Making Ideas Happen (27 page)

Jocelyn Glei started working with me in 2008 as a research assistant for this book and became the ultimate partner in editing and debating the merits of the tips and insights throughout the book. She also became the editor in chief of The 99%. Jocelyn is a bril iant journalist and writer in her own right. I am grateful for her commitment to and endless energy for this project—it would not have been possible without her.

Steve Kerr and Steffen Landauer were managers and mentors to me early in my career at Goldman Sachs. The opportunity to fol ow around and learn from Steve and Steffen was absolutely fundamental to my understanding of leadership development. By inviting me to join the Pine Street team, Steve and Steffen provided an experiential education beyond my wildest expectations.

I had the great fortune of being able to work with Professor Teresa Amabile during my second year at Harvard Business School. I am grateful for Teresa’s wil ingness to serve as a mentor and adviser during my independent research.

As I reflect upon great mentors, teachers, and confidants who have provided advice and played a key role in this journey, I wish to thank Deborah Streeter, John Jaquette, Michael Schwalbe, Michael Brown, Itai Dinour, Quanda, Reboot, the LifeRemix folks, the team at TED, Evan Orensten and Josh Rubin at Cool Hunting, Sheila Danko, Aaron Dignan, Josh Spear, Charles Torres, and my good friend (and first partner in business), Ben Grossman.

My agent, Jim Levine, and my editor, David Moldawer, along with his team at the Portfolio imprint at Penguin, have provided invaluable guidance and support over the course of the project, for which I am extremely grateful.

I want to extend a special thank-you to the many people and teams that were wil ing to be interviewed and that invited me into their creative process. Your insights were invaluable, and your wil ingness to share them wil enable so many others to serve as leaders of remarkable ideas.

Most importantly, I am grateful to my family—especial y my wife, Erica; my parents, Nancy and Mark; my sisters, Gila and Julie; Susan Kaplan; and Alain, El en, and Remy Roizen—al of whom provided endless encouragement over the years as I labored through my own journey to make ideas happen. I also wish to thank my grandfather, Stanley Kaplan, a man who was also motivated to help people achieve their true potential, for the inspiration and important lessons his life has provided.

Appendix 1:

Tips for Practicing the Action Method

Design for the Action Method

Regardless of what type of notebook or journal you use, you should consider designating certain spaces for actionable items and Backburner Items. These spaces should be kept separate from the space you use for general notes and sketching. Here is an example of how we practice the Action Method using the products we designed.

You can download a free template of the Action Pad at Creatives Outfitter.com—as wel as purchase products based on the method’s design.

Online Utilities for the Action Method
The concept of the Action Method can be practiced using most online task management tools. In 2008, Behance launched its own version, Action Method Online, which al ows users to manage their Action Steps and col aborate with others using a Web browser or mobile device. You can start using the online utility for free at ActionMethod.com.

The Action Method design that the Behance team uses in meetings and

brainstorms

More Resources on Action and Execution
Behance’s annual 99% Conference and database of tips, interviews, and other resources are organized online and can be accessed at The99Percent.com. The 99%

also functions as a community of like-minded creative people and teams with the desire to exchange best practices and boost productivity. You are welcome to participate.

Appendix 2:

The Purple Santa Experiment

AS AN EXPLORATION
in rapid idea generation turned execution (and for the purpose of holiday cheer), the Behance team conducted a fun experiment in 2008. On one mid-December afternoon, the Behance team gathered around a table in our old start-up office to enjoy some lunch. Like at most lunches in the early days, we were brimming with ideas for what Behance might become and how organized the creative world should be (and what we could do to make it happen). And then our conversations would take drastic turns, to dream travel spots, childhood stories, and the occasional crazy idea that was tangential (at best) to our day jobs. One such idea was the concept of spreading holiday cheer. It was December 2008 and, amidst the looming recession, many of our friends across industries feared the worst. Layoffs were imminent.

Our meandering lunch discussion turned to the prospect of how to spread holiday happiness. And then the spark happened. “What if Santa made a surprise visit to a string of agencies and creative work spaces around New York City?”

One Santa became three purple Santas with long purple beards, large red bags ful of candy, lottery scratch tickets, and little notes inspiring holiday cheer. It was just one of those crazy fledgling ideas that was unlikely to ever see the light of day. But for some reason, it started to gain traction, and some granularity emerged over the course of the conversation. There was the proposed policy about anonymity (we wouldn’t tel people we were doing it; our strategy for dealing with security guards); we would explain that we were sent to deliver Christmas cheer to someone we knew in each agency; and we agreed to keep the budget minimal. The idea was getting some legs.

After forty minutes, we realized that the time set aside for lunch had long passed.

People started to gather their crumbs and take the last sip before returning to ongoing projects and the daily tasks. The idea had nearly slipped away in a matter of minutes.

And then, right before we al broke in our own directions, one team member said, “Hey, I know where we can get real y cheap Santa outfits with white beards that could easily be died purple.” Alas, a proposed Action Step!

