The sun is setting slowly as I drift somewhere between Dallas and San Francisco. Low clouds softly drape the mountains below as I gaze toward the reddish-orange horizon. I feel so calm as I fly home tonight. You see, I’ve made a promise to myself that I thought I would share.
2010 has been a fascinating year in so many ways. Despite experimenting with a variety of new and interesting businesses my mind simply cannot stop thinking about potentially viable opportunities for our highly fragmented and ever-changing industry. These theoretical concepts seek purchase yet rarely crack through their cranial prison. This creates noise and can be incredibly distracting…
Until now.
Over the next few months I will be giving most if not all of my ideas away. I commit to documenting my thought processes and any initial supporting data/materials and simply clicking “publish”. Most will likely be the most absurd and ill-conceived notions you’ve ever encountered. Others may already exist in the real world (thus exposing my myopic and limited purview). No matter. I’m willing to face public humiliation and ridicule if there is even the slightest chance that someone can take a single grain of an idea and turn it into something material.
So what’s in it for me?
Nothing but closure. I don’t seek credit or any rights to whatever happens from here. If you can turn my steaming pile of coal into diamonds you deserve all the praise, believe me. You’re a brilliant group of people and I have tremendous faith in your ability to execute on anything you put your mind to.
So stay tuned as I embark on this potentially career-limiting journey. And if others want to join in by posting their own ideas, perhaps we can turn this into an interesting industry-wide experiment. Welcome to my personal HR Idea Lab.
Great idea there bro. So start spilling those beans
Thanks Mike. It’s going to feel good to give everything away.
Enjoyed this post Mark. I think many people are thinking along these lines right about now. You are definitely not alone. Our industry really does feel fragmented right about now. So much room to innovate and form new connections. The HR and Career communities are ripe with ideas to grow. Experimenting is so important. Hang in there and keep exploring!
Thanks Meghan! There appears to be no shortage of ideas but instead a lack of execution. Should be an interesting experiment.
Looking forward to the ideas spilling out!!!!!
“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” – Albert Pike
Great quote Mark, thank you!
Excellent! I anticipate some great ideas and conversations springing forth as a result.
And I really like the concept; somewhat analogous to GNU licenses for open-source software… permission to freely adopt and execute on Stelzner innovations…
Keep us posted!
My mind will be become open source (be careful what you wish for).
Mark -
Thanks for this. There are many times that I catch an idea or glimpse of an insight in a blog and I wish the conversation could continue. Twitter streams move fast and I know many ideas hit the blogs every day that might be useful at some point. You will help fuel good dialog and help generate some innovation, some that you may never learn about, but you share none the less.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the wonderful comment. Working on the first installment right now and it should be up shortly!