Do you have ideas that you want to keep alive?

Remarkable.

That’s what I first thought when I finished reading Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky, founder/ceo of BEHANCE. I highly recommend this book. Why? How much time do I have? Not much? Okay, this book is for you if you want to keep your ideas alive.

After I finished reading Making Ideas Happen, I had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with Scott and he graciously agreed to conduct a quick interview for sneezr.ca. Since I practice what I advise (e.g. I believe that differentiation should be a strategy driver for your business), I did not want to follow some “traditional” formula for this interview.

Instead, I decided to organize the whole experience around just one open-ended question: “If I started today, by Scott Belsky.” Here is Scott’s response:

“I would be a little less anxious about day-to-day indications of progress and a little more creative about how we measure the EARLY impact we are making on the world. After all, great ideas are not accomplished overnight. If you’re too eager to see short-term progress, you may lose track of where you are headed in the long term.

Said differently, if you watch your feet as you walk, you won’t trip and fall, but you will definitely get lost. I’d rather look ahead and trip every now and then.

I would be a little more disciplined about the number of projects our team takes on at any given moment. With a creative team, it is tempting to always come up with new ideas and then test them out. But to build a viable business, the best ideas are improvements rather than creations. This is hard to realize in the beginning, but it makes all of the difference when you are underway.

I would have a little more fun. I recall too many sleepless nights in the early days of the company. In retrospect, the sleeplessness didn’t help me that much!” —Scott Belsky,

Jenan: Thanks, Scott!

Dec 4 2010