A weeks ago Fred Wilson (@avc)posted this on his blog. It got me to thinking. And it kept me thinking. I think that one of the most challenging things to do in a hyper-connected world is to manage your level of connections, and the frequency that you allow yourself to be distracted. If you look at Fred’s blog archives you can see that for many years he posted daily with very few, if any, comments. Then (I’m guessing this had something to do with Twitter), he started getting 150-200 comments on some days. He is a blog star, but, like most success stories, it was a long time coming.
The premise of the video (you should watch it, it’s good) is that connected people and cultures have good ideas more frequently - and that those ideas flourish more often - than people that aren’t connected. A genius sitting in a room keeping their ideas to themselves is far less likely to have a great idea than someone in a cafe, or bar, or blog, who is talking about their idea. The world is complex and good ideas need many layers of iteration to make break through. Typically it helps to share ideas, not keep them to yourself.
With Twitter and Facebook and texts and the list goes on there is a nearly constant connection to the outside world. That can be good. It promotes the same type of idea sharing (sometimes, anyway) that can lead to big ideas happening. It is also problematic — many creative people and pychologists agree that breakthrough “aha” moments come in times of silence. People have great ideas in the shower, on a run, or generally when they let their mind wander where it wants. For fans of Mad Men and Don Draper this may bring back an exchange from last season [paraphrasing here]:
Peggy - “how do you come up with the ideas”
Don - “I don’t know”
Peggy - “I work so hard at them and struggle”
Don - “Stop”
Don - “think about it as much as you can. And then, don’t. Then you’ll have an idea”
That’s a very rough paraphrase (couldn’t find the actual exchange online), but the point remains. Finding great ideas is a balance between connecting with people, working really hard, and taking your mind entirely off of things. Lots of people do any one of these things well, but the trick, it seems, is finding the right balance.
This blog, as I’ve mentioned in the past, has two purposes - one is to give potential clients a better sense of our approach. The other is to connect dots - ideas - with people. One of the people that came to our event in July and is helping to exchange ideas was Ed Gorleski. Ed is an architecture student at Drexel, and has stayed in touch. He has started blogging and tweeting and networking online. You can follow him @arkitecture (twitter) or on his Facebook page.
How does this all come together? Ed has taken an interest in us and our approach both on and off line, and it shows and I appreciate it. The best marketing we can do is to find people that champion our cause, that connect dots. That is social networking, and it can lead to the exchange of ideas, and that exchange of ideas can take you places you wouldn’t have been.
