A Change of Direction

Red Dog

Change can be a funny thing. I was watching the Australian movie Red Dog the other night when it was on the telly. It’s based on a true story of a dog that wanders around the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The dog is a friend to everyone and a servant to no one. Until one particular guy comes along. The classic line in the movie goes something like this:

Sometimes you choose the dog, and sometimes the dog chooses you.

And, I think that’s where I’m at right now. Sometimes you choose the change, sometimes it feels like it’s choosing you…

The events of the past 12 months of my business have been interesting to say the least. I have had a couple of my biggest successes, plus my biggest failures. Seems odd that they were happening at a similar time. Whilst, I’m prone to thinking too much about life, this situation has triggered a deeper look at my life and where I’m heading.

Three Things

And, to be honest, I’ve reached a point where some things just have to change. In fact, three things have to change for me…

1. Design – I want to be doing more design work. Whilst the majority of what I do around writing and helping people is design (at least in my head), I want to work on the design of products and things. Time to go back to my roots. Not back to architecture and to design in that way. A lot of my recent blog posts have been about strengths, weaknesses and talents. And, this has brought me back to design. I want this to be the centre of my world.
2. Social – I want to be working with other people day-to-day. As much as I like my own company and can spend days in a row alone and stay happy, I think I’ve reached the end of this. Working alone for me is now broken. And, we can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I think the triple whammy of working at home, living on my own and not being in a relationship has knocked me for six. I don’t want to do this anymore. A lot of my recent blog posts have been about how I want to work, and working daily with others is a new goal for me.
3. Bigger – I want to be working on projects that I can’t do on my own. This is a real trade-off for me. I know that I can put things together and at a good standard when I work alone. I’m very capable. However, the trade off is satisfaction. When I work at the solo level, I can only produce work at a certain level. I want bigger, I want more and I want to make a bigger impact on my community. Time to stop playing small and start playing a big game. A game big enough that I need others to help fulfil it.

A Declaration

So… Today I make a declaration about a change in my career direction. I’m not exactly sure what the details look like right now, and a change is happening. I will keep you updated in my regular blogs and you’ll notice I’ll be writing more about these topics, in no particular order:

Design, Design Thinking, Creativity and Innovation.

And, no surprise they all still fit comfortably under the Ideas Architect umbrella.