I’m sitting here waiting to go speak to a class about a marketing project they’ll be doing for one of the organizations I work with.  It got me thinking about a comment made last semester, in a similar class, for a similar project, when some students grumbled about the very limited budgets they had to use for their proposals. At least one felt it was unreasonable to expect any results with such a restriction.

But I say, if you can’t economize, then you’ll waste money when you have it.  It’s like a short film or story; they are refined versions of the longer forms, forcing the creator to get to the point. It’s much harder to hide flaws in the shorter form.  When you’ve mastered the shorter form, those skills help you create better long forms. Excel at the crawl before attempting to run.

One of the most powerful compliments I’ve ever gotten was having someone tell me “you know how to economize”, referring to my ability to produce quality deliverables within tight constraints with no additional funding or resources.  I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms, but a big lightbulb went off over my head when he said it.

The fact is, not every organization has deep pockets, or willing to have equally deep pockets for everything, and in today’s economy, smart companies are fiscally conservative. 

When you work with fewer resources, you are forced to be more creative.  It forces you to justify every decision, expenditure, use of a resource.  You have to hone your skills.  Once you’ve mastered the art of economizing, it gets so much easier to really have an impact when you have those extra funds.

It ties into the Pixar story.  Did you know Pixar didn’t’ start as an animation studio, that it was a very small group with very limited funds?  I was watching the brief history bit they put on their first volume of shorts last night, because I’m a fan of short films (and short stories).  The animation team created shorts to demonstrate the Pixar products.  But when they became a full animation studio, focusing on feature length productions, they didn’t forget their start.  As they explained, shorts allowed them to learn new things and allowed emerging talent to stretch their skills.  They get to show off their skills in the feature length films, but they really learn with the shorts.  Shorts are an integral part of their business and essential to their vitality. 

It all boils down to practicing on small projects before tackling the big ones.  And you if you have to keep using the small project, economized methodology, you can still be effective.