We’ve used the tag “cover bands don’t change the world” for as long as we’ve been doing the AC Podcasts. A “cover band” is a band that plays other people’s music. The most extreme example is the “tribute band”, which directly copies another artist’s music and style in the attempt to pay homage to their art. More subtle examples are the college rock bands that fill clubs every weekend playing the radio hits du jour. Occasionally you’ll hear one of these bands rattle off something like “now we’re going to play something we wrote” and a collective protest will arise from the club goers.

Why?

Because no one came to the band to hear the band’s original music. They are there to dance, have a good time and hear music they know. The promise of going to hear a cover band is that you’ll be treated to familiar tunes in a dance-friendly format with little variation from the originals. This is the expectation that’s been set. It’s the “brand promise”, and it’s just been violated in a major way.

It’s incredibly difficult for a band to make the transition from “cover band” to “original band.” In fact, it rarely happens successfully. The band is always caught in the netherworld between making a living/earning money and wanting to express themselves through their art. Even if they are able to successfully slip some original music into the mix, they will always have to stare down the vocal requests for the latest top 40 fare.

The only way I’ve seen a band successfully earn a living playing original music is by choosing to do so from the very beginning and by building a loyal audience for what they do. They stay true to who they are and are willing to forgo immediate financial return in order to build a long-lasting and loyal audience for their music. They are patient enough to earn fans one at a time. They don’t imitate others for the sake of quick returns.

This is not to imply that there’s anything wrong with imitation. It’s one of the key phases of creative growth. We must imitate if we want to develop our skills. But it gets tricky when we start making money off of our imitation skills. There is always the temptation to go where the quick money is rather than patiently developing your craft and your audience.

There are a lot of “cover bands” in the marketplace today. If their goal is simply to make money, so be it. But the products and people who really change the game seem to be the ones who are able to stay true to a set of principles rather than being driven to quick returns. They develop a loyal audience rather than a fickle one that turns away the moment they “play an original”.

It’s my desire to continue to strive to find my own voice and to try to weed out all of the places where I’m being “cover-bandish”. In the consulting space, this can be a very tricky proposition because it often means turning down more work than I accept because it’s not what I’m best at. But my hope is that the original value that I bring to the clients I choose to work with will create raving “fans” who want to continue to work with me and trust me when I develop new products or ideas.

Are you playing it safe in your work? Are you going for the quick return, or are you building your following strategically? Are you developing your craft and identifying your unique contribution? By the way, it’s totally fine to do this “on the side”. A lot of musicians are in multiple bands. But somewhere in your life you need to be working toward finding an original form of expression.

Remember: cover bands don’t change the world.

I don’t like to say “no.” I think it’s partly because I tend to gravitate toward possibility rather than pragmatics. But that tendency to always look for new solutions has at times significantly hamstrung my creative process and has, in the past, seriously affected my ability to creatively lead teams.

One of the most important disciplines that any of us can learn, especially if we create for a living, is to close doors. (This is a phrase my friend Ben uses to describe the decision-making process in creative work.) “What if?” is a fantastic question to ask early in the process, and can even help clarify our work as we progress through a project, but as we enter the middle and later stages of our work we must be disciplined enough to close doors on decisions that have already been made.

The unfortunate result of not closing doors is that we can (1) be in perpetual brainstorm mode and unable to complete great work, (2) be constantly second-guessing past decisions and trying to correct perceived (or feared) mistakes or (3) be confusing in our articulation of creative strategy to our team or co-workers.

It’s simple to close doors, but requires resolve. We have to be willing to say “no” to ideas that could potentially improve the work but could also do a lot of damage or be unfeasible. We also have to check our ego at the door, because a lot of these later-stage ideas offer us the chance to swoop in and appear heroic in crunch time. But it’s not worth the fire drill mindset that becomes engrained when we are constantly shifting strategy, especially within a creative team setting.

Closing doors is critical in client work. It’s important to guide the client through the decisions that need to be made, then to let them know that we’re navigating forward and that old doors are no longer available unless the scope of the project changes. To do anything less is to create an unpredictable environment for your team and to provide less than the best for your clients.

We need to honor the process and recognize that perpetual brainstorming mode on a specific project is not only ineffective, but can be significantly damaging to the climate on our teams. We need to get comfortable with making decisions and closing doors. At least, I know I do. It's a work in progress.

