Ideas are overrated.

The Big Idea.

“What’s the big idea?”

Think. We need a great idea.

For the first decade of my career, the idea of ideas dominated my working mind.

Everything I did in the office came with a looming dread that if I couldn’t package what I was doing into a small, brilliant concept that could be easily explained to someone and make them say, “Wow, that’s a great idea!”—I was worthless.

No one cared what I made (we hardly ever made anything). What they cared about was what the first page of Direction 1 said. The concept. The idea. The brilliant thought that was going to change advertising forever and sweep at Cannes. For some reason it always involved Daft Punk.

Ideas are overrated.

But not because they’re unimportant. They are extremely important. But they are 1% of the whole. I always think of the Edison quote:

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

You have to make stuff. Think of it in terms of a project:

You present ideas to your client and they choose a direction. You refine it together, so it’s nice and neat and brilliant. You establish all the rules and boundaries that are born out of this brilliant idea. You covet it. You are enamored with it.

But when happens when you need to make things that challenge the integrity of the concept? What happens when the marketing team says, “We need to do it this way, or else we’ll lose a lot of money.” Do you say, “Well, you can’t!” and run away crying?

Making things strengthens a great idea.

Making things adds context. It adds reality. It contextualizes a direction through things that a business actually needs. It is the only true proving grounds of a great idea. Ideas alone are…well, just ideas. Even the dumbest person you know has at least one brilliant idea—and absolutely no idea how to make it come to life.

The brilliance is in the context. The genius is in figuring out what it takes to make an idea come out of your head and be reborn unto the world. The genius is being brave enough to invite others to help you make your idea real.

Making things also enhances your ability to tell good ideas from bad ones. The more experience you gain trying to develop a bad idea, the more accustomed you become to writing on the wall.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t sit around and try to invent the next post-it. I’m saying the person who invented it was probably making something else at the time when the idea dawned upon them. The making is where the true brilliance happens.