4 Sorts of Folks That Make $*!* Happen

Organizations, products, services, and so on don’t just happen. I think sometimes we romanticize the process and make it into something it’s not. Other times, we make the mistake of thinking one part of the process is somehow more important than the others. Here’s how it goes.

You get this idea. You take the idea and do something with it; you take it from concept to reality. Then you take that prototype and make it even better. And then you keep making that product, providing that service, etc.

You can see the things that have to happen. Ideation, creation, refining, and making it real.

1. Ideators

The sort of ideation we’re talking about here tends to have its origins in the minds of strategists, creators, and visionaries. It’s these folks who love to think, think, think. They might even be what some would call a bit of an “odd duck” or maybe an introvert. And just as you’re about to whisper to your colleague that Mr. Ideation over there wastes so much time thinking, Mr. I walks over to your area and says something starting with “So I have an idea I wanted to run by you…” Four and a half minutes later you’re trying to decide if the idea is crazy, brilliant, or a tasty cocktail of both.

2. Creators

But then what? Say the idea is fanfreakingtastic. It can’t simply live in Mr. Ideation’s head in perpetuity. That’s where our creators come in. They’re the ones who can decode these half-delusion-half-illuminations, and bring them from their current abstract form into something more concrete and tangible.

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