I’ve wanted for a few years now to stop and write a book about the amazing innovation team we’ve built over the last five or so years, but the pace of life with the kids and the hectic nature of growing 10+ startups simultaneously have always gotten in the way. This month is no better, and yet, thanks to the Nanowrimo challenge I’m three days into writing a book on Scaling Innovation (title to be determined, but that’s not a bad working title for a book, I think.)

Honestly, I have no idea if this book will ever see the light of day, but the very act of revisiting the early days of creating the Incubator team, hiring, staffing, planning, and with the help of hindsight reverse engineering the work we’ve done has already been an insightful exercise. I’m not ready to share anything more just yet but did want to take a few minutes to procrastinate and put a bit more social pressure out there for myself to accomplish the goal of writing a book. Nanowrimo is mostly about writing novels, but I figure a business book is more my speed. I’ve told several close friends and a good number of my team members that this book is in flight, but this is a bigger stage than any of the rest of that combined.

I did a fair amount of pre-thinking and some organizing of my thoughts for this book for the last month or two in anticipation of Nanowrimo, and then really just started writing on November 1. It’s not any easier to find the time, but thankfully given the five years of lived experience, and the long-winded nature of family members that I’ve clearly inherited, it’s not been too hard to have the words flow. I’m behind on my goal due to missing a day already, but I’m hopeful that between weekends and some extra days off here and there I’ll be able to make up for the missed days and get caught up.

If you’d be interested in reading a book on how to create successful innovation teams and the process we created/adapted/stole that as launched 10+ new ideas into the ecosystem (several of which are multi-million dollar opportunities) drop me a line via the about page, or on Twitter. I’m not doing this for the dozens and dozens of dollars, I truly have enjoyed this experience and look forward to sharing it with you all.