Lately I've given myself a new mantra. It was largely driven by my reading of Linchpin. When I'm reviewing my day, often while lying in bed at night, the question I ask myself is,

"Did I do the work today?"

Not "did I get a bunch of stuff done today?" or "did I feel busy?" but "did I do the work?"

I can keep myself busy all day but never really do the work. 

The work is defined as the thing that I need to do. It's what no one else can do in my place. It's often the place where I feel the most of what Steven Pressfield calls "resistance". 

It's the place where I need to show guts and be aggressive. To fight fear. To create value that I can uniquely create.

It probably has little to do with my technical work. It's usually more about pushing myself to do the really important (and really difficult) stuff. 

So lately I regularly remind myself to do the work and at night I ask myself, "did I do the work today?" It's been a helpful metric.

The biggest challenge in making something - anything - is getting started. It’s typically not that we’re lazy. Rather, it’s that the funnel is so wide open that there are too many options before us. There are too many places we could go. We’re afraid of messing up. We’re editing before we have any content.

It’s easier to sit, and think, and organize, and wait for inspiration to strike. But that’s a loser’s game. If you ask prolific creatives, they will tell you that the reason they create so many things is that they aren’t afraid to start in the middle.

Start in the middle?

Yes. It doesn’t matter if it’s the right way to start or if it feels like a fragment. Just move. Start working on any part of the project. Make it from the inside out. Get some traction. You can always re-direct as you go.

As you create, you can easily morph the parts you’ve already created and sequence and align them properly, but you can’t tweak something that doesn’t exist.

We can’t allow the fear of getting it wrong to keep us from getting it at all. The role of any creative, meaning anyone who solves problems and makes things, is to do the work. No one cares how you start the work, and very few people will care about your process as long as you deliver a good product in the end.

Get moving. Start in the middle if necessary. Do the work.

Hey Houston AC friends: I’ll be in your city this Wednesday (Feb 17th) delivering a talk on creating on demand and staying inspired to the AAF - Houston. The event is a luncheon and is open to the public. If you’re coming, I’d love to meet you! 

Event: Houston AAF Luncheon
Date: Wednesday, Feb 17th from 11:30a-1p
Venue: Junior League of Houston
Pricing: AAF Non-member ($35), AAF Member ($25)

For more info on the event, visit here.

We're very excited about our recent interview with Seth Godin about his book Linchpin [amazon link]. There are few people who consistently bring the kind of energy and insight that Seth routinely delivers as a matter of course. I think that this book is destined to be considered one of his best, and it was a privilege to hear his perspective on it on the podcast. 

It's become popular these days to stir up visions of uniqueness, expression and individualism in all of its forms, but my encouragement to all of us is that the greatest (and most mature) expression of creativity will happen not as the result of eliminating boundaries, but when we are comfortable within them. We each need a container to fill, and as we grow comfortable within these limitations we can begin to stretch beyond them and expand our platform for expression. But first, we must grow comfortable with our skills and develop the right mindset. We must establish our practices (Time, Energy, Stimulus, Focus, Relationships.) And most of all, we must learn to bring ourselves fully to what's in front of us. If we can't be content creating in our current role, a change of scenery will not bring us freedom, it will only magnify our dissatisfaction. 

Do something unique this week. Don't be a cover band. Become a linchpin. And do it from wherever you are. Bring yourself to what you're doing and make a difference. 

We are wired to avoid pain of any kind. We dislike the discomfort of the unknown, and we don't like pressing up against our limits. As a result, when we are required to create something new or solve a problem in which we're experiencing a degree of confusion about the desired outcome, it can be difficult to even get started. It's much easier to ignore the problem or rely on our instincts and natural abilities to pull us through at the last minute. But this is not the path to brilliant work, it's simply the path of least resistance. In order to do our best work, we need to act on the things that are most important each and every day rather than allowing our fear of failure (or success) to define our work. 

