Idea Incubator 23: Relying on Resources
Everyone has limited resources. Once, speaking to a room of 200 designers, I asked: “has anyone ever had an unlimited budget?” No hands were raised in response. Throughout my career, I have had only one project where money was no object, resulting in a corporate brochure printed in seven colors with 60 location photos, and ten fold-out pages.*
Beyond money and time, there are several other resources often overlooked. To maximize such advantages requires insight and creativity.
Melissa Giovagnoli always pushes the envelope. Beginning with her book Networlding, she mines business for golden ideas that connect people to potential. If anyone can comment on focus, it is she:
“Look to grievances within your own experience to discover conviction. The only fulfilling strategy is to apply resources where they can do the most good.”
—Melissa Giovagnoli, contributor to Women who Win at Work
This sounds simple, but people are easily distracted or unconsciously complicate situations. Yet a creative use of limited resources will yield stronger results than an unimaginative use of abundant resources. These questions help to focus:
1. Set up a chart with four categories:
business _____________________________________
career ______________________________________
social _______________________________________
personal _____________________________________
2. Answer these questions for each of the four categories:
• What grievances, problems, annoyances, worries, or causes do you address?
• What problem do you hope to solve or what cause do you contribute to?
• What are your greatest resources?
• What can you do to best focus resources?
3. How can you match your concerns to your resources?
4. What first steps can you take?
* My unlimited budget project was a corporate brochure for S&C Electric Company, a medium-sized privately held manufacturer in Chicago.
See “Marketing to Match” also from Melissa Giovagnoli.
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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
