Collaborating To Transform An Idea Into A Book

At the back end of 2009, I set one of my goals to collaborate more - one area where I hadn’t anticipated collaboration though, was writing. Having already written a couple of books I was confident in my writing style and didn’t feel I needed anyone else. But then I started a collaboration with David Sloly, when our ideas collided to create Unplan Your Business in 2010. That led to our first co-written book ‘Zoom!’ in 2011; and yesterday we just submitted our manuscript for a new book ‘Mash-Up!’ that is out later in the year.

One of the benefits of collaborating on a book is that you can blend your respective ideas together to create a more powerful and valuable end product, incorporating thinking and themes that you just wouldn’t have included without the other’s input. But to be honest, the key benefit for me is simpler than all that: it’s more fun writing with someone else. After all writing is a solitary experience so it’s great to have someone to share the journey with. Collaborating has also forced me to be more structured in how I write. Although I am naturally ‘anti-process’, working with someone else has required a system - however agile - that is critical where we have just three months to transform an idea into a manuscript.

Below is a little film shot in my kitchen where David and I reflect on what it’s like writing together: on the three-stage writing process we have pioneered; on dealing with pressure; and how we turn a bunch of thoughts and words into - hopefully - an awesome book.

How To Co-Write A Business Book Part 2: Uncharted Territory

Writing has become a big part of my life. Sure, lots of us write reports, strategies and proposals in our roles and work lives; we're used to writing emails and tweets throughout the day. Everyone has to be a writer. 

But it doesn't stop there. I also write books, blog posts, guest columns and ‘white papers’; and in my ideas business I write copy for clients to position businesses and sell products. I love the challenge and opportunity of a blank sheet of paper or a blinking cursor on a blank screen.

 

So I'm used to writing for myself and writing for clients. But writing *with* someone else? That's been unchartered territory – up until now. With my third book a collaboration with David Sloly, I'm learning a lot about the need to lose control, to open your mind to new ways of looking at things and new ways of articulating ideas. I'm excited about the potential of that collaboration; of how the results can be more powerful than if I wrote a book solo. I've read some great co-written books in the last twelve months: 'Trust Agents' by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith and 'Rework' by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson stand out for me, and I'm confident ours will too, when it's out later in the year.

As for our approach to the project, last month we went on an inspiration trip to Paris to live and breathe the ideas, creating the chapters and themes. We found that experience really effective, discovering new ways of generating and capturing ideas: involving red wine, coffee and even a 'floor chart' of ideas on the floor of our apartment (see picture above). Now we’re in a new phase – we’re actually writing it. Here’s a little video on how this phase is going:

How To Co-Write A Business Book Part 1

So, David Sloly and I are working on our Secret Book Project, that will be published next October. We’ve both written books before but – apart from a short ebook we created earlier this year – this is the first time we’ve co-written something. With the bar set high (by us, the marketplace and our publisher) the pressure is on. With our busy work lives and us living in different parts of the UK,  we knew we needed to invest in some time together to start the writing process (Skype, email and telephone calls was not going to cut it).We agreed on a trip away, as a journey is essential to productive ideas generation. So last week we took the Eurostar to Paris for 4 days of thinking. Talking, walking the streets, riffing back and forth, stopping for a coffee to capture our thoughts in a moleskine, then repeating the process. The outcome was not about word count, it was about ideas.

Back at the apartment I chatted with David about how the experience was going. So here’s part one of How To Co-Write A Business Book: 

Unplan Your Business

In these turbulent economic times, the wise among us question every business certainty. Business-as-usual hasn’t served individuals, businesses or governments well. Traditional long-term strategy retains its place but, with web based tools revolutionising the speed at which we can launch and test ideas, I think the future requires we bust the myth that we can plan/guess the future and, that we need to UNPLAN OUR BUSINESSES instead. 

“How To Unplan Your Business” is my latest project; a collaboration with a friend and former colleague David Sloly.

In my research I have gathered various contributions from entrepreneurs and management thinkers including Tom Peters, Kevin Roberts (Worldwide CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi), Tony Hsieh (CEO, Zappos), David Hieatt (ex CEO Howies), Gary Vaynerchuk, Michael Schrage (prototyping guru) and Alan Webber (founding editor of Fast Company) - all of whom, for different reasons, support the idea.

WEB you can see these contributions at the Unplan blog here.

READ there’s a free ebook, that you can download here.

LIVE if you’re going to be at SXSW Interactive, join us at 5pm on Saturday March 13^th in Room E at the Hilton for a Big Conversation

VIDEO there’s a short video here

AUDIO and a short audio trailer here

Getting Your Business Ideas To Market Rapidly

I’ve always been more stimulated by the ‘making things happen’ bit of business than all that inevitable long-term planning: I like to take ideas to reality, get them out in the marketplace. I have seen too many good business ideas stay in the womb for too long, and get launched too late, or worse, not at all.