As we stare down the barrel of the new year and many of us are starting to work on all the things we'd like to accomplish in 2010, I'd like to challenge you to commit to starting well. If you can develop the discipline of starting each project well you will find your productivity (and the quality of your work) skyrocketing. (This is a subject in Seth Godin's new book Linchpin. I did an interview with Seth and will be releasing it in the next few days. Grab the AC podcast feed if you're not already subscribed: RSS / iTunes )

Many of us do the opposite, however, and find ourselves in a constant game of "catch-up." To start well we need to quickly define the problem, develop actionable ideas and get moving on them soon after conception rather than lingering and waiting for the best idea to "appear." The single most effective practice you can instill in this regard is regular, planned ideation around your most important priorities. I recommend an hour a week to do nothing but generate ideas for projects. If you can relieve yourself of the conceptual weight of still-needed ideas, you will find more energy and focus for getting things done.

There is no "magic bullet" for doing your best work. It will always be the result of the proper management of time, energy, stimulus, focus and relationships. Committing to engage early by starting each project well will help you find the conceptual margin to really pour yourself into your work and is also likely to be the genesis of many "creative accidents."

As many of you know, we recently launched PIP, a tool to help creative people generate ideas when they need them most. So far we've been getting great feedback from early users, but we also thought we'd start a series on the blog to give some tips about how to get the most out of PIP. These tips also apply to any idea session you are holding.

The most important aspect to any idea session is defining what it is you're trying to do. The more specific and concrete you are about your objective, the more likely you are to "hit" it. As a result, we have implemented something in the PIP called the "Challenge Statement." This is at the center of the PIP worksheet and defines what you're really trying to do.

When establishing a Challenge Statement, whether on the PIP or elsewhere, there are a few principles that can help you gain creative traction fast:

1. Be as specific as possible. "Own the market for hair curlers" is not an effective challenge statement, however "How can we increase market share in Canada?" is. Whenever you want to generate ideas you need to start with a very specific objective. Otherwise, you will spin your wheels.

2. Be real. You can't fool yourself, so it is a waste of time to start with ridiculously aspirational Challenge Statements that will result in impractical ideas. (ex. "Be a billion dollar business by Jan 2011" when you are currently at $2 million revenue.)

3. Divide and conquer. You will be substantially better off in any idea session to break your challenges into focus areas as small as possible. Can you make the challenge more focused? Can you break it into smaller chunks? Doing so will make it more effective. This applies to any type of idea session, whether or not you are using the PIP.

The more effective you are at establishing focus in your idea sessions the more effectively you will gain quick traction and get potentially useful ideas on the table.

So, how have you been using the PIP? Do you have any additional tips that might help others? Any additional ideation tips?

OK, it's almost the weekend, it's been a very busy week, and I'm just needing to get this out on the table. Sorry for the "personal" nature of this post.

I'm not sure how to process my feelings right now. It's a strange place to be. I feel a little like I'm betraying my religious heritage (or something), but I don't think I want an iPad.

Why not? Not sure, exactly.

Granted, I may not be the market for this device as I already have a lot of tools in place to do what this device will do.

I've heard several people I respect talking about how revolutionary this device is and how it will completely change everything. Is that just hype? Don't know yet. Haven't handled one.

But it's an interesting place to be. It's the first time I haven't instinctively opened my wallet and asked Steve Jobs to be merciful and leave a little money for food and shelter and the education of my children.

Creativity, at its heart, is about solving problems. The more novel, effective and appropriate the solution, the more creative it is. This is the first time I've noticed that Apple isn't solving my problems. That makes me wonder about more than one thing.

Will I eventually cave? In all probability. But for now, I'm well outside of the Apple "RDF" (Reality Distortion Field.)

Am I wrong about all of this? Am I not seeing this correctly? (And does it matter?)

One of the most significant complaints that I hear from creatives is that they feel “stuck.” They feel like much of their work is derivative and that they can’t seem to get new ideas moving. Over the past few years we’ve been working with various methods to help people and teams generate ideas more effectively and what we’ve realized is that the right ideas are almost always already there. They just need to be brought to the surface.

That’s why we’re very excited about the release of our first tool for creative pros - PIP. It’s a tool designed to help you think about a problem from multiple perspectives, generate lots of ideas and hone in on the best ones. It’s designed to be used by individuals in idea generation time, but can also be used by teams to structure their thought and explore new ways of approaching the problem.

We’re very excited about this. We think it’s going to free up a ton of brilliance. That’s our currency. [smile] Want to see how PIP works? Check it out. Or get a PIP (or two) here.

Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!