It has been about one week since the publication of Making Ideas Happen by Behance founder/ceo Scott Belsky. The book became an immediate bestseller upon launch, debuting at #15 on Amazon and leading every business and creative category. The book was also included in the Wall Street Journal as a national bestseller in business. Design and business blogs around the web have since had a chance to read the book and weigh in with reviews.

Here is an ongoing collection of some notable reviews:

--->  In Bubble Wrap (800-CEO-READ)

--->  Web Designer Depot

--->  Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends

--->  Design Mafia

--->  Cool Hunting

--->  John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing

--->  The Lance Life

--->  Design Droplets

--->  Silicon Valley Watcher

--->  Flavorwire Daily Dose

--->  NetDiver

--->  Sean Womack, Confessions of an Idea Junkie

---> Sacramento Book Review

---> Abundance Blog

---> Sacramento Book Publication

---> Eventualism

---> PluginID

---> Joe Woolworth

---> An Idea Blog

---> Ross Hudgens: Authentic Marketing (Video Review)

---> Tim Schraeder

---> All Business Answers

---> Brad Ruggles

--> Abduzeedo: Abducted By Design

--> Rediscovering the Lovely

--> Relevant Media Solutions

With this book, our team wants to start more discussion around organization, execution, and sound leadership in the creative industries. For this reason, we're pleased to see so many thought leaders chime in.

We were also thrilled to learn that, just a week after launch, Making Ideas Happen is the 3rd bestseller in Apple's iBooks store for the iPad. Clearly, the creative community continues to be early adopters...

Based on our promotion with AcceptPay over at the 99%, we wanted to use the system ourselves. So, we rolled out AcceptPay as an option for Teams on AMO. A new service from American Express, this is a great alternative for those of you unable to pay via our traditional credit card system. Upon request, we can invoice you for payment via eCheck or ACH.

For those of you on the vendor side, check this out as an option for online payments; although the set-up process is extensive, customer service on the sign-up side is super helpful, and the interface for the program is nicely streamlined. You can learn more here.

For the second year in a row, the Behance team was pleased to play a special sponsorship role and provide a limited edition 10th Anniversary "Action Book" for attendees at the National Design Awards. 

Pictured here, from left to right, are Behance team members Scott Belsky, Matias Corea, Alex Krug, Zach McCullough, and Oscar Ramos Orozco.

Many thanks to the team at 40Tech for the very (extremely) thorough review of Action Method Online. Readers are welcome to check out the review at 40 Tech's website. 

"All in all, Action Method Online is a feature-rich, fully functional and visually pleasing project management (or even life management) program that is constantly growing. The methodology is sound and the app is slick. You can use it on pretty much any computer and from anywhere there is online access, and if you are a power user, it is actually pretty darn cheap."  -40 Tech

See more in the AMO News section.

Apple has approved and posted version 2.0 of the iPhone application for Action Method Online. The new version is, in fact, an entirely redesigned application, resulting from over seven months of design and development.

As Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, explained, "Our goal was simple: To make Action Method the absolute BEST collaborative task management application available for the iPhone. We wanted it to seamlessly sync (and back-up) with the online version of the application, enable the user to organize their Action Steps by Project, Due Date, Color, Who Delegated It, Priority, or any other keyword."

Unlike other task management applications for the iPhone, Action Method Mobile both (1) seamlessly syncs over the cellular network as well as a wireless internet connection, and (2) is collaborative, enabling users to delegate (and accept/reject) Action Steps (tasks) from each other.

 

Version 2.0 of the application includes:

(1) An entirely redesigned system for creating, organizing, and managing Action Steps.

(2) The addition of search and other filters for task management.

(3) Improved synchronization to back-up your tasks online (free!)

(4) The addition of the new "Focus Area," a sub-list of important Action Steps.

(5) Get real-time notifications when tasks are completed or delayed by your colleagues.

(6) Improved ability to accept or reject Action Steps from other users.

(6) Quickly "snooze" and edit Action Steps on the fly!

(7) Review analytics about your productivity with a new "Advisor" feature

Action Method continues to be the only "action management" tool we are aware of that acts as an ecosystem - with an analog paper product, a collaborative online productivity and project management application, and an advanced mobile solution that works off/online.

Enclosed are some screen shots, and we invite you to download and use Action Method Online for the iPhone, for free: Action Method Online 2.0 at Apple App Store

CreativeXpert, a podcast focused on design, recently interviewed Scott on all things Behance, including the joys of appreciations, the "creative's compromise," and attraction as the secret to productivity.

Check out the interview here. 

Productivity can decline during summer when the sun is shining. In an effort to increase productivity and encourage ACTION, we are giving away over $1,000 in Action Method products.

