creative briefing

This is a self-response to Great ideas, a mild rant I made a few months ago that questioned the commitment of an entrepreneur to his self-started venture and his/her ability to divert his/her interests into new side projects.

From the original post:

…as an entrepreneur, how restricted are you from diverting your attention to other ventures? Is it a formal duty or a personal judgment call that holds you back? Do you create policies that govern these scenarios for you, your partners and your employees? Does that make things a bit hypocritical? Does that make you hypocritical?

It’s taken a few months to set in but in my current state of mind I’m not only a strong believer that great ideas, otherwise known as brain crack, should not be restricted, but that they should also be encouraged within any organization dynamic enough to handle it.

Being your own boss gives you the flexibility and atonomy to run your business the way you want to. It means that if your creative agency wants to start a subsidiary that sells t-shirts tomorrow, then it very well can (not to say that it would be the best business decision though). The difficult debate here is what amount of commitment - time, energy, brain matter - do you owe your main venture and the people involved with it? This is what seems to have been deeply disturbing me back in October. But here’s how I see it now.

Side projects keep you fresh.

They keep your brain from going stale over working on the same thing over and over again by giving you something new and exciting to work on.

Side projects make you versatile.

They put your talents to the test - including those that aren’t used in your core work. Diversifying your interests also means diversifying your skillset, making you a more dynamic and competitive individual in the market place.

Side projects leave you happy.

The energy boost from having a great idea will leave you foaming at the mouth. They call it brain crack for a reason. Plus the satisfaction of launching something new will give you the very same tingly sensation that you experienced when you launched your first venture.

So, you owe it to yourself, your ventures, and the people you work with to take in some brain crack every once and a while. My agency has already begun internalizing this model and it’s made our daily work that much more up-beat. But don’t just take it from me; many great things have already come from people who have embraced their great ideas and allowed them to flourish - and all without losing direction or focus on their main priorities.

FreelanceSwitch and all its sister sites presumably all spawned from great ideas at the Eden house. Nick of the infamous N.Design Studios has built his entire brand off side work like Best Web Gallery and the ever-growing Web Designer Wall. More recently, the guys at Shane and Peter have launched Sproutwire, a great new tool geared at those interested in only the best of the best small business reads across the internet. Hell, even one of my business partners owes much of his success to his past side projects.

So the moral of the story is this: embrace the brain crack. Especially for you entrepreneurs and freelancers - don’t let your client work be all that you are. Be fresh. Be versatile. And most importantly, be happy.

More on brain crack

• the show with zefrank (07-11-06 edition)
• The Brian Shaler Blog (That Internal Project…)