Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality

by Scott Belsky

Overview

How the world's leading innovators push their ideas to fruition, time and time again.

Edison famously said that genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. Ideas for new businesses, solutions to the world's problems, and artistic breakthroughs are common, but great execution is rare.

According to Scott Belsky, the capacity to make ideas happen can be strengthened by anyone willing to build their organizational habits and harness the forces of community. That's why he founded Behance, a company that helps creative people and teams across industries develop these skills.

Belsky has spent six years studying the habits of especially productive creative people and teams-the ones who make their ideas happen time and time again. After interviewing hundreds of successful creatives, he has compiled their most powerful-and often counterintuitive-practices, such as:

*Generate ideas in moderation and act without conviction
*Reduce all projects to just three primary components
*Encourage fighting within your team
*Seek competition and share ideas liberally

In an increasingly flexible and entrepreneurial environment, creative minds have the opportunity (and responsibility) to solve and change industries-but they can only do that if they overcome the obstacles. While many of us obsess about discovering great new ideas, Belsky shows why it's better to develop the capacity to make ideas happen-a capacity that endures over time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101404355
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/15/2010
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	297,259
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Scott Belsky is a speaker, writer, and an entrepreneur with a focus on the creative industries. As the founder and CEO of Behance, he oversees the Behance Network, the world's leading platform for creative professionals, with millions of visitors every month, and the annual 99% Conference, devoted to execution in creative teams.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Making Ideas Happen 1

Making This Book Happen 4

Why Most Ideas Never Happen 8

The Forces That Make Ideas Happen 14

A Final Note As We Begin 18

1 Organization and Execution 21

The Competitive Advantage of Organization 25

Your Approach to Organization and the Destiny of Your Ideas 26

The Action Method: Work and Life with a Bias Toward Action 30

Reconsider How You Manage Projects 32

Breaking Projects into Primary Elements 34

The Importance of Action Steps 37

Maintaining a Backburner 43

References are Worth Storing, Not Revering 45

Practicing the Action Method 49

Capture and Make Time for Processing 51

Prioritization: Managing Your Energy Across Life's Projects 58

Keep an Eye on Your Energy Line 58

Reconciling Urgent vs. Important 61

Darwinian Prioritization 67

Execution: Always Moving the Ball Forward 70

Act Without Conviction 72

Kill Ideas Liberally 75

Measure Meetings with Action 78

The Biology and Psychology of Completion 81

The Tao of the Follow-up 84

Seek Constraints 86

Have a Tempered Tolerance for Change 89

Progress Begets Progress 91

Visual Organization and Advertising Action to Yourself 93

Mental Loyalty: Maintaining Attention and Resolve 98

Rituals for Perspiration 99

Reconsider Your Work Space 102

Reduce Your Amount of "Insecurity Work" 104

2 The Forces of Community 107

Harnessing the Forces Around You 111

The Dreamers, the Doers, and the Incrementalists 112

Seldom is Anything Accomplished Alone 116

Share Ideas Liberally 120

Capitalize on Feedback 124

Transparency Boosts Communal Forces 128

Communal Forces are Best Channeled in Circles 131

Seek Competition 135

Commit Yourself in Order to Commit Others 138

Create Systems for Accountability 139

The Pressure of the Spotlight 140

The Power of the Network 142

The Benefits of a Shared Work Space 143

Seeking Stimulation from Serendipity 145

Pushing Ideas Out to Your Community 147

Overcome the Stigma of Self-Marketing 148

Effective Self-Marketing Builds Respect 151

Find Your Own Frequency, Then Tune in to Engage Others 155

Ground Your Ideas Outside Your Community 158

Recognize When You are No Longer a Solo Show 159

3 Leadership Capability 163

The Rewards Overhaul 167

Short-Circuiting the Rewards System 168

The Motivational Reward of Play 172

The Reward of Recognition 175

The Chemistry of the Creative Team 177

Engage Initiators in Your Creative Pursuits 178

Cultivate Complementary Skill Sets 179

Provide Flexibility for Productivity 180

Foster an Immune System that Kills Ideas 183

Fight Your Way to Breakthroughs 184

Don't Become Burdened by Consensus 186

Managing the Creative Team 190

Share Ownership of Your Ideas 191

Leaders Should Talk Last 193

Judge and Be Judged Amidst Conflict 194

Develop Others Through the Power of Appreciation 195

Seek the Hot Spots 199

Self-Leadership 202

Find a Path to Self-Awareness 203

Develop a Tolerance for Ambiguity 204

Capture the Benefits of Failure 206

Avoid the Trap of Visionary's Narcissism 207

Combating Conventional Wisdom with Contrarianism 209

Consider Yourself an Entrepreneur 211

Be Willing to Be a Deviant 213

Keep an Eye on the Backward Clock 214

The Love Conundrum 216

Afterword 219

An Opportunity and a Responsibility 223

Acknowledgments 225

Appendix 1 Tips for Practicing the Action Method 228

Appendix 2 The Purple Santa Experiment 230

Appendix 3 Overview of the Behance Network 233

Index 234

What People are Saying About This

Chuck Porter

There are techniques in this book that can turn disorganized creative prima donnas into organized creative prima donnas. It's full of terrific lessons in how to keep great ideas alive. (Chuck Porter, Co-chairman, Crispin Porter + Bogusky)

