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: 

Great Ideas, Slow Hunches And Coffee

If you share my fascination with how great ideas are generated, invest 18 minutes of your time in watching Steven Johnson’s TED Talk ‘Where Good Ideas Come From’.

Johnson talks about ‘the slow hunch’, busting the myth that all ideas occur in eureka-like flashes. The slow hunch is where ideas may linger for years fading into view slowly, rather than emerging in a single flash of inspiration. If you allow hunches to connect with other hunches, they can be really powerful.

Johnson argues we should be focusing on connecting ideas rather than protecting them. We tend to be nervous about sharing ideas because we don’t want to lose control, or have someone else steal it. I’m not sure I agree about slow hunches; I have ideas that have lingered around for years, and I figure the reason I haven’t made them happen is that they just aren’t strong enough. Otherwise they would’ve happened – right? Isn’t success sometimes about executing your idea ahead of the competition?

Johnson frames his presentation in the historical context of the 1650s when Britain saw the emergence of the coffee shop. Before then the prevalent drink was alcohol that would be consumed from breakfast right throughout the day. As coffee shops opened people started drinking tea and coffee, a stimulant rather than a depressant, and with that came great clarity of ideas. The coffee shop created the perfect incubator for connecting, exchanging and sharing those hunches. It’s a tradition I am proud to uphold 350 years on where the coffee shop/ my coffee ritual is part of my own ideas generation.

The Idea Moment

More and more of us are trading – and competing - on ideas. From ad agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi to one person companies, we’re all in the ideas business.

But of course ideas aren’t an easily-produced commodity; there is no proven production line for churning out genius game-changing thoughts.

You can spend a whole day, a whole week - or even longer -searching for ‘that’ solution, for the clarity of vision on a project. And still, you might get nowhere, sitting frustrated, manacled to your desk, laptop or notepad, scratching your head.

But all it takes is for one single, simple, short moment of clarity to get *it*. Not always a ‘eureka’/ light bulb moment, not always that jaw-dropping but nonetheless you’ll get it. That solution, a wow product idea or instant solution to a problem will suddenly appear with the instant realisation that this can make a significant difference to your business or career.

The Idea Moment is difficult to define. It’s like scanning the screen or searching across a landscape and not seeing anything. And then suddenly… like a silver lining to a cloud, a glimpse of late sunlight on a cloud-filled afternoon, you get ‘it’; that return of investment, that moment of clarity as all becomes clear. Not even a minute, just a split second of the recognition that it’s a good idea, is enough.

If ideas are important in your business, know what currency of ideas-generation gets results. Know what makes a good idea and do whatever it takes to create and sustain more and more of them.

Think about it.

Change Your Scenery

A familiar story.


Burning the midnight oil trying to come up with that idea for your presentation. Trying to devise that wow strapline for your website. Working out the killer application for your new product.

And where do too many of us attempt these tasks? At the office, our desks at home, in board rooms.

Try changing your scenery. To a coffeeshop, a train carriage, the beach, a park bench.

You'll be amazed what a change in scenery can do, you just have to get out of the office.

Be Good At Coming Up With Ideas

I was talking to a client today about how ideas are at the heart of his business and advising him what he needs to do to ensure he continues generating good ideas. And it reminded of what I said in this video (one from the archives!). It says it all, click and play: