My name is Jahanzeb Khan. I’m a Designer and Philosopher. I presently work as the head designer of a major fashion trend company, WGSN and Creative Director of Designer Reserve, a collaborative design studio where I work with interesting clients. Previously, I have been under the employ of design firms such as McRoberts Mitchell and FHM magazine, providing art direction and team management. My passions cover a broad spectrum of design mediums.
This book is said to be a godsend for creatives who are unproductive or fail to see their ideas through. Creatives are free flowing thinkers who don’t adhere to a set workflow — a note here, a scribble there, ideas jotted across 10 unfinished moleskine notebooks. A book like this had to be made and I’m glad Scott Belsky stepped up and tried to deliver. Ji Lee, Creative Director at Google Labs has been quoted as saying this book is, “ A Swiss army knife of ideas,” so I had to pick it up. But did this book deliver or is it just another piece of overpromised hype?
Scott Belsky is a smart guy — MBA from Harvard Business School, worked with the best at Goldman Sach’s and is now CEO of Behance Network. Belsky’s been working with creative types for a while and noticed a trend. He came to realize that most of us are guilty of too many ideas and not enough action. I’ll have to plead the fifth on this one. Scott, being the businessman he is, saw a need and filled it. And from that came Behance Network, 99% and The Action Method all channeled into a creative eco-system. This book seems to be a nice tie-in to those three platforms, a sort of self-promotion, which is fine — they are all mostly good quality items. So on to the review.
The book is broken into three major sections — Organization and Execution, The Forces of Community and Leadership Capability. I’ll try to sum up each section in as few words as I can, giving the general idea of each topic.
Organization and Execution: This section is basically the intro to why you need to be organized. After pages of examples of organized knowledge workers who get results, it will have you convinced that you need to find a system. A person can be a goldmine of ideas but if none are put into action, they will go wasted. Belsky uses the formula creativity X organization = impact. This shows how both need to have some sort of value to be productive.
After a few more examples, Belsky leads us into “The Action Method. This is an organization system that can be found on http://www.actionmethod.com/. It is an online or paper system of turning your ideas into actionable steps. I put this system into work right away and came to realize it’s not very new or revolutionary in anyway and that’s disappointing since it’s a key aspect of the book. The Action Method is really a watered down version of GTD by David Allen. I can see the benefit in the Scott’s system since you can learn it in five minutes, but “revolutionary” it is not. There are more effective and simple GTD systems that were pioneered earlier. ZTD by Leo Babauta comes to mind. Some will argue it’s a matter of “whatever works for you“ and I agree, this is just my opinion. I did find some helpful tips in the chapter that I implemented in my emails, using the word “ACTION:” for all actionable emails and “FYI:” for reference or back burner items in the subject line. This is very effective and makes important e-mails easily searchable.
The Forces of Community: This section discusses the concept of being transparent with your ideas. Discuss them openly with the community. If it is a good idea others will join in your idea to see it through or hold you accountable for action. This is the strongest chapter in the book, but, sadly, there’s not much information here that I haven’t read in other books. A recent book by Gary Vaynerchuk called Crush it! was much more in-depth and focused on this matter, providing excellent resources.
Scott also discusses three types of people; the Dreamers, the Doers and the Incrementalists. Dreamers generate ideas, the Doers execute and Incrementalist are a combo of both, but often take on more than they can handle, resulting in mediocre work. I find myself being all three in different aspects of my life. I realized these traits after taking the Strength Finder 2.0 online test provided by Gallup Inc., which is impressively accurate. Belsky continues to break down this section into subcategories like competition, pressure of the spotlight, power of the network, the benefits of a shared workspace and self-marketing to list a few. Again, none of these are new or original, but a nice reminder and the strongest section in the book.
Leadership Capability: The weakest and most disorganized section of the bunch. There were way too many ideas being tossed in no clear direction. This section seemed like a rushed chapter and, at times, contradictory of other ideas presented in the book. This book contains a lot of plugs and praise for friends or associates, which is a pet peeve of mine. An example would be mid-way through when Belsky went as far as to write that Seth Godin’s new six-month alternative MBA program was comparable or even surpassing his own Harvard MBA. Statements like this make Belsky lose some credibility points in my book. Even though I like Seth Godin, there is no way on earth Godin’s MBA alternative can compare to an MBA from Harvard Business School. Shameless plug. Nothing in this chapter really stuck with me in a positive way and it all came off like a mishmash of ideas.
Conclusion: Scott Belsky’s first book Making Ideas Happen is a good start for him. It shows he took his own advice and has accomplished a lot and should be commended. I can see a lot of creatives getting something out of it. I’ve read tons of self-development books, so nothing in this book feels new or original. I can still half-heartedly recommend this to creatives and knowledge workers who are really not into reading many books on productivity will probably get something out it. Anyone else should pass. Even though the book dabbles on many subjects, I just wish he had explored the topics further without sounding so redundant at times. It felt like Belsky had tons to say, but never took command of the subject matter.
Hopefully, Scott Belsky’s future books have a more polished feel with less plugs and more inventive ideas. Not to discredit the other reviews online, but many have written up reviews after reading the first few pages, which has led to impulsive reactions. This book does deliver on ideas for improved productivity — too bad they aren’t new or original ideas.
Reviewed for Story of a Real Boy by Jahanzeb Khan
