JonathanFields

Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson - interesting exploration of how connectivity facilitates ideation.

Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky - great nuts & bolts conversation on moving ideas into execution

Comfortable With Uncertainty (re-reading for the Nth time) - 108 short meditations and stories on finding peace in the context of constant change

that's why I love Tom, he speaks to corporate america, but says whatever he wants.

I've gone both routes. Self published many years ago, then my last book was Random House/Broadway, next one is with Portfolio.

The real answer is it depends on (1) your bigger business plan (meaning is the book largely a lead-gen mechanism for a bigger funnel, do you want to get paid well to keynote or are you looking to make bank on sales) and (2) the size and loyalty of your tribe.

The bigger and more committed your relationships and tribe and the less you are looking to generate revenue through channels that still hold traditional publishing dear, the easier it is to choose and succeed on the self-publishing side.

What's interesting, though, is that when you scroll back a few links on the same site, they reference a survey that showed 82% are not passionate about their work.

http://blog.rypple.com/2010/10/82-arent-passionate-about-the...

Bolsters the argument that passion comes more from inside, not from external validation.

This is also one of the reasons that storytelling in print can be such an extraordinary marketing vehicle.

PG - Great list of attributes to guide us. What I also found really interesting is a trait that's not on the list - "Tolerance For Ambiguity."

I've seen so many creative endeavors move from freedom to constraint too early or sometimes even flat out fold, not because it was the right time, but because the founders/artists/creators couldn't handle living in the question long enough to make the leap to stunning.

Curious whether that's something you look for and, if so, how?

Hey, thanks for posting the cached version, the 502 should be fixed now.

Like Randy Nelson said, "The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance.”

Read the post and you'll understand the question in a different light, why it's hugely relevant even to tech-founders...and who really asked it.

Thanks for sharing my post!

The bigger message I got from Randy's book and also from a recent conversation I had with him was that a commitment not to ROI or even to specific solution, but to a particular impact on a particular group, where the connection to both the problem being solved and the group being served, is really powerful fuel to power through the hard times come, which we all know will come.