This subject has popped up a lot lately: From the business plan for an interesting non-profit idea that my friend Lori and I are cooking up (code name LEAD), to my peeps on twitter and beyond. My sense is that while the concept of constraints being the seed of creativity is well known in the art world, I get the feeling that we’ve experienced too much abundance in the business world to really remember what it means to translate that idea into the arena of commerce. With budgets being cut, and even having to manage a recent round of layoffs…I’m increasingly reminded of my college days. I remember never really feeling like I was doing without, and yet I am baffled now to grasp how I survived on so little. How I finagled my way into getting a car dealership to let me pay for half of my new car in cash, and the other half by building them a web site (oh, wasn’t 1996 fun?), or how I got a fabulous sushi chef to feed me great toro, in exchange for six packs of mediocre beer and always found a way to come up with cash for trips, adventures and whatever emergency shopping the next social event inspired. I remember having a lot of close calls, but in the end somehow things always worked out.

More and more of us are going to have to tap into those scrappy selves, and if you never experienced it, you’ll likely have to learn. You’ll have to learn what to do when your marketing budget is slashed (try going to Vegas and borrowing a buddy’s conference pass to meet a client and catch the Al Gore talk!), when 20% of your team gets cut or when that 401k contribution plan gets shut down. I wonder if the creativity to inspire and make things that are artful and moving…can also translate into creativity and scrappiness to make lemonade out of the little tiny lemons we’re all being asked to squeeze these days? My sense is the answer is yes, and it’ll be a beautiful thing to watch, as well all tap into that scrappy ‘make-due’ mentality that served us so well, and kept things so simple, back in the days before marriage, kids, work and career started making it a little harder for us to tap into the simplicity that’s just below the surface of all the complications we like to color (or blacken?) our lives with.

Be well.