In a previous blog post, I wrote about the back story behind the best-selling solo album in jazz history and the all-time best-selling piano album – The Köln Concert. As we all face a form of scarcity in one way or another, we need to be creative in finding ways to leverage our lack and achieve our goals.
Last July, I launched my online course Windows Server Failover Clustering for the Smart SQL Server DBA. Before it was officially launched, I had several early access subscribers critique and evaluate the course so I can modify and improve it as necessary. My good friend Mohammad Darab (blog | Twitter) wrote a blog post about his experience with the course (and, no, I did not pay him to write the blog post).
I wanted to use one of his comments to illustrate how we can use scarcity to inspire creativity. Let me take you behind the scenes of how my “professional” audio and video recording studios look like. These are the very resources I used to create my online courses. I just hope my wife approves of me showing her collection of handbags 🙂
My apologies for the shaky parts of the video footage. I used my Samsung Galaxy S5 phone to record those shots without a tripod.
Instead of looking at the scarcity of resources as a challenge, we can look at it as an opportunity to be creative. Share on X
Question: Can you share how you creatively dealt with the lack of resources in your organization?
Yes, I totally agree with Mohammad. As I am also taking this course, my view is the same as him about this course.
Thank you, sir, for the kind words. What else can you say about the online course?
Edwin, thank you for the mention! I was surprised that you created such great audio with the equipment you have! Usually people think you need to spend major $$$ but as you showed, that is not the case! You’re like MacGyver 🙂
Thanks, Mohammad. You gave me a great idea on how to communicate the value of being creative and producing excellent results despite scarcity.
My good friend and former keyboard player (this was the time when I was still a bass player) took me to a youth center near the university he was attending. He sat down at the old, dusted grand piano and started playing. Almost everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and listened to him play. After playing, he showed me how the grand piano had several loose strings that sounded pretty bad when played individually. I didn’t forget what he told me that day: “real professionals make the most of what they have, not what they don’t have.”