The catalyst was 140 characters long. A tweet from @jason (Jason Calicanis) – “First Open Angel Forum logo in already! I love you Stuart! #oaf What do you guys think? http://post.ly/Ccsp”
Before I describe the events following the above mentioned Tweet, I want to provide a little background. Some months ago I had stumbled across This Week in Startups, Jason Calacanis’ new podcast.
Open Angel Forum concept webpage
I had finished work for the night, around 1:20am or so (I often hit the hay around 2am). I’ll take my iPhone to bed and scan iTunes for something interesting to listen to (provided there isn’t a fresh episode of WNYC’s RadioLab), tonight was no different. Having also spent quite a few months working away on my yet-to-be-launched startup www.artsbox.com, I was interested in hearing stories with an entrepreneurial theme. I found This Week in Startups with Jason Calicanis. There were only 3 epsisodes (now up to 30!). I think I listened to all of them at least 3 times a piece the following week.
Also, about Jason Calicanis, 4 words – gift-of-the-gab. Love him or hate him (and there are a few that identify with the later), he is probably one of the most articulate people I know. For a more indepth Calicanis history lesson please visit this page.
Now as the title of this post suggests “How to identify opportunity and run with it (in 3 easy steps)”, let’s begin the “3 step” journey.
Step 1. Identifying opportunity.
So back to the story of the Open Angel Forum logo. I read that tweet (see above). A voice inside shouted “Hey, drop everything. You need to create a logo. Like now!”. So I did. See? I’m identifying opportunity. So I dropped everything, fired up Adobe Illustrator and went to work. 20 minutes later, my initial Open Angel Forum logo concept was complete. 20 minutes!? You see, the concept appeared in my head in a flash, before I even opened Illustrator.
Let me take a second here to describe how I think about design. Every design, be it for print, web or brand, initially will be born from a very rudimentary, an almost Duplo style of visualization and conceptual thinking. I tend to break everything down to it’s simplest form, first. This kind of approach does not always result in success, but it does mostly provide a solid foundation on which to build.
Open Angel Forum logo
Let’s disect the name Open Angel Forum. Conceptually this is a dream name to produce a graphical mark like a logo. First we want to extract the core message from the name. To me this was clear, ‘Open’ and ‘Angel’ where the key words. The word ‘Forum’ can very easily be ignored at this stage (it carries a secondary message). We want to focus on ‘Open’ and ‘Angel’, both equally carry the weight of the primary message and communication. The word ‘Open’ to me is easily identifiable with other words like truth, universal and welcoming. ‘Angel’ conjures up words like support, encouragment and a higher good. So what happens when you combine the visual representation of these two core messages? You get a big fat yellow hallo!
I saved off the logo, uploaded my concept to Flickr and tweeted “@jason Open Angel Forum logo concept http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaeltroy/4104617770/“. Time to set this opportunity in action.
A side note at this point in the story. The logo itself was quite conceptual. Meaning I didn’t focus heavily on typographic detail, like kerning for example. I still feel the logo needs some attention in this department. I will be suppling Jason and the Open Angel Forum with a refined version along with various formats ready to be put to good use like stickers, banners and t-shirts etc.
Step 2. Keep your eye on the prize.
After getting the proverbial ball rolling with that initial tweet to @jason, the response was overwhelmingly positive and even more favorable than I had anticipated. What happened from here seemed to take on a life of it’s own. @jason RT’d (Re-Tweeted) my initial tweet, which in turn many of @jason’s Twitter followers RT’d his tweet. The logo was also posted on This Week in Startups and Open Angel Forum websites, even some of the commenters from these sites posted the logo to their blogs. A surge of traffic was directed to the Flickr image of the logo I had uploaded.
Jason had also asked the fans of This Week in Startups to vote on their favourite logo. Yeah, that’s right, I wasn’t the only person to produce a logo concept. Apparently there had been 20 or so submissions, though initially only 8 logo concepts had been posted.
Really, my interpretation of “keep your eye on the prize” translates into something like this; when you set something in motion via an action, monitor the life of that action and all things that action has an effect on.
So how did I “keep my eye on the prize”? Well it’s fairly obvious and probably nothing new to anyone reading this post, however the key here is that I took action in monitoring my action i.e. submitting my logo concept. Sure, I can hear poeple saying “there’s no insight here!”, but just hold on one moment. We are about to delve into “Step 3 – Show genuine gratitude and connect”. Without step 3, step 2 means zip.
Step 3. Show genuine gratitude and connect.
OK, so you monitor blog posts, tweets and Flickr comments. And then? Well this is when you need to invest a little time and show some gratitude to anyone that in anyway, no matter how big or small, has shown support towards your action (in my case, submitting a logo). I kept a very close eye on comments, twitter mentions and even flickr image views. All of these things combined can give you a good idea of the general reception of your action.
I read all comments on all blog posts relating to my logo submission. When I came across a comment that positively mentioned my logo, I would try and find a contact email address and send a short ‘thank you for your support’ message. For every comment that was left on Flickr I responded. For every tweet, I responded. You get the idea. This is key, connect. You need to connect.
I genuinely have gratitude for each and every person that made a comment in favour of my Open Angel Forum logo, and for every person that tweeted a kind remark. Chances are many of those people are reading this blog post. If you are, THANK YOU.
This is all well and good, but how does the story end?
I guess you are wondering how this story ends? Well, it does and it also doesn’t. The inherent beauty in recognizing opportunity and responding is that it never truly has an end point. The way in which you repond today may very well determine an experience in two years time.
But if I had to draw a brief summary of how this all ended, all I can say is this. My logo was voted number one and Jason Calicanis officially declared it be the winner on This Week in Startups episode #31 with Jack Andrys (from WebSpy).
During and since submitting my design, I have had amazing conversations on Google Wave with other entrepreneurs (hi @MikalFM) and have made a whole bunch of new contacts via email or Twitter. I have also provided plenty of project estimates to potential new clients. About one third of those estimates have resulted in real paying projects for early 2010. So things are looking good you could say. Not a bad ROI for 20 minutes work.
What I can say is this, I feel I have made a deeper connection with the online entrepreneurial community by recognizing opportunity and using the skills I have (graphic design and web development) to run with it. Ask yourself this question – what skills do you have and what opportunities can you see? Right now.
This Week in Startups episode #31 with Jack Andrys.
Fast forward to the 21:30 mark to see the logo mentioned by Jason Calicanis.
