Stop Innovating and Start Copying
Here’s some mind food for the day: Stop attempting to be so darn innovative and just start copying.
Seriously.
Today, instead of killing yourself by trying to be different with your online programs, initiatives, blogs, twitter, whatever… and trying to be uber-innovative, why not just see what the “best” are doing and just copy them?
They apparently are doing something that works.
Sometimes “success” isn’t the newest thing on the block that makes you a bajillion dollars but the consistent investment into something that works and that reaps a profit, perhaps small, every month.
[Image from RCrowley]
Buzz it!
Leave a Reply
18 Responses to “Stop Innovating and Start Copying”
5 Tips for Improving and Preparing Your Online Presence for 2010 - ChurchCrunch
[...] know what they say about copying, and here are some previous thoughts about Stop Innovating and Stop Copying, as well as making sure that your contextualizing your [...]
- 4,699 feedburner + twitter followers
- 10 HTML5 Demo Sites to Drool Over
- Weekly Top Commenters
- Make Your Own E-Mail Server
- Jesus is the Reason for the … Fail?
- ChurchIT Roundtable – Live from Saddleback!
- A New Type of ‘Infinite Loop’
- Best Online Retailers for Your Church IT Equipment?
- You Are Not Technical Support, You Are Leaders
- I Wish Churches Had More IT Internships
- AMD and Intel, Where Do You Sit?
- CSS3 Generator
- Weekly Top Commenters
- HTML5 Makes Me Cry Tears of Joy: Ambilight Video Tag
- Technologies for Worship at the 2010 NAB Show, Free Tickets!
- Pearl Jam, The Rolling Stones, Freaknik, and Passion’s Awakening…?!
- Fighting the Fires of Deadlines
- Chris Tomlin’s Frequency Worship Community and Planning Center
- NewSpring Leadership Conference is All About Patterns!
- Title Package from Andy Stanley’s ‘White Flag’ Series
- 5 Design Tips to Make Your Church Website Kick Butt
- Sustained Adoption and Use of Mobile Technology Requires One Thing: Usefulness
- Weekly Top Commenters
- Giveaway: Rework by 37Signals
- Healthy, Constructive Criticism
- Android Handsets are Getting Really Pretty…
- Giveaway: iPhone App Magnets
- Streaming Sermons: Point of Connection or Disconnection?
- Mobile Church Websites: 3 Ways to Know Your Ministry is Ready for Them
- TwitCasting Proves Distribution Just as Important as Content
- Weekly Top Commenters
- Director of Awesomeness, Marketing, Social Media Strategy, and More.
- Network Administrator
- Web Software Developer
- Graphic Arts Designer
- Group Life Connections Coordinator
- Pathways to Ministry Coordinator
- Administrative Assistant for Congregational Care
- Coordinating Assistant
- Website Coordinator
- Implementation Consultant, Faith Based Division
- Prayer Request From Erica
- Prayer Request From Eero
- Prayer Request From Maryna Conway
- Prayer Request From Jordan Wiseman
- Prayer Request From Nick Shoemaker
- Prayer Request From DerekDRobertson
- Prayer Request From gunnard
- Prayer Request From Kyle Reed
- Prayer Request From David
- Prayer Request From Jim Gray
Forum Software? 
Vance Havner talked about a man who said he would be "original or nothing" and ended up being both.
Blog series' seem to work pretty well. I just finished my first one last week… I did not invent the blog series… I copied it. It was good… I got some good feedback.
Copying FTW!!!
Blog series' seem to work pretty well. I just finished my first one last week… I did not invent the 'blog series'… I copied it. All I invented was the topic and my words… It was good… I got some good feedback.
Copying FTW!!!
I prefer the bajillion dollars.
peace|dewde
There are over 17 million blogs. Ecclesiastes 1:9 is ringing in my ear. We may not be able to come up with "new" ideas, however, we are all given a unique voice in which to interpret and modify the ideas of others for the common good. Interpretation & modification: Isn't that where the best ideas and inventions really come from anyway?
Chris, great points. this is what i htink about all the time.
I must confess, to beating myself up about struggling to be innovative. Its a heck of a lot easier for me to identify the people who the innovators and begin following them. The question is what do you with what you have learned, share it?
yup. give it away. to what advantage, truly, do we have to just keep it?
… i know you would.
I need your theme and CSS files, kplzthx.
But no, seriously. Don't you WANT to be the guy that found your fortune by inventing something new instead of copying someone else's idea? Ignore the fact that Bill Gates became rich by copying instead of inventing.
I agree…can i just copy you?
PTL .. you finally said the unsayable … we've got way more tools and gadgets than we could ever need to aid in ministry. Let the corporate world absorb the bleeding edge costs and the mistakes. We just need to figure out a working method to using it all to make Jesus famous … That's what I'm focused on right now: practical application of practical applications.
Unless you can foresee the future, innovation happens behind your back. But urging people to copy — that's a good way to write your own future by herding people behind your innovation. Otherwise it's not an innovation at all but a failed speculation.
In other words, the "best" are the best precisely because they're copied.
Cool spin here bro. I like it.
Sadly, I think that is the basic strategy that was applied to Christian art for the last part of the 20th century. I've got to admit, I'm very pleased when I find innovators in that realm. You're certainly right in that innovation is not the goal. But, of course, neither is copying.
ah, good point adam. thanks.