==========================
MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN
Overcoming the Obstacles Between
Vision and Reality
by Scott Belsky (nonfiction)
Published by Portfolio
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 9781591843122
=======================================
MAKING THIS BOOK HAPPEN
I have always been a bit frustrated with creativity. I would get
impatient watching colleagues and friends come up with great ideas,
only to become distracted by other ideas and the general demands of
life. I found the poor odds that anyone would actually follow
through with an idea very upsetting. After a series of jobs and a
graduate degree, my frustration turned into fascination and
subsequently a career aspiration.
Believe it or not, it all started at Goldman Sachs, the investment
bank. After an exceedingly dry finance job working with European
equities, I was invited to join a group in the firm's executive
office known as Pine Street--a small team of professionals dedicated
to leadership development and organizational improvement. My focus
was on developing the potential of innovative leaders both within
the firm and at large clients, including hedge funds and other high-
growth companies. This position provided me with a precious
opportunity to study (and spread) the best practices of those
leaders who were the most effective at executing their ideas.
While identifying and spreading these best practices, I spent a lot
of time observing business leaders dealing with the daily struggles
of managing people amidst rapid changes in their businesses. At the
same time, outside Goldman Sachs, I began to work informally with a
variety of creative people in New York City--photographers,
entrepreneurs, designers, and so on--to help them master the
challenge of following through on their ideas. Their needs, it
seemed, were endless.
During my years in Pine Street, I realized that the creative world
desperately needed cutting-edge information on productivity and
leadership development. Creative professionals--defined as those who
generate (and sometimes execute) ideas for a living--constitute what
is likely the most disorganized community on the planet. But these
same individuals are ultimately responsible for the design,
entertainment, literature, and new businesses that bring meaning to
our lives. I saw not only an opportunity but also a responsibility
to help those with ideas overcome the obstacles to make them happen.
As such, I committed my professional life to organizing the creative
world.
My experiences inside and outside Goldman Sachs led me to pursue my
MBA at Harvard and to simultaneously found Behance, a company
dedicated to organizing and empowering the creative world. While at
Harvard I was able to explore productivity in the creative
industries, particularly during an independent research project with
Teresa Amabile, the famed expert on creativity in business and a
professor at Harvard Business School. Meanwhile, I assembled a small
team of like-minded thinkers in New York City who shared my
enthusiasm, curiosity, and desire to organize the creative world.
Launched in 2007, the Behance Network is an online collective of
many thousands of leading creative professionals from around the
world. At all hours of the day and night, network members post their
latest projects--ranging from designs for major brands, to architec-
tural plans for buildings, to new fashion lines and photographic
series--for their peers to review and for potential clients to
consider. Millions of visitors explore these projects every month.
Each project is a testament to an idea that has been pushed forward.
The Network provides organization, feedback exchange, efficient
communication, and promotion to support the careers of creative
professionals and boost efficiency in the talent recruitment
process. As we tweak the various components of the Network, our
guiding mission is to help creative people and teams organize their
work, collaborate, and lead others. From the Network's data--and
many focus groups--we have gathered insights into how people with
ideas gain traction and stay accountable.
Over the years, Behance has continued to research and develop
methods and tools for creative leaders. We transformed the tips and
insights of the Action Method into a suite of paper products and a
powerful online application. In 2009, we launched The 99% Conference
and online think tank as an exchange for tips and insights about the
execution of ideas.
My team's passionate pursuit is to understand why and how some
people and organizations are consistently able to push ideas to
fruition, while most others do so haphazardly or not at all. We have
interviewed hundreds of the individuals and teams that make life
interesting--leading designers, emerging technology teams, media
executives, writers, serial entrepreneurs, filmmakers, and
everything in between. We never ask typical questions such as "What
inspires you?" or "Where do your ideas come from?" On the contrary,
we focus less on the creativity and more on how these people stay
productive and consistently execute their ideas.
Along the way we have met with teams at revered companies across
industries, including Apple, IDEO, Disney, Google, Zappos, and
Miramax, as well as with brilliant individuals such as Stefan
Sagmeister, Seth Godin, and Chris Anderson, who have, through their
consistent execution of ideas, become admired thought leaders in the
creative world. We learned that these teams and individuals did not
arrive at success through a mysterious spark of creative genius.
Rather, the people who consistently make ideas happen utilize many
of the same best practices.
===========ABOUT THE AUTHOR===========
Scott Belsky is a speaker, a writer, and an entrepreneur with a
focus on the creative industries. As the founder and CEO of Behance,
he oversees the Behance Network, the world's leading platform for
creative professionals, with millions of visitors every month; The
99%, a think tank and annual conference devoted to execution in
creative teams; and Action Method, a popular online/mobile
productivity application and line of organizational paper products.
He lives in New York City.
MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN
Overcoming the Obstacles Between
Vision and Reality
by Scott Belsky (nonfiction)
Published by Portfolio
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 9781591843122
=======================================
MAKING THIS BOOK HAPPEN
I have always been a bit frustrated with creativity. I would get
impatient watching colleagues and friends come up with great ideas,
only to become distracted by other ideas and the general demands of
life. I found the poor odds that anyone would actually follow
through with an idea very upsetting. After a series of jobs and a
graduate degree, my frustration turned into fascination and
subsequently a career aspiration.
Believe it or not, it all started at Goldman Sachs, the investment
bank. After an exceedingly dry finance job working with European
equities, I was invited to join a group in the firm's executive
office known as Pine Street--a small team of professionals dedicated
to leadership development and organizational improvement. My focus
was on developing the potential of innovative leaders both within
the firm and at large clients, including hedge funds and other high-
growth companies. This position provided me with a precious
opportunity to study (and spread) the best practices of those
leaders who were the most effective at executing their ideas.
While identifying and spreading these best practices, I spent a lot
of time observing business leaders dealing with the daily struggles
of managing people amidst rapid changes in their businesses. At the
same time, outside Goldman Sachs, I began to work informally with a
variety of creative people in New York City--photographers,
entrepreneurs, designers, and so on--to help them master the
challenge of following through on their ideas. Their needs, it
seemed, were endless.
During my years in Pine Street, I realized that the creative world
desperately needed cutting-edge information on productivity and
leadership development. Creative professionals--defined as those who
generate (and sometimes execute) ideas for a living--constitute what
is likely the most disorganized community on the planet. But these
same individuals are ultimately responsible for the design,
entertainment, literature, and new businesses that bring meaning to
our lives. I saw not only an opportunity but also a responsibility
to help those with ideas overcome the obstacles to make them happen.
As such, I committed my professional life to organizing the creative
world.
My experiences inside and outside Goldman Sachs led me to pursue my
MBA at Harvard and to simultaneously found Behance, a company
dedicated to organizing and empowering the creative world. While at
Harvard I was able to explore productivity in the creative
industries, particularly during an independent research project with
Teresa Amabile, the famed expert on creativity in business and a
professor at Harvard Business School. Meanwhile, I assembled a small
team of like-minded thinkers in New York City who shared my
enthusiasm, curiosity, and desire to organize the creative world.
Launched in 2007, the Behance Network is an online collective of
many thousands of leading creative professionals from around the
world. At all hours of the day and night, network members post their
latest projects--ranging from designs for major brands, to architec-
tural plans for buildings, to new fashion lines and photographic
series--for their peers to review and for potential clients to
consider. Millions of visitors explore these projects every month.
Each project is a testament to an idea that has been pushed forward.
The Network provides organization, feedback exchange, efficient
communication, and promotion to support the careers of creative
professionals and boost efficiency in the talent recruitment
process. As we tweak the various components of the Network, our
guiding mission is to help creative people and teams organize their
work, collaborate, and lead others. From the Network's data--and
many focus groups--we have gathered insights into how people with
ideas gain traction and stay accountable.
Over the years, Behance has continued to research and develop
methods and tools for creative leaders. We transformed the tips and
insights of the Action Method into a suite of paper products and a
powerful online application. In 2009, we launched The 99% Conference
and online think tank as an exchange for tips and insights about the
execution of ideas.
My team's passionate pursuit is to understand why and how some
people and organizations are consistently able to push ideas to
fruition, while most others do so haphazardly or not at all. We have
interviewed hundreds of the individuals and teams that make life
interesting--leading designers, emerging technology teams, media
executives, writers, serial entrepreneurs, filmmakers, and
everything in between. We never ask typical questions such as "What
inspires you?" or "Where do your ideas come from?" On the contrary,
we focus less on the creativity and more on how these people stay
productive and consistently execute their ideas.
Along the way we have met with teams at revered companies across
industries, including Apple, IDEO, Disney, Google, Zappos, and
Miramax, as well as with brilliant individuals such as Stefan
Sagmeister, Seth Godin, and Chris Anderson, who have, through their
consistent execution of ideas, become admired thought leaders in the
creative world. We learned that these teams and individuals did not
arrive at success through a mysterious spark of creative genius.
Rather, the people who consistently make ideas happen utilize many
of the same best practices.
===========ABOUT THE AUTHOR===========
Scott Belsky is a speaker, a writer, and an entrepreneur with a
focus on the creative industries. As the founder and CEO of Behance,
he oversees the Behance Network, the world's leading platform for
creative professionals, with millions of visitors every month; The
99%, a think tank and annual conference devoted to execution in
creative teams; and Action Method, a popular online/mobile
productivity application and line of organizational paper products.
He lives in New York City.
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