MYBRAND: A match for Learner?

William Pollard on innovation (from http://www.acleareye.com/sandbox_wisdom/:)
"Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow."

I don't know who William Pollard is, but the idea of linking learning and innovation is one that I had simmering in the back of my mind, although I hadn't quite thought of the right word. Two of my top strengths, according to Gallup, are "Input" and "Learner." I thought with the "input" strength, I could emphasize that I'm always coming up with new stories. In a lunch meeting, I even said that you'll never see the tired old hackneyed stories coming from me. I could go a step further and say I'm an innovator. That leads to two questions: Is it true? And is it wise to say so?

Even though I have been writing TV scripts for years, I don't have enough experience to say I'm an innovator. There's that old saying that you need to learn the rules before you break them. If I run around without any primetime credits under my belt and say I'm an innovator, many could respond: That's easy for you to say. Or worse: You just don't understand the rules.

When contemplating the stories I have written so far, my job was to write a script that closely approximated an existing show. My job was the exact opposite of innovating, at least so it seemed to me. In my writing, I would much rather match the show than write something tangential, innovative, and ultimately miss the mark.

As for my original pilot, I wouldn't say the format or structure is innovative necessarily, I would say the subject matter is. Of course, innovative could also be a nice way of saying that it's different and wouldn't fit the mainstream. Is anything mainstream truly innovative? I would say no. That said, I would much rather work in the mainstream than be innovative on the periphery, because the mainstream reaches more people and produces a higher quality visual product.

So that still leaves me with the question -- Am I an innovator? If so, is it something to champion, or something to hide?