- Client Fear. We think we know the client so well, we kill our own ideas (or allow them to be killed) based on what we imagine they will and won't like.
- Organization Fetish. We become more concerned with the presentation of the work than the work itself.
- Bullet Points. We come up with a list of reasons to explain why the idea works instead of just letting it work or die on its own merit.
- Production Lust. The client greenlights an idea, and we get so excited about getting something produced that we stop working on it.
- Politics. We think it's either our right or our turn to get something produced. Either we're so senior we just expect the work to happen. Or we're junior enough to believe that we deserve to get thrown a bone.
- The Internal Editor Goes to Lunch. We're trained early on to produce tons and tons and tons of ideas. And that's very good training (at least according to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule). But sometimes we think that since we came up with lots of ideas, at most of them deserve to be loved.
- Technique Love. We confuse a cool technique with a good idea.
Sally Hogshead says brilliant ideas are fragile. Any wonder why so many good ones are extinguished, pulverized, or simply passed over?