I’ve been putting a lot of thought recently into the value of ‘concepts’ and how they can prove to be hugely valuable in guiding the decisions we make as creatives, business owners and effective humans in general.
Often we hear about the need to stop thinking and start doing; take action; take the plunge, in getting new projects going.
I agree entirely with the importance in actually moving from the theory behind something, whether it be starting a blog, writing a book, or starting a business, because it means you are actually doing something as opposed to standing still, stuck in the never-ending process of learning about what process it is you intend to embark on.
So what’s the problem?
There is a risk, I think, of diving into something, confident that you know what you are doing because you have learnt everything you think there is to know about something, but fail because you lack a defined background concept to guide you.
When I talk about concepts, I’m talking specifically about an intentionally vague idea that creates a framework that steers us in the right direction when it comes to making decisions and taking action.
For example, you decide to start a new website because you have a good idea for what you want and you feel you know everything there is to know about web-building: the code, the software, the css and the branding. But you might not have a guiding concept to show you the right track, such as:
- ‘I need to emphasise the sense of adventure in our product.’
- ‘We want to bring creative buyers to creative workers more effectively.’
- ‘We need a website that converts new users into subscribers in a different way’.
What a concept does is provide you with a framework to revert to when coming up with new alternatives for the creative project you’re working on. It is important that the concept be vague enough to allow deviation of your ideas within it, but not too vague so that you have nothing to extract new ideas from.
It is down to you to decide exactly how to define the guiding concept before you take action, but take action!
What are your ideas on this?