Sure, you need to plan a business before you launch it but don’t get lost in five year plans and long term forecasting. In a fast moving market isn’t it often more important to actually get it out there? To DO, not plan? You can still test, prototype and tweak your proposition once it’s out there, getting valuable user feedback you could never get from focus groups and spreadsheets. And with digital tools, it’s easier than ever to rapidly and effectively launch an idea.

At SXSW Interactive in 2010 I’ll be hosting a session on this area - ‘Unplan Your Business Idea’ - along with David Sloly.

So with this in mind I was really excited to hear about 24hour-startup.com. Last month a team from Nonsense London gave themselves 24 hours to conceive, design and promote a new web business. the result is a brand called ‘Dr Hue’ which is now being sold on Ebay.

Okay, so it was a stunt (a good one at that), but proof that you *can* take an idea from blank sheet of paper to the market rapidly. There’s a 3 minute video below which summarises the stages in the 24 hour development.


24hour-startup.com - hour-by-hour from NonsenseLondon on Vimeo.

Forget The Planning. Focus On Doing.

I’ve spent much of my career busting myths about the way things *should* be in life and business. In most organisations there’s a lot of effort devoted to the tradition of business planning. Five year plans, forecasts, projections. But now more than ever, I don’t see the point of long term planning. Sure, I understand the rationale: the importance of investor and shareholder accountability and of measuring performance. But it seems so academic in an ever changing world: better to be pragmatic and reactive in a world where things change in a flash.


It’s a subject that I hope to be talking about at SXSW 2010 with David Sloly – ‘How To Unplan Your Business’. I also talked to Gary Vaynerchuk about it on his recent trip to London (video here, go to 08:11):

"A 5 year plan is impossible in a world where what 5 years represents is so different than it used to”.

And then this week Stefan Stern in the FT talked about ‘The Death Of The Five Year Plan’:

“..markets are unpredictable. The economic outlook is uncertain. The world has changed. If old-style strategy formulation is not exactly dead, then it is hardly in the best of health”.

So I say forget long plans and just focus on DO-ING. Put the damn idea or start-up or new product into the market and test and tweak as you go. Forget projections about what it’s going to make in Year 2, who knows until you get started? Who knows how market forces will change, how technology will change the game?

Let’s remember how technology has changed business lifecycles. I can launch a web business in a couple of hours. I can shoot a video on my Flip and post it up straight away. Here’s another example of the game-change. On Monday evening the songwriter Dave Stewart said let’s write a song on Twitter. Followers had just five minutes to write the lyrics and 24 hours later, the results are up = a demo of the song ‘Love Tower’ (featuring my lyrics). And it’s good! Download it here.

So quit the big planning and the big plans and just GET DO-ING.

My panel ideas for SXSW 2010

This year was my first trip to SXSW in Texas; documentary film-maker Melissa Pierce invited me to co-host a session with her. I loved the SXSW experience and am returning next year, hopefully to present another session.

I have two sessions up for consideration on the SXSW Interactive Panel Picker, where you can check out more information and give it a ‘thumbs up’ vote:

#1 How To Get Your Clients To Stick

A new dial has appeared on the business dashboard. It’s the ‘Happy Customer’ dial and to ensure you continue getting work from that customer you need to keep the needle in the green. So how the heck do you make sure your agency, start-up or corporation keeps your clients happy?

#2 How To Unplan Your Business Idea

The notion that every business needs a detailed plan is broken. If you’re launching a business it’s more important to put your ideas into action and not over-strategise. Online tools mean you can launch a business faster than you can build a theoretical model. So unplan and just do it.

My collaborator and fellow-speaker on these ideas is David Sloly. David is Creative Director of Mason Zimbler, a disruptive digital integrated marketing agency.

Thanks for checking them out

David Sloly On Juggling

This week’s Juggle Tapes interview is with David Sloly. David is Creative Director at the integrated digital marketing agency Mason Zimbler where he creates campaigns for technology brands like Microsoft, Toshiba and Dell. He’s eschewed traditional career development with a CV that has really mixed things up from writing books and DJ’ing to being a radio and TV producer. His work in radio won him a Gold Sony Award and a MOBO award. David is a real evangelist for digital communication and Web 2.0 and he’s also recently added hypnotherapy to his juggling.

I filmed my interview with Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi on a rooftop overlooking the Arc De Triomphe, for this one I was in Bristol on a terrace overlooking Clifton Suspension Bridge.

- In the interview David talks about how having a rich background outside of advertising helped him become a Creative Director.

- Hear how he's applied hypnotherapy to business challenges

- and how he got away with writing a report for work while he was meant to be on his honeymoon!

WATCH IT HERE