I’m about to begin my eventual fulfillment of a promise to you, the reader.
My interview with Scott Belsky (founder and CEO of Behance and author of the just-released Making Ideas Happen) was as eventual as it was informative and entertainative. As a result I’ve divided it up into two parts. Today we’ll discuss The 99% Conference, happening today and tomorrow in New York City. In addition, we begin to explore the ideas behind the book and I even talk a little bit about myself in there as well.
ME
Thanks for joining me today, Scott.
SB
Thanks for having me.
ME
You’ve got a lot going on this week…the book launch for Making Ideas Happen and The 99% Conference is starting the same day, Thursday April 15th. Who’s going to be at the conference this year?
SB
Yes. We have a fun group this year at the conference, which as you may know, doesn’t allow people to talk about their ideas – they can only talk about their execution. So we have people like Jack Dorsey from Twitter coming, we have Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures, the famous designer Stefan Sagmeister among others who have just made their ideas happen time and time again.
ME
I would be there but I’d need more than the two days because my execution is so eventual in nature.
SB
(laughs)
ME
Then of course you’ve got Behance.net that’s just gone into beta with some new features that you’ve added there. What are some of the newer features you’ve added?
SB
Well at the Behance Network we’re trying to organize the world’s work because – again – the creative community is probably the most disorganized one on the planet. That really gets in the way of them furthering their careers and getting their work out there efficiently and productively. so, the network is really an approach to help this community get this stuff out there. The new network really does a lot of stuff for you automatically. You finish this piece of work you’ve done and you can get it out on Twitter, Facebook and all these other places immediately. It has some great project editing tools for the more visual creative – people that are into design and advertising world especially.
ME
One of the things that one of my followers – or eventual disciples – had asked about is whether or not Behance has tools for the “average” person so that they could use the network. It sounds like these updates address some of that.
SB
With this update what we’re doing is that we’re realizing that there’s the people who create stuff in this world and there’s those of us – like me – that consume it. This is the stuff that makes our lives interesting. So in the network we have a feature called “followers” that enables the regular folks in the world that are creative in mind (maybe not with a brush or an instrument) to follow some of the world’s great creative professionals and get pinged every time they do new work. So that’s kind of cool.
ME
Very cool. Now, Scott – I have to be honest with you. I had this great idea for an interview with you, but just couldn’t come up with much after that…no matter how eventually I tried. I mean, I either started watching the game, thought of better guests to have on (but still couldn’t get down to figuring out questions for them mind you, so you’re still in their league in that regard) and other things just seemed to bubble to the surface. You’re the expert…why’d this happen?
SB
Well, I’ll tell you. Creative minds have a gift that is also a obstacle. You know we have this ability to have lots of ideas and ideas strike us all the time. We get what I call “idea to idea syndrome.” This is where one just constantly goes onto the next thing and never really finishing anything. This probably why there’s more half-written novels out there in the world than there are novels. The idea part gives us this high but when the execution has to happen and you get into the writing and the project management doldrums and you realize how unexciting that part is. That’s why most ideas never happen.
ME
Well, you didn’t have a novel idea…you had a book idea. It’s Making Ideas Happen and it’s all about, well, that. But when I have ideas they do just happen…then they go away.
SB
(laughs) Right.
ME
And the make part sounds like a lot of work. I’ve read that Make magazine and reading it alone was work, let alone the projects they take on. Can’t we just have ideas and see where they go?
SB
You know, there’s this famous Edison quote that’s inspired my team which is “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” and I think that’s what you’re hitting on. That 1 percent comes easy to a lot of us. So we’re not focused on that part. Some companies will call me up and ask “How do I get my team to be more creative?” I have no idea. What I’m focused on is the other 99 percent – the “make” part. Now what is involved with that? Well, for one, being organized is a huge competitive advantage – in the corporate world especially. You have entrepreneurs across all industries that just aren’t organized enough to push these ideas forward. And if they are, the second part is the community. The people around us hold us accountable. They give us feedback. They’re often the difference between our ideas happening and not happening. Lastly is the whole leadership side of things. You can execute an idea as hard as you can, but if you don’t have the ability to lead others your idea is doomed from the start. So I’m really focused on these other forces that make ideas actually happen.
NOTE: Tomorrow Scott and I discuss Insecurity Work, compare our TED experiences and we may even talk about Purple Santa.
FURTHER NOTE: Probably not about the Santa thing but it’s worth reading to find out now, isn’t it?
EVEN FURTHER NOTE: If you can’t wait, well, you need to work harder at eventualizing. But you can listen to this week’s An Eventual Life podcast to hear the interview in its entirety if you just can’t help yourself. All this Santa talk may well have got you nostalgic for sneaking oopen gifts before the big day, I suppose.
EVENTUAL FURTHER NOTE: Don’t forget to enter to win a copy of Making Ideas Happen. Click here to find out how to enter.
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