Rather than create a project plan and real y put our minds together around the project —something that we just didn’t have the time to do—the team decided to simply act on the idea without much thought. Rather than plan, we decided to rapidly propose, assign, and take a series of actions to see if this fledgling idea could actual y happen without any formal process. Of course, the risk for the idea was low. The cost of three unused Santa costumes and excess office candy was one we were wil ing to incur. But there was also a desire to test ourselves, not to mention the fact that the prospect of spreading holiday cheer was fun and rewarding in itself.

And so, in a quick series of actions taken, PurpleSanta.com was purchased and developed in twenty minutes, the costumes were purchased, the beards were dyed, and the team was ready one afternoon for Operation Purple Santa. The actual Purple Santas —who shal remain anonymous—visited seven different companies. There were Twitter and Facebook messages about the strange Purple Santas running through offices.

Others began broadcasting a cal out into the ether, pleading for the Purple Santas to visit their office as wel .

In this experiment, a random idea thrived only through a wil ingness to act quickly and
without
conviction. This fond memory serves to il ustrate the mechanics of quick action and how, without it, fledgling ideas are far less likely to ever happen.

Appendix 3:

Overview of the Behance Network

THE BEHANCE NETWORK
is a free platform for the world’s leading creative professionals. Behance.net is used mostly by professionals in the visual creative industries—including designers, photographers, il ustrators, and al kinds of other artists —as a powerful tool to showcase their world broadly, solicit feedback, and build a professional network. Mil ions of people visit the Behance Network and its affiliated sites every month to explore, find, and hire top creative talent.

Our team developed the Behance Network as a means of fostering accountability, career development, and knowledge exchange in the creative professional community. It is designed to help organize the creative world’s work. The Network’s utilities, design, and extensive partnerships empower creative professionals to lead their own careers.

The Network has also become one of the best recruiting spots for companies to search for and hire top talent.

You are welcome to visit the Behance Network at behance.net—whether for inspiration, to find and hire top talent, or with the intention to showcase your own creative work.

Index

A

accountability

for Action Steps

community and

action:

bias toward

conviction and

culture oriented to

meetings and

pause between ideation and

premature

Action Method

breaking projects into primary elements

flow of

meetings and

practicing

project management

tips for

Action Method Online

Action Pad

Action Steps

acceptance of

accountability for

aesthetics of tools used in

Awaiting

brevity of

capturing

delegated

distinguishing References from

e-mail and

Ensure

managerial

meetings and

prioritization and,
see
prioritization processing

progress and

project plateaus and

References as hindrance to

sequential tasking vs. multitasking and

two-minute rule for

verbs in

work space and

and work vs. personal life

Adidas

advertising industry

aesthetics and visual design

age

Al en, David

Amabile, Teresa

Amazon

ambiguity

AMR Research

amygdala

Anderson, Chris (TED curator)

Anderson, Chris (
Wired
editor)

Anderson, Chuck

Anderson, Patrick

Anheuser-Busch

apathy

Apple

Spaces feature of

appreciation

Attkisson, Erik

B

Bacigalupo, Tony

Backburner Items

processing

ritual for

setting up

backward clock

Bank of America

Barbarian Group

Bar Mitzvah Disco
(Bennett, Krol , and Shel ) Barnett, Guy

Bazil e, Frédéric

Behance

Action Method Online

Done Wal s

99% Conference

Purple Santa experiment

Behance Network

overview of

Bel , Gordon

Bel , Joshua

Bennett, Roger

Bergin, Shirley

Berkowitz, Roger

Best Buy

best practices

Bierut, Michael

Bird by Bird
(Lamott)

BJ’s Wholesale Club

Bono

boundaryless organization

Bowerman, Bil

Boynton, Robert

brain

brainstorming

work space and

Brand Tags

Brannan, Erin

Brier, Noah

Brooklyn Brothers

Bubble Project

bureaucracy

Burton

business plans

BusinessWeek

C

California Academy of Sciences

Camp Camp
(Bennett and Shel )

ceiling height

Cézanne, Paul

Coach for America

chal enge meetings

change

circles

rules of

self-awareness and

Clinton, Bil

CNN

Cohen, Sacha Baron

Comando, Carly

commitment

communications strategy

community

accountability and

circles

commitment and

competition and

Doers in

Dreamers in

feedback from

frequency theory and

grounding ideas outside of

idea sharing in

Incrementalists in

networks

partnerships

pushing ideas out to

self-marketing and

serendipity and

spotlight and

transparency and

work space and

competition

complementary skil sets

completion, biological and psychological resistance to conflict

consensus

constraints

contrarianism

conventional wisdom

conviction

Cook, Tim

Coppola, Francis Ford

Corea, Matias

Cornel University

Costco

coworking

creative’s compromise

creative team

appreciation in

building

complementary skil sets in

conflict in

consensus in

flexibility and