Teresa Amabile

If your creative team or organization struggles to implement their best ideas, or if you find that your own creative projects languish unfinished, you need Making Ideas Happen. (Teresa Amabile, Prof. of Business Administration, Dir. of Research, Harvard Business School)

Brad Lomenick

Making Ideas Happen is timely and vital to a new generation of creative leaders. Ideas are important, but executing on those ideas is the crucial component that so many of us forget about. Great execution is rare, and Belsky lays out practical principles and a clear plan for getting things done. I highly recommend this book! (Brad Lomenick, Executive Director, Catalyst)

Guy Kawasaki

Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. This book helps you with the hard part. (Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder of Alltop and former chief evangelist of Apple)

From the Publisher

"Should you buy a book that will make you uncomfortable?

More questions: Why is it so difficult to ship good ideas out the door? Why do committees show up and wreck the purity of your idea? Why do people avoid doing the hard work of actually bringing their work to the market?

I'll tell you why: Because it's safe. Ideas that never ship are never criticized. Faceless committees accept the blame for tepid products that were probably better off in the warehouse. And managers in search of a place to hide can best hide behind the unshipped product, the unrealized idea and the system gone wrong.

Scott Belsky has your number. He's seen it all before. He knows your excuses, he's seen your shtick and he knows all the ways to avoid doing the work. In this book, Scott's not giving you any place to hide.

There. Do you still want to read his book?

If you care about your art, your job, or your market, you really have no choice. This is strategy and tactics, concepts and how-to, all in one on a topic that's often overlooked."
-Seth Godin, Author, Linchpin

"Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. This book helps you with the hard part."
-Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder of Alltop and former chief evangelist of Apple

"Making Ideas Happen is timely and vital to a new generation of creative leaders. Ideas are important, but executing on those ideas is the crucial component that so many of us forget about. Great execution is rare, and Belsky lays out practical principles and a clear plan for getting things done. I highly recommend this book!"
-Brad Lomenick, Executive Director, Catalyst

"From his years spent understanding how the most productive entrepreneurs and creative minds operate, Scott Belsky provides a compendium of the knowledge one needs to turn a great idea into something tangible. This is a book about execution, and when it comes to going from idea to a real business, execution is everything."
-JOHN BATELLE, Co-founder of Wired and Boing Boing, founder of Federated Media

"If your creative team or organization struggles to implement their best ideas, or if you find that your own creative projects languish unfinished, you need Making Ideas Happen.
-TERESA AMABILE, Prof. of Business Administration, Dir. of Research, Harvard Business School

"In just one volume, Belsky shows how to execute simply, boldly, powerfully. He reveals the forces and methods that push projects to completion -and how they are accessible to all of us. Practical and perfect ways to implement your ideas with peace of mind."
-LEO BABAUTA, Author of ZenHabits.net and The Power of Less

"I hear people talking all the time about great ideas that never come to life. This book is like a Swiss Army knife for ideas. It offers step-by-step tools to turn ideas into action, and is full of wonderful and enlightening stories of those who have made their ideas happen."
-JI LEE, Creative Director at Google Creative Lab and Founder of the Bubble Project

"Scott Belsky has observed how designers think and has created a way to help them make the complex clear -and the actionable achievable- within the rush of creativity that defines their mind's workspace. His ideas provide an effective way to manage ideation, iteration, and execution."
-RICHARD GREF+, CEO of AIGA

"Belsky's approach has made my life even simpler. Making Ideas Happen demonstrates that ideas of any magnitude are achievable by simply taking one step at a time. Belsky offers an illustrated map to get to the destination of your great ideas."
-SCOTT THOMAS, Design Director, Obama Presidential Campaign

"There are techniques in this book that can turn disorganized creative prima donnas into organized creative prima donnas. It's full of terrific lessons in how to keep great ideas alive."
-CHUCK PORTER, Co-chairman, Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Ji Lee

I hear people talking all the time about great ideas that never come to life. This book is like a Swiss Army knife for ideas. It offers step-by-step tools to turn ideas into action, and is full of wonderful and enlightening stories of those who have made their ideas happen. (Ji Lee, Creative Director at Google Creative Lab and Founder of the Bubble Project)

Leo Babauta

In just one volume, Belsky shows how to execute simply, boldly, powerfully. He reveals the forces and methods that push projects to completion —and how they are accessible to all of us. Practical and perfect ways to implement your ideas with peace of mind. (Leo Babauta, Author of ZenHabits.net and The Power of Less)

