Charles is the CEO of Ideation, a consultancy that specializes in branding, marketing, design, web, social media, and event development. He is also a founding member of JustOne, a NPO committed to addressing issues of poverty, orphans, and slavery. In addition, Charles leads New Hope, a faith community in the Los Angeles area, and is the creator of grassroots efforts including the Idea Camp, Ideation Conference, and the Freeze Project. Charles regularly speaks around the country on topics such as creativity, innovation, leadership, social media, community development and compassionate justice.
I missed the first few minutes, sorry!
But, Charles played this video from Seth Godin on why tribes are important.
- Stories are intimately connected to ideas.
- How many notifications do you get for a new cause?
- The ideas you pay attention to are the ones that have a story connected to them.
- Ideas survive if they are memorable.
- Most people don’t trust advertising.
- When they people hear something from people they know, they inherently trust it.
- What makes our idea an addition to a conversation not a multiplication of the same concept?
- The early Church didn’t think about making “Christian” roads.
Practical Insights for Idea-Making
Wisdom from the Streets
- Don’t bank on your experience, talk to people who are actually there.
- The best ideas come from the streets
- Charles helps with a program called Laundry Love.
- They talked with a homeless person who said they’d like clean clothes.
- They began to work with laundromats and pay for their laundry to be done.
- There are indigenous resources that can meet the needs in your community. You don’t need to recreate what’s already there.
- You have to listen first.
- The best and most innovative ideas start on the street.
- You have to meet people who will be impacted by what you are creating.
- Let them speak into what your innovating and collaborating.
Paper, Please!
- Write it down or type it in… RECORD IT!
- Until you write your ideas down it won’t solidify.
- Write it and let it develop… let it breathe.
- Start from the center of where you hope to implement concepts.
- Start where you want to end up.
Simplicity
- It takes work to be simple.
- Simplicity doesn’t always come by default.
- Charles shared the story of Gift Card Giver and how simple it was to get people engaged with organizations that were in need of resources.
- It’s not simple to implement ideas, but your idea should be simple.
- Scott shared how charity:water began… and the simple idea behind it: raise money and build wells.
- charity:water knows they aren’t the most holistic resource for providing clean water but they help to create awareness and position their idea in a creative way.
- They employ 17 designers.
- charity:water made charity cool again.
- They understood their boundaries but blasted it.
Have a Business Plan
- Every initiative/idea needs a business plan.
- You need some kind of process to develop a plan.
- The age of social networking the number of followers you have can be very misleading.
- Numbers and followers don’t translate to financial support.
- Don’t base your entire strategy on the “Like” button.
- It’s easy to look passionate from a distance.
Creativity
- When you have an idea you may work on it for a season.
- Then you may have another idea.
- Oftentimes we think those ideas are unrelated concepts.
- Don’t throw away an idea.
- Nurture your ideas.
- One idea can connect to another.
- At some point our ideas could merge, creating divine momentum
- The connection of our ideas could lead to THE IDEA.
- It takes nurturing of unrelated concepts to get us to an IDEA.
- Charles shared the story of how Idea Camp came together.
- Check out the book We are Smarter Than Me
- We benefit from the wisdom of the crowd.
Share Your Idea
- Being open with your ideas helps to make them better.
- Share your ideas with others!
Expect the “No’s” and Dream Anyway
- Any idea will have opposition.
- If you feel passionate about an idea, stick with it for an extended season.
- There will be a disturbance in the force when you have an idea.
- Idea makers have concepts, become passionate about it and spend more time on it.
- Ideas take away from the hours we’d normally have with others [staff, leadership, family, etc].
- Subconsciously, the people feel the disturbance in how we are allocating time and engagement.
- Check out The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield
- The resistance will display itself in relationship.
- You have to discern if people don’t like your actual idea or you implementing it.
- Every great idea requires sacrifice.
- Every idea takes time away from something.
Work Hard
- You have time for what you believe in.
- Check out Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
- He took time and personally answered emails.
- Don’t quit your day job.
- Even if you believe in your idea, work throughout the day, spend time with your family/wife, and work from 11 PM-2 AM.
- Ideas can move forward if you intentionally put in 50 hours a month.
- There are probably good excuses but don’t use any of them.
Ideas for good are some of the best ideas in the world.
- If our ideas help create a better world, God honors them.
- You’re not creating the product, you are creating a product that can get to what you want to do.
- Shoot beyond the product you’re actually developing.
- How is what you are doing helping to move God’s Kingdom forward.
