The Seahwaks second year quarterback is Russell Wilson. Russell has a great story that builds up to my point, so bear with me. Russell walked on at Wisconsin and ended up leading the team to the Rose Bowl, not to out the ordinary except that Russell wasn’t even the starter when he got to Wisconsin. Russell was then drafted in the 5^th round by the Seahawks, shocking a lot of people because he wasn’t built like your typical quarter back (5’ 10” instead of a typical 6’ 4”). His rookie year he won the starter job from Matt Flynn, which surprised just about everyone but his mom, and even then, his mom was only surprised at how quickly it happened. This year, the Hawks are 11-2 and have clinched a playoff spot. Despite all this success, the Ranger’s just announced that they drafted Russell in the 5^th round of their rule 5 draft. Just to be clear, the Rangers are a Major League Baseball Club.

So, the question is “why”. Why would a baseball club spend a draft choice on a very successful football player. The answer provided by the Sports Illustrated section “Audibles” provides a very clear explanation:

“Because Wilson was taken in the AAA-level section of the draft, the Rangers can stash him on their roster, in case he ever stuns the football world by bailing for the diamond.”

It is all about stashing talent, kind of like a rainy day fund for sports.

Like the Rangers, are you stashing any thing away for a rainy day (Ideas, not Athletes!). Is it that crazy idea you have around workflows, perhaps it is documentation or that great thread you found about visual force? Perhaps it is a tweet? I don’t know what is in yours, but I know that I have a very full clever ideas / awesome insights / cool tips rainy day fund that I am looking forward to sharing. 

When working with Cloud Apps, in my case it is Salesforce.com, tinkering almost seems to be encouraged. There is a very open community of folks who share ideas and are consistently driven to find new and better ways of doing things through new tools and features.

My Intellectual Property rainy day fun spans quite an area, from business to marketing and back to Salesforce, but I feel that having a well-diversified portfolio helps when it comes to real life an intellectual capital.

–      Andrew