1. Ideas don't become reality because they are better, more carefully thought through, or more compelling (though these things might help). Ultimately, they come into being through sheer work and perseverance. It's about putting one foot in front of the other, day in and day out. 
2. Don't create big hairy goals with milestones charted out to guide the way. Set important but smaller goals with the understanding that they'll add up to something big.
3. Remove the word "immaterial" from your vocabulary. Every world-changing idea was immaterial to someone at some point.  If people tell you that your idea is immaterial, take it as a compliment. Then find new people.

A liquor store in my hometown used to (and still does) append all of its ads with, "please use our products in moderation." It was a nice gesture from a social responsibility standpoint, and I was reminded of the tagline recently when pondering innovation.

I'm starting to believe, largely as a result of very-intense and self-involved introspection, that too much innovation can be a bad thing. "Heresy!" you say (if you are of the entrepreneurial ilk, that would be the right answer). Before you get all bent out of shape, let me explain. Innovation within an industry or society we generally consider a very good thing. I still believe this to be true. Technological progress, broadly defined, is the cornerstone of economic growth. Industries, cities, societies that innovate thrive. So let's take innovation in aggregate off the table. Innovation within an individual organization or person, however, can quickly become counter-productive. Take gastronomy as an example. Let's suppose that you make the sage decision to create a new and exciting dinner every single evening. No recipe will be repeated and cookbooks are only allowed if modifications are made to the written word. Now imagine the amount of planning and stress that would be associated with such an endeavor. Not only would your culinary aspirations distract from other important tasks, but you'd lose the "economies of scale" that come with cooking similar meals (or eating leftovers), and you'd also probably never get really good at any given menu item because of your reluctance to iterate and make minor tweaks. Minor tweaks are not especially sexy or exciting. For that matter, neither are leftovers (except really good stews, which always seem to taste better the second day). However, they are the stuff of disciplined execution on great ideas, which is what big-time innovators can be absolutely terrible at. If you're an ideas person like me, you may very well read so much and take in so much information over the course of a day that your world is made up more of possibilities than realities. You sometimes have a difficult time settling down your mind enough to do make detailed to-do lists, set concrete goals, and prioritize your work. If that's you or your organization, an overdone propensity for innovation may be officially kicking your ass. As you think about this, here are two points of verification that might prove helpful. 1) Wendy Kopp's NY Times Corner Office interview. It's a fabulous interview - read it! Wendy is very clear that focus had to triumph over innovation early in Teach for America's life in order for the effort to really take off. 2) Remember that the net impact of innovation is positive, but that the process of innovating is NECESSARILY wasteful. Don't take my word for it. Jeff Bezos once compared the internet boom and bust of the early 2000's to the Cambrian Explosion that took place 500 million years ago.  The "explosion" of diversity in animal life was a major step forward for the earth, but can't be viewed as such without also considering the mass extinction that took place fifty million years later that allowed the fittest (and luckiest) species to really thrive. So, to paraphrase Happy Harry's, if you want to be successful at a personal or organizational level, "Please Use Your Innovation in Moderation."

Nancy Lublin from Do Something wrote a great column in this month's Fast Company on overhead as the bogeyman of the non-profit sector. She's right.  There is nothing inherently evil about overhead.  Of course, some types of overhead are wasteful (think: auto execs, private jets, and Obama).  However, other overhead is good and extremely worthwhile. IT spend in a telecommunications company, for example, is not only necessary but can be a source of strategic differentiation if applied appropriately (think: 3G). My day job is in HR and leadership consulting.  There, we struggle with this issue on a regular basis. While "people are our greatest asset," they show up in only one place on the financial reports.  That would be under expenses.  So how do we tend to manage people?  That's right, as liabilities. The good news is that the earth is moving in HR.  Companies are finding increasingly accurate ways to measure  the productivity and capacity of the workforce as opposed to just payroll expesnse. Let's hope that we start to see a similar shift in the NGO world.  Because simply viewing overhead as a necessary evil is not only flawed thinking but can severely constrain our organizations in their ability to grow and more effectively serve their constituencies.

From Ze Eduardo's Photostream
I'm generally not a highly detail-oriented person.  I am usually quite good at, and content with, understanding the gist of things.  My eyes glaze over as people dive into the minutae of an issue.   I don't know if this is inherently good or bad - it's probably neither - but I do know that  my appreciation for details seems to grow greater all the time.  More specifically, I'm learning that as you approach the upper end of the performance/competitiveness continuum, winning becomes a game of inches.   A couple examples of what I mean... 1. In the world of cycling, my newfound love, winning is about most efficiently transforming human force into speed and movement on the bike. Every turn of the pedal is an opportunity to either leverage or waste the force that your legs are generating.  If you pedal 80-90 times/minute in a race that lasts several hours, every microscopic bit of leverage counts.  So don't roll your eyes (like I did) when you hear the bike salesman talk about "system integration" and "aggressive geometries." 2. I had the privilege of seeing an amazing Minnesota Orchestra concert on Friday night, where I learned that the average string player owns an instrument worth somewhere between $100,000-$200,000.  I'd be the last person to believe that the delta in sound quality between a $10,000 and $100,000 violin somehow mirrors the delta in price, but it seems that here again, where competition is fierce and people are enormously talented, we're talking about little differences making all the difference. If you have other good examples I'd love to hear them.  Ultimately, it makes me feel better about the idea of one day becoming an expert in a particular field versus the generalist that I'm currently on a path to become.