Richard Grefe

Scott Belsky has observed how designers think and has created a way to help them make the complex clear —and the actionable achievable— within the rush of creativity that defines their mind's workspace. His ideas provide an effective way to manage ideation, iteration, and execution. (Richard Grefé, CEO of AIGA)

Scott Thomas

Belsky's approach has made my life even simpler. Making Ideas Happen demonstrates that ideas of any magnitude are achievable by simply taking one step at a time. Belsky offers an illustrated map to get to the destination of your great ideas. (Scott Thomas, Design Director, Obama Presidential Campaign)

Editorial Reviews

Though creation always begins with an idea, ideas don't always lead to creation; examining why that's so, online entrepreneur Belsky finds that, no matter how unique or radically different ideas may be, the individuals and teams who carry those ideas to fruition share a number of common traits, such as engaging peers and leveraging communal forces. In this guide to realizing ideas, Belsky examines those traits in detail. Chapters like "The Chemistry of the Creative Team" set forth an action-based plan that forgoes time-wasting meetings and other corporate culture standbys, citing studies, progressive thinkers and case studies of companies like Best Buy, IBM and Sun Microsystems. Modern-day successes, Belsky contends, have traded "the traditional butts-in-chairs mindset" for a "Results Only Work Environment," where employees are compensated based on achievement of specified goals, rather than work hours. Ultimately, Belsky insists, creative success is a matter of rethinking methods and increasing focus, while emphasizing and rewarding old-fashioned passion and perspiration.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly - Library Journal

"Should you buy a book that will make you uncomfortable?

More questions: Why is it so difficult to ship good ideas out the door? Why do committees show up and wreck the purity of your idea? Why do people avoid doing the hard work of actually bringing their work to the market?

I'll tell you why: Because it's safe. Ideas that never ship are never criticized. Faceless committees accept the blame for tepid products that were probably better off in the warehouse. And managers in search of a place to hide can best hide behind the unshipped product, the unrealized idea and the system gone wrong.

Scott Belsky has your number. He's seen it all before. He knows your excuses, he's seen your shtick and he knows all the ways to avoid doing the work. In this book, Scott's not giving you any place to hide.

There. Do you still want to read his book?

If you care about your art, your job, or your market, you really have no choice. This is strategy and tactics, concepts and how-to, all in one on a topic that's often overlooked."
-Seth Godin, Author, Linchpin

"Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. This book helps you with the hard part."
-Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder of Alltop and former chief evangelist of Apple

"Making Ideas Happen is timely and vital to a new generation of creative leaders. Ideas are important, but executing on those ideas is the crucial component that so many of us forget about. Great execution is rare, and Belsky lays out practical principles and a clear plan for getting things done. I highly recommend this book!"
-Brad Lomenick, Executive Director, Catalyst

"From his years spent understanding how the most productive entrepreneurs and creative minds operate, Scott Belsky provides a compendium of the knowledge one needs to turn a great idea into something tangible. This is a book about execution, and when it comes to going from idea to a real business, execution is everything."
-JOHN BATELLE, Co-founder of Wired and Boing Boing, founder of Federated Media

"If your creative team or organization struggles to implement their best ideas, or if you find that your own creative projects languish unfinished, you need Making Ideas Happen.
-TERESA AMABILE, Prof. of Business Administration, Dir. of Research, Harvard Business School

"In just one volume, Belsky shows how to execute simply, boldly, powerfully. He reveals the forces and methods that push projects to completion -and how they are accessible to all of us. Practical and perfect ways to implement your ideas with peace of mind."
-LEO BABAUTA, Author of ZenHabits.net and The Power of Less

"I hear people talking all the time about great ideas that never come to life. This book is like a Swiss Army knife for ideas. It offers step-by-step tools to turn ideas into action, and is full of wonderful and enlightening stories of those who have made their ideas happen."
-JI LEE, Creative Director at Google Creative Lab and Founder of the Bubble Project

"Scott Belsky has observed how designers think and has created a way to help them make the complex clear -and the actionable achievable- within the rush of creativity that defines their mind's workspace. His ideas provide an effective way to manage ideation, iteration, and execution."
-RICHARD GREF+, CEO of AIGA

"Belsky's approach has made my life even simpler. Making Ideas Happen demonstrates that ideas of any magnitude are achievable by simply taking one step at a time. Belsky offers an illustrated map to get to the destination of your great ideas."
-SCOTT THOMAS, Design Director, Obama Presidential Campaign

"There are techniques in this book that can turn disorganized creative prima donnas into organized creative prima donnas. It's full of terrific lessons in how to keep great ideas alive."
-CHUCK PORTER, Co-chairman, Crispin Porter + Bogusky

From the Publisher