When you say you’re the “idea guy,” I really hear you saying you’re the “I don’t wanna do any real work guy.”
To be clear, I have actually heard people introduce or refer to themselves as this. This is is silly because we know Ideas are easy, execution is hard.
There are no new ideas, friend. Don’t tell someone you had the idea first. That’s dumb. Don’t tell someone you offer the idea and they’ll do the work. That’s unfair. (This happens a lot in tech circles but elsewhere too)
Fortunately lots and lots of people say the same thing.
New, interesting and novel ideas are only the very beginning. It’s square one: let’s start with your new idea. Then we must flesh it out and do the actual work.
There’s no work at all in the idea. So that’s why you don’t want to be the idea person to anyone.
You want to be the person who will contribute to an idea, work hard and take the blame.
When you tell me you're "the idea" guy, I really hear you saying you're the "I don't wanna do any real work" guy.
— Christopher Wink (@christopherwink) January 8, 2017