburner” items are ideas for another time, not now. You will need to periodically revisit and curate your Backburner.While creative people need to be optimistic about the future, they need to be pessimistic about tasks. You should be deeply concerned with how to manage your ideas and projects. Waiting builds apathy and increases the likelihood that another idea will capture your fancy and energy before you have completed the execution of the previous one. Traditional practices such as writing a business plan – ultimately a static document that will inevitably be changed as unforeseen circumstances arise – must be weighed against the benefits of just starting to take incremental action on your ideas.Proof come Apple, the company known for new ideas and the ability to think differently, which must also be one of the most organised companies on the planet.So the formula reads: Creativity X Organisation = Impact.If the first force for making ideas happen is organisation and execution, the second is leveraging communal forces. The notion of the lone creative genius might have existed in the past, but there can be no doubt that it is wildly outdated in the 21st century.Your community is all around you – your team, mentor's, clients or customers, collaborators, and of course your family and friends. Your community will seldom understand the idea in the beginning, but they will help make it real in the end.Consider one aspect of your community, your peer group. Three broad categories of creators were found in Belsky’s research: The Dreamers, the Doers, and the polymaths whom he calls Incrementalists. As entrepreneurs, Dreamers often jump from one new business idea to another and are likely to become engaged in new projects at the expense of completing current ones. The Dreamers are more likely than anyone to conceive brilliant solutions, but they are less likely to follow through. Some of the most successful Dreamers attribute their success to a partnership with a Doer.Doers don't imagine as much because they are obsessively focused on the logistics of execution. Doers often love new ideas, but their tendency is to immerse themselves in the next steps needed to truly actualise the idea. While Dreamers will quickly fall in love with an idea, Doers doubt and chip away at the idea until they love it or, as often, discounted it.Then they are the Incrementalists – those with the ability to play the role of both Dreamer and Doer. Incrementalists are able to bask in idea generation, distil the action steps needed, and then put ideas into action with tenacity. However, Incrementalists have the tendency to conceive and execute too many ideas simply because they can. Incrementalist are the O blood-type of the world of collaboration – the universal donor.In the Apple leadership one could call Jonathan Ive (chief designer), Tim Cook (chief operating officer), and the late Steve jobs (chief executive officer) the Dreamer, the Doer, and the Incrementalist respectively. A similar structure exists in the fashion house, Calvin Klein.Walt Disney, known for his boundless creativity not his scepticism, went to great lengths to ensure that his community, his creative team, reviewed ideas ruthlessly and killed them when necessary. Wired magazine's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson said: I don't believe you can do anything by yourself; any project that is run by a single person is destined to fail.The last of the three forces that make ideas happen is the specific type of Leadership required for creative pursuits. Leadership capability is what makes the pursuit of an idea sustainable, scalable, and ultimately successful.An example of a leadership challenge is how to deal with the problem posed by the timeframe of great ideas. Your long-term vision is not going to be enough to sustain the followers you need so badly. How people spend their energy is greatly influenced by the short-term reward systems that permeate our lives. Belsky both raises and offers suggestions for creative leadership challenges like this one.“Leadership Capability” relates both to your leadership of others as well as your ability to lead yourself. Everyone has tendencies that can become obstacles in the execution of the creative project. An example: The challenge is to capitalise on feedback, but if feedback is so readily available around us and so crucial to making ideas happen, why is there so little focus on it? Though the value is high, the incentive to give feedback to others is low, and the natural desire to hear it is often non-existent.How you lead yourself separates the winners from the rest.Execution, community and leadership are worthy of serious consideration at the start of 2012 to give us the best chances of realising our best ideas. This book is a must read for anyone who has great ideas that haven’t yet hitting the bottom-line, or has partners or subordinates with the same tendency. It is rich in insights and its suggestions are practical.Readability Light ---+- SeriousInsights High -+--- LowPractical High -+--- Low Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

Enjoyed this read by Scott Belsky where he uncovers a pragmatic set of techniques to help organise, prioritise and execute actions turning high priority ideas into reality, gives tips on using other people to help accelerate progress, and provides good insight into effective leadership and self-leadership methods."Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration""To push your ideas to fruition, you must develop the capacity to endure, and even thrive, as you traverse the project plateau.""Making ideas happen boils down to self-discipline and the ways in which you take action.""Even when the next step is unclear, the best way to figure it out is to take some incremental action. Constant motion is the key to execution.""Nothing will assist your ideas more than a team of people who possess real initiative."

Books where the author has been successful and says, "Hey it worked for me" have limited applicability in my experience. I like books that are data driven across multiple applications wrapped in some good anecdotes. In addition, there needs to be actionable elements that you can immediately apply. This book has all of that. Rarely after I read a book, do I highlight the exceptional passes and write out those notes separately for future reference, but this is one of those books!I had the good fortune to see Scott Belsky speak at a conference. Within an hour I had bought this book. Before the end of my business trip, I was devouring it. Within the week I was applying it.If you have ever procrastinated on a creative or even not so creative project (e.g. writing a strategy document) and you enjoy books that provide a combination of the underlying science, interesting anecdotes and actionable next steps, this book will not disappoint.

Envío perfecto, todo excelente. Cuando lo lea, escribiré mi opinión.

Super Buch, gut geschrieben und hat einige gute Erkenntnisse darin. Ich war mit dem Kauf völlig zufrieden und kann es weiterempfehlen

Very Interesting and good tips ... Make it Happen !!!!! 5 stars , A must read .... . . . .