Sunday, September 26, 2010

"It has legs"

A very long time ago, when I was running a lot, and before back surgery which put an end to 15 years of jogging, I was told that I have nice legs.

While I no longer have nice legs, there is another usage of the word legs, and it's related to ideas. I would much rather someone tell me that one of my ideas "has legs" than to be told I have nice legs.

Ideation sessions don't have anything to do with the pipeline, but I cannot express how much I love going to them, and what a wonderful "break" it is from writing all of the time by my lonesome.

To be surrounded by other people, all of whom are brainstorming together and trying to think of as many ideas as possible and as quickly as possible, is like a natural high.

This past week I had to be downtown by 8:30AM on both Tuesday and Wednesday. Thus, with trying to get the pipeline out by Tuesday, I ended up pulling a near all-nighter and got about an hour of sleep. Around 5 AM I was too nervous to sleep just until 7 AM because I was scared I'd sleep through my alarm, which I've done before.

At the session which took place in a swanky stretch of town, there was a catered breakfast, with French toast, syrup, fruit, coffee, and games where we had to sing and wear wigs. I chose an orange wig, a black cape and a studded choker.

That's all I'll write about the session since I'm not supposed to write about it at all, or any details. But I was just sitting here thinking about how cool it would be if I had the opportunity to ideate two days a week every week, and I could structure the pipeline around that.

"Would you do it full time for a job?" someone asked me.

I replied that I wouldn't, because I love the pipeline too much. Plus, those jobs are hard to come by, and one of the reasons I suspect I have a knack for ideation is because it's a chance to clean my brain of all of the other stuff I normally do. If all I did was ideate, I'd have no other experiences in which to inform the brainstorming. But any man or woman can tell me that one of my ideas "has legs" any day, and I will get a warm fuzzy inside. The right kind of warm fuzzy.

This week there will be no Pipeline all nighters though. This gives me a warm fuzzy too.

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