Yesterday I made a post about strawberry prints and via email I received this image:

Merlot on the Bounty

from my friend the multi-talented painter Cindy Packard Richmond.  She wrote “Great minds” on the email and sent it.  I have written about Cindy and her work before and have a link to her site on my blog roll.  This email cheered me up two ways: First somebody is reading my blog occasionally and second my fruit print idea has crossed the mind of someone much more talented than I and has been turned into a product.

Sometimes I’ll get an email from someone about one of my ideas saying something like “to late” or “already done”  These people see ideas differently than I do.  I see ideas as if they were fireworks to be enjoyed as they come into view.  Other people seeing the same fireworks increases my enjoyment of them because we can ooh and aah together.  To me having ideas is not a competition it is a game.  It is an engaging conversation not an argument.

Ideas are the seeds necessary for new products, services and approaches.  But in the same way that a seed has to be planted, cultivated, harvested and processed before it becomes food; ideas have to be developed, tested and tinkered with with before they become useful.  To  torture this metaphor a bit more remember the parable of the grain and how much had to be scattered so that some of it would land on the arable land.  The rewards in the marketplace tend to go to the people who do the hard work not to the ones who just have the ideas.  And that, I think, is the way it should be.