Hatched in the chicken shed: a new print publication from the Do-ers.

It’s a Tuesday morning at the end of February and the scene is set for our first meeting of the day. The wood burning stove is alight, candles are burning, the table is covered in books and magazines, and fresh coffee is on its way.

Today is the start of a new project, ‘The Do Reports’, a print publication from The Do Lectures’ founders David and Clare Hieatt.

David had called me a few weeks before. When David calls, you know it’s a conversation worth having. Some meetings and conversations are easy to make happen. A meeting on David’s farm in west Wales takes a little more effort: three trains, one tube and an hour car ride to get to Cardigan. But I knew it would be worth the fifteen hour return trip.

Around the table a team of talented do-ers had been assembled: Joby, Mark, Kacie, Steph and me. We had all come together to turn a loose idea into a fully-fledged project. The Do Reports will launch in June.

I love the beginning of a project. You start with nothing more than a simple idea and together you have to shape and mould it into form. It’s like how Jerry Seinfeld describes the creative process: it’s a can of Play-Doh, take an idea and make it into whatever you want.

Once we’d emptied the coffee pot we moved outside to the chicken shed for a change of scenery and energy. Here with our Sharpies, Artefact cards, a white board and more coffee, these tools helped us bring the idea out of the ether into something concrete, giving it structure, a shape, a goal. Slowly David’s idea becomes a moulded, tangible thing. A publication.

The Do Reports comes from a love of print. A love of publications like Monocle, FT Weekend, Courier and Offscreen. Having co-launched my own community crowd-sourced and crowd-funded newspaper Trawler last year, it was time to think bigger, to create a print publication whose impact would be more far reaching.

Our first issue is all about stress. There’ll be interviews, stories, data, tips, tools, experiments, knowledge and visuals to inspire and inform.

I’ve been there at the start of dozens and dozens of creative projects over the years. I’ve sat in board rooms, hotel foyers, coffee shops and kitchens as ideas are turned into actions. But I’d never started one in a chicken shed before. At The Do Reports, Kacie and I are sharing editorial duties, commissioning, curating and creating content. There is a lot to do in a short space of time. So you just have to dive in and get started. Like Ann Lamott says in her book on writing, you have to take it ‘bird by bird’.

What else can you do in a chicken shed but take it bird by bird?