Fear of bad ideas

I loved this post from Seth Godin's blog, which reflects a lot of the messages that we've been telling for years about the need to accelerate innovation by rapidly finding out what doesn't work.:

Fear of bad ideas

A few people are afraid of good ideas, ideas that make a difference or contribute in some way. Good ideas bring change, that's frightening.

But many people are petrified of bad ideas. Ideas that make us look stupid or waste time or money or create some sort of backlash.

The problem is that you can't have good ideas unless you're willing to generate a lot of bad ones.

Painters, musicians, entrepreneurs, writers, chiropractors, accountants--we all fail far more than we succeed. We fail at closing a sale or playing a note. We fail at an idea for a series of paintings or the theme for a trade show booth.

But we succeed far more often than people who have no ideas at all.

Someone asked me where I get all my good ideas, explaining that it takes him a month or two to come up with one and I seem to have more than that. I asked him how many bad ideas he has every month. He paused and said, "none."

And there, you see, is the problem.

Fear is the key here. Lose fear of failing, of being criticised for having a crap idea, fear of things 'not working', and you'll tap into a huge resource of opportunity. Graham Dodd, engineer and teacher at Arup, asks groups on innovation classes to think through "what couldn't possibly work here?". It's a great way of thinking up bad ideas.

Little do: 1) sometime over the break, write down a clearly stated, important question, 2) take 10 minutes to write down as many solutions to the question that you know couldn't possibly work, 3) see which solutions open new possibilities....

What's it like?

Seth Goldin is a respected commentator on a range of emerging topics, and has a knack of capturing the essence of an insight. Too often, when we've been developing new programmes that link re-design for nature, business and community, or connecting purpose, wellbeing and innovation, clients have often shied away because they don't know what it's like. Next time, I'll give them this to read:

What's it like? (The sad story of the hot pepper)

Can you imagine how difficult it was to sell the jalapeño when it came over from the new world?

"What's it like?" you'd be asked.

Well, it's like a pepper (of course, it wasn't. Black pepper is dried and tastes very different).

Well, it's hot (no, it's not. Hot is a temperature, spicy is a taste).

It's not like anything, actually. Capsicum is an experience unto itself, and forcing me to tell you what it's like does neither of us much of a service.

"What's it like," is actually shorthand for, "I don't trust you enough to just try it, so you better explain in detail what category this item fits into so I can decide in advance how to understand it."

"What's it like?" is a huge impediment to growth and to the spread of new ideas, because forcing a marketer to pigeonhole an idea naturally limits it.

"What's it like?" leads to sequels and high concepts and crossovers, but it doesn't get us 1966 Bob Dylan or even yoga class.

Great marketers take advantage of categories every day. Great marketers understand how to create books or services or products or technologies that are very much like something else, but better. You should do that whenever you can.

If you want a fast start and good sales, be ready to answer the question.

When you have something that's a breakthrough, though, perhaps you need to say instead, "It's not like anything. You need to trust me and just taste it."

Sahara Forest Project

Inspirational architect and leading biomimcry thinker Michael Pawlyn was featured recently in this article in Time Magazine about his work on the Sahara Forest Project, which, if developed to fruition, could provide tens of thousands of tons of fresh water to arid areas of the Sahara.

Michael was one of the participants at last week's Hay on Earth workshops, and we're working together at Schumacher College with the Biomimicry Guild's Dayna Baumeister, which will be both hugely enjoyable and rewarding.

Fast chocolate

A lovely story popped into my inbox this week that hints at low we value our imagination. Warwick's University's chocolate powered car is a great example of innovation and story telling. Carrot fibre is excellent for strength, as is starch. If we can innovate like this, surely we're capable of imagining our way to an 80% descent from carbon that gets us off oil. I'd rather eat chocolate than power racing cars, but that's a different story

Warwick chocolate car