My friends and I are at the helm of a new idea that we think will do really well; after I’m done and settled into my move I am thinking about cleaning off my mental desk and putting all of my steam into this new idea. It will truly be the culmination of my college education, internet ‘awareness,’ and life experiences. Along with all of this, I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about it, as well as around things like the process of being creative, and other things like project management. Living in Hollywood, being around creative people, or rich or successful people; I’ve made a few observations.

Assuming you have an idea you would like to get ‘made.’ The more people you get involved with, the less your ideas become ‘yours’ but theoretically, the more likely they will get finished. At the very least, there’s more man-hours available to produce products. There’s exceptions of course, because getting other people to do exactly what you want is hard. I guess I’m talking more so about true artistic collaboration, where the artists and creative people involved have open communication, egos are checked at the door, etc.

Spectrum of Ideacompleteification
100% yours - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0% yours
harder to complete - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -done

On one end of the spectrum, the idea is completely yours but you spend your entire life doing it and only produce one thing. On the other end, you have so many people helping the either the original idea disappears or it becomes a gift to the world. Like an open source project?

It’s totally possible, of course, to take one of your ideas and finish it yourself. It just takes lots more time. To be realistic, however, especially having a day job, your hours are sacred. I’ve learned a lot recently about ‘man hours,’ and what creative people are capable of producing, and in how much time. I have a lot of really creative friends that do various amounts of ‘creation’, and various amounts of completion.

You have to find a compromise. You have to weigh out keeping an idea for yourself, and then actually getting the idea into the world. I guess you set out before anything and take note of elements of the idea, and say which things you’re willing to compromise over.

Tell me if I’m wrong or if you disagree. Trying to get all this dust out of my head and share it with the real world.