Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them

It takes practice. 

Developing an idea and knowing what to do with it, when to do the right thing and having the courage and wherewithal to thrust it into the public eye... all earned capabilities [to most people].  Your ability to recognize the idea is great is of no value - however you must get it in front of a network of people who have credibility and allow them to benchmark it's efficacy. 

If it were easy, everyone would do it. 

Most good ideas, it turns out, aren't unique - or for that matter very good at all. This is the point.  It's hard and not everyone is good at coming up with them.  The law of diminishing returns is alive and well with the concept of ideas.  My big idea today is Myspace'd tomorrow. 

Test your ideas and measure your tests.  

It's only good if people stand behind the idea and it produces some measurable output for some predictable expected returns.  Groupon wasn't the first business model from the company, but the result of an experiment from guys who knew how to effectively test-market an idea.  Don't miss the point.

Audience is everything.   

Two words: Jersey Shore.  To a moderate, respectable human being this idea is despicable and would be reprehensible to indulge in experiencing.  To me, on the other hand, it's a fuckin' incredible idea.  Turns out, most Americans side with me.  "The Situation" is that Jersey Shore is a hit, especially because you hate it, you still watch it don't you? 

Ideas are worth nothing.  

You have a good business idea.  Great.  Take the idea past just thoughts, and you may be onto something.  You may also find out that your idea isn't that great after all, it sucks.  Even better if you do this early and often.  It takes 10 bad ideas to get to a decent good idea.  The value is in determining that value in a lean manner. 

Good People can Save Bad Ideas, Good Ideas Can't Save Bad People. 

I love this quote from Ben Horowitz, who I am recently infatuated with.  It's a valid statement with a barrage of historical evidence to back up the claim.  It's one of the reasons most VCs will tell you they invest in people, not technology.  Bad people are not saved by great ideas, but they may receive a respite from the inevitable.  These people generally don't have the ideas or execute or determine the trajectory for the ideas success - this will all be flushed out in time and they will see the exit. 

Meet the New Enterprise Customer

Ben Horowitz:  Meet the New Enterprise Customer, He’s a Lot Like the Old Enterprise Customer


"If you work in the technology industry and particularly in Silicon Valley, you become used to employees who work tirelessly to improve their companies. It is not difficult to imagine one of these employees independently finding a new technology then championing it inside of her company simply because she wants her company to become great. Outside of technology and especially in very large companies, people generally don’t do things like that. Most large company employees like to stay within the scope of their defined job. If they must make a choice between potentially advancing the efficiency of their employer via new technology or getting home to see their 8 year old’s pee wee baseball game, it’s not a difficult decision. As a result, expecting them to adopt your product with no help is probably not a good idea."

The wisdom here is perfectly sound and logical.  I believe technology solves problems, but that's obvious I work IN IT.  To others, it can create problems, one of risk on the shoulders of the employee/manager/champion that pushed for it's purchase.  Now their ass is on the line and they have a problem of meeting expectations and making sure this project works.  Taking no risk and 'staying the course' sounds way more appealing to this type of person working at mega-company X. 

The Innovator's Dillemma.

On my next book crafted from the artful and insightful minds of Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor.  Just picked it up tonight and can only put down for a moment to catalog a point made that encapsulates the book so far...


"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...


75, 28, 41, 26, 38, 64...


Which one of these would you say is random and to which one would be 'more predictable'?  The first string looks predictable: The next two numbers should be 7 and 8.  But what If we told you that the [first sequence] was actually the winning numbers from a lottery, set from a drum of tumbling balls, whereas the second sequence contains contains state and country roads one would follow on a scenic tour on the northern rim of Michigan's Upper Peninsula on the way from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario to Saxon, Wisconsin?  Given the [second sequence] route implied by the first six numbers you can infer the next two numbers are 2 and 122-from a map.  


Lesson: You cannot say, just by looking at the result of the process, that created those results is capable of generating predictable output.  You must understand the process itself."

Product and Market Accountability

Very well said excerpt in the middle of this blog entry from Erick Krock

"Creating Accountability Between the Product Development Team and Sales

In dysfunctional companies, lack of product functionality is used as a convenient excuse for failing to close deals. The DysfunctionalCo product manager will say “We don’t know what the customer’s requirements are” instead of proactively engaging to find out. The DysfunctionalCo account manager will say “We can’t close business because the product doesn’t do X,” when in fact the real problem is that the product doesn’t do X, Y, and Z and the customer has no budget anyway, but the account manager doesn’t know that because they’re just looking for an excuse to cover their backside for the current quarter’s revenue shortfall and they haven’t gotten deep enough into the account to know where the deal really stands.

Defining customer-specific product release success criteria creates a healthy relationship of mutual accountability between the product development team and the sales force. At functional companies, the agreement becomes “If the product development team delivers this functionality on time to specification, the sales force commits that it will be able to obtain a renewal or close a specific new deal within a specified timeframe.” That creates healthy pressure on the product development team to make sure they correctly understand the customer’s requirements so they can obtain acceptance and healthy pressure on the sales force to ensure that they fully understand and have articulated ALL the things the company must do to gain the new customer so they will indeed close the business as promised once the new functionality is delivered. The company transitions from excuses to commitments."

If we can make 1. strong commitments and 2. fewer excuses, we can expect others to work harder and align our efforts.  Harmony.

Go. Blame less and Make something happen. 

problems versus constraints

Full disclosure: This is a straight pull from Seth Godin, but I feel it really is an awesome point worthy of further discussion. 

Problems are things to which you can develop a solution and solve.  Constraints are things to which you must live with and work around.  The art of telling the difference is the chore.  It's quite easy to consider everything a problem, but that would be a mistake.  Even if you could solve a myriad of complex and expensive challenges, your ability to focus and ship a product is threatened if you bite off more than you can chew.  Furthermore, our ability to solve particular problems has a direct correlation with our credibility and capability to solve them in the first place. 

Save the fact that the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerburg is amongst us, you will likely not change the fabric of the way we interact in life, but maybe you can chip away at it.  Scale. 

Go Make Something Happen. 

So what you're trying to say is...

Well put Al.  I like this for so many reasons, but mostly cause it's tasteful and more important today than ever. 

Implied connotation is that our ability to communicate value is equally important to the ability to create it.   

Context is King.

Audience Matters!

Jargon sucks.