There's a system under all this
A rare moment of pointing at the map directly
If you’ve watched a few of my Creative Soul Projects (CSP) videos, you might have noticed they don’t quite explain themselves.
A man walks through a city with a camera. A man types one sentence on a temperamental Italian typewriter with a broken ribbon feed. A man stands a white Lady Gaga boombocs on a shelf and plays guitar. There’s rarely a thesis. There’s rarely a slide.
But there is something underneath all of the work here on CSP. A system, in fact. And every so often it feels right to say what it is — partly because you might be wondering, and partly because if I never say it out loud I start to wonder myself.
The system is called idea to value. I’ve spent twenty years on it.
The short version is this: ideas are not the problem. Very few people are short of ideas.
The problem is the journey an idea has to take to become something real, something useful, something that someone else can hold in their hands or watch on a screen or, if we’re doing work to earn an income, pay for with actual money.
Most of what goes wrong on that journey isn’t a creativity problem. It’s a conditions problem. The room is wrong. The pace is wrong. The signals are wrong. The person has forgotten they’re allowed to throw bad ideas away.
The CSP videos are an exploration of that system. Not an explanation of it. Most weeks I’m somewhere on the map without pointing at the map.
When I walk through a city noticing the way light falls on a wall and creates contrast with the city scape, I’m somewhere near the idea end — interested in what conditions let ideas surface in the first place, or wondering why I’m drawn to that light, or whether there’s something more to the light than a good photo.
When I type slowly on the Olivetti, with the hammers that stick and the ribbon that’s been threatening to give up since winter, I’m somewhere near the creative action end — interested in what it takes to carry an idea into something tangible, and why a bit of friction is occasionally the whole point.
I don’t usually point at the map in my videos. The videos are the practice. The map is what makes the practice coherent rather than just a man with a lot of hobbies.
But once in a while it feels right to show the map directly. I made a video, aimed at solo creators and independents, that explains the whole system as clearly as I’ve ever managed it.
A few honest thoughts before you watch.
This is a deviation. It is me at a desk, in front of a system map, talking through it. There is no walking. There is no typewriter. There is no cup of tea. No cars, no stationery, except the pens used to draw the system.
It is me explaining a thing rather than me noticing a thing. If you came here for the noticing — skip it, normal service resumes next week.
But if you’ve ever wondered what holds the channel together, or want a way to see how ideas move to value, this is the closest I’ve come to saying it plainly. The funnel from idea to value. The four kinds of value — financial, cost reduction, enablement, and the most important one in the early days, learning — learning fast enough to stay in the game.
The argument that creative action is different from busy action. The slightly uncomfortable truth that almost everything between an idea and the value we seek is, technically speaking, cost. All of it is in there.
There’s a longer companion piece. It’s called the Idea to Sustainable Work - Solo Creator Guide — a short guidebook plus a forty-minute audio piece that takes the system apart properly. If the video lands and you want to sit with the ideas for an evening with a drink, that’s the place.
The rest of what I make here will go back to doing what it does. Walking. Typing. Looking at things. Creating things. Taking ideas and turning them into something valuable. The map doesn’t change. I just don’t usually hold it up to the camera and talk about it.
Until next week
Rob..