Idea Incubator 21: The Best Project Editor
It is easy to get distracted, especially when developing creative approaches. Keeping on track is a day-by-day activity. Like a kid in a candy shop, I have to be really careful to stay on track and not be seduced by my quest for the next great idea. Tough choices must be made. Multiple passions can be dangerous.
The best compass is the reaction from the audience. Leslie Grossman, serial entrepreneur, knows more about developing business initiatives than anyone. She advocates big-picture thinking:
“Get the market need and your passion to come together and form a purpose. Use your experience in a bigger way.”
—Leslie Grossman, contributor to Women who Win at Work
Passion is great for self-satisfaction but does little to effect the world if not matched with an audience demand. Feedback that steers the ship also helps to make an idea stronger. Attain conceptual continuity by reviewing these questions regularly:
1. How does your work most reflect market needs?
Define what causes, services, or products need solutions.
How do you address or fulfill these needs?
What purpose do you derive from blending your passion with the market need?
2. What initiatives can you use to fulfill purpose?
What is the task that will most develop your direction?
What is the first step you can take?
Who is the best collaborator to help?
3. How can you best connect with others to help fulfill your purpose?
What expert can you contact for advice?
How can you best prepare to talk with them?
What contribution can you make in exchange for their help?
4. Who shares your purpose the most and how can you help one another?
5. Choose one initiative that will strengthen your progress and your passion. Make a plan to complete.
Being multitalented can be a curse as much as a blessing. When appealing to expert advice from Hayward Blake, the Daddy of Chicago graphic designers, he warned that my multi-focus will delete my three disciplines rather than support them. Of course I think that my blend of writing, design, and drawing all come together in publishing. But such a blend also makes me confused at times, pulls in several directions, and needs discipline to focus. So I know more about blending than anyone. Hopefully, my struggle to focus and resist the “grass is greener” syndrome will help you to ovoid such a trap and make the best use of your time.
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Also please visit the “Initiator Index” for overview and development progress.
When Idea Incubator concludes after Part 3, the online publication will be complete. Segments can be used in any sequence, revisiting like an old friend to remind and revise. As a companion, keep a running check on priorities, originality, and rejuvenation to create a flow for developing the best directions. But this is not the end of the process. Though it places you on your best path, you can go further.
I hope you will continue with your self-seminar into the e-book, Idea Initiator that takes the concepts defined in these first three sections, offers a segment on how to sustain creative energy through project ups and downs, and is a guide for how to synthesize the ideas you have formed into a concise and pursuable plan. Contact me to receive your free copy: please go to my website and e-mail me with your request, using the subject line “idea initiator.”
Always inspired, Liane
Tags: creative thinking, creativity, Idea Incubator, Leslie Grossman, Liane Sebastian, project editor
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