Grand Prize (1)
$300 worth of Action Method Products
One (1) Premium subscription to Action Method Online ($100 value)
One (1) Extremely Limited-Edition Behance T-shirt

Runner-up Prize (1)
$100 worth of Action Method Products
One (1) Premium subscription to Action Method Online ($100 value)
One (1) Extremely Limited-Edition Behance T-shirt

Creative Tweet Prize (5)
Choice of one (1) Action Method Product
One (1) Extremely Limited-Edition Behance T-shirt

All you need to do is include the #getaction tag in any tweet on Twitter. You can be creative with your tweet or re-tweet our sample message below. In order to be eligible, you must also follow @behance or @actionmethod so we can contact you via Twitter Direct Message if you’ve won.

You can tweet #getaction as often as you like. Each of these tweets will be eligible and a winner chosen at random. A daily prize will be given for the most creative tweet involving #getaction.

The Runner-up Prize winner will be announced on Thursday July 16th and the Grand Prize winner will be announced on Friday July 17th. Winners will be contacted via Direct Message on Twitter. Don’t forget to follow @behance or @actionmethod to be eligible.

Sample Tweet
Having a slow summer? #getaction :: @Behance is giving away $1,000 in Action Method Products!!! Click for details http://bit.ly/k7QTi

Tweet It

Rules
1. This contest is offered by Behance LLC and is open to anyone with a Twitter account who is at least 16 years of age. Employees and agents of Behance LLC and/or its affiliated companies and family members of such employees are not eligible to enter.

2. The contest give away will begin at 9am EST on Monday July 13th and finish at 5pm EST on Friday July 17th.

3. Creative Tweet winners will be chosen at 5pm EST on each of the contest's 5 days. Runner-up winner will be announced at 5pm EST on Thursday July 16th. Grand Prize winner will be announced at 5pm EST on Friday July 17th.

4. The prizes are all products of Behance LLC. We will dispatch the prize within 31 days of the contest closing date.

5. To enter the contest you must send out a tweet from your own Twitter account and include #getaction in your message. The rest of the message is up to you, and you are welcome to re-tweet our contest launch tweet and the prize URL.

6. To be eligible you must follow @behance or @actionmethod so that we may contact you via Twitter Direct Message if you win. No purchase required.

7. You can tweet as many times as you like (though entries using automated tweets will be disqualified). All tweets within the contest's run-time are eligible for prizes.

8. We will choose Second Place and Grand Prize winners randomly from all the entries within the contest’s run-time. Most creative tweets will be selected at the discretion of Behance LLC staff.

9. Entrants' personal details will be used by Behance LLC strictly in accordance with Behance’s privacy policy.

10. Neither Behance LLC nor its affiliated companies shall have any liability for (i) technical or human error which may occur in the administration of the competition; (ii) any malfunction of or damage to the prizes; or (iii) any restrictions or delays imposed by any customs authorities or any import or other taxes of any kind imposed by any taxation authority in respect of the prizes.

NOTE: a shout-out to the team at moonfruit for the great inspiration on this Twitter contest.

As we launched the first version of Action Method for the iPhone, we were pleased to track initial responses via Twitter.

The only lingering frustration is the group of people posting reviews in the App Store that claim "there is no way to delete an Action Step." So we would like to explain: All you need to do is open the Action Step and then touch the "Trash" icon. And, of course, if you are just completing the Action Step, touch the checkbox. Sorry for the confusion between "Trash" and "Delete" - it will be addressed in future versions.

Serial innovators Bre Pettis and Kio Stark came together to produce what the call "The Cult of Done Manifesto." As Bre explains, it was written "in 20 minutes because we only had 20 minutes to get it done." Talk about making ideas happen...

The manifesto, reprinted below, inspired technical illustrator James Provost to represent the manifesto as a poster (below). No word on how long that took...

We find this inspiring and very inline with Behance's mission to boost productivity and execution in the creative world. Much respect to Bre, Kio, and James!

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

Poster by James Provost

Behance's Action Method received some center stage attention at this year's TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference in Long Beach, California. All TED participants received a subscription to Action Method Online. And, those who attended the TED Prize lunches received a limited edition TED Prize Action Book. 

Every year, TED gathers luminaries such as Bill Gates, the Google founders, and other leaders of organizations, companies, and non-profits that are innovating across industries. Collectively, the audience has the opportunity to add value to three "wishes" that will improve the world - announced at the conference every year. 

With grand ideas comes the responsibility to take action. Behance is proud, for the second year in a row, to leverage our tools and products to help add a "bias-towards-action" at TED.