"It's very easy to collaborate with someone who has lots of ideas. (...) This is because people who have lots of ideas are constantly trading up: You have and idea; I have and idea; your ideas is better, let's go with that. So ideas don't have this enormous currency. They are just the material that you're working from.

The worst people to work with are people that — every now and then, once a year — have an idea, because they build a temple around it. And it becomes THE idea."

- Screenwriter/Director Tony Gilroy

This is so true. If you have ever worked on a project that requires some creative input, then being surrounded by people who either have lots of ideas, or rarely an idea at all, can make or break the flow of the project. This is because ideas are NOT the finish line. They are not something to hold as a trophy. The important thing should be the final product, the execution. As Gilroy said, the ideas are just material to work from.

Of course, the other end of this spectrum is that the generation of ideas can become so fast and fevered that it's hard to take a step back and focus on one thing and execute it. At some point you need to gather your source material and actually begin to make something. Any additional ideas can be used for the next iteration.

This balancing act is the key to managing projects that require a lot of creative fuel. If you can put together (or stumble upon) a team who has the right mixture of ideas and focus, you should have a nice foundation. This is often why it's recommended that people looking to form a start-up do a few projects together first, before they officially become partners.

Labels: collaboration, fresh ideas, ideas, project goals