Last week, I got up preposterously early for an “Entrepreneurship Breakfast” at the University of Ottawa. One of those things where business people meet with students to give them the benefit of their wisdom. Sadly, at 7am I have very little wisdom to spare.
The keynote was my friend and former professor Bruce Firestone, probably best known for bringing the Sens back to Ottawa, talking about the difference between people with ideas, and people who execute their ideas. I think this is probably the most important thing any small businessperson can understand and live. Ideas come by the dozens – execution takes committment, time and effort. Bruce is the perfect person to talk about this, too. I’m sure many people had the idea to bring back the Ottawa Senators, but he was the only one who DID it.
Ideas are great, but they can be dangerous – especially when they come in the form of the half-idea. The half-idea sounds like a regular idea, but it’s not yet become a fully formed idea. It’s a quantum idea – simultaneously an idea and a non idea. These are great starting points for ideas, but they can either show themselves to be a great idea, or something that seems cool, but is impossibly to execute.
It’s this potential for greatness that makes the half-idea so dangerously tempting. It’s just a little further before it emerges into brilliance, like that one last lottery ticket you buy before you can retire and buy an islant. It’s one that makes you want to invest a lot of time in it – to really make it happen. Half-ideas usually begin with the phrase, “wouldn’t it be cool if…” and almost always end in a terrible product.
Working in the advertising industry, I spend a lot of time looking at other interactive and social media campaigns out there, and as a result, I see a lot of half-ideas that have been forced through to execution, likely because by the time that the half-idea revealed itself as a non-idea, it was too late to back to the drawing board.
The easiest way to avoid getting bitten by half-ideas is to recognize them before they hatch. The best people to help you do this are the people who are going to execute the ideas. The double-edged sword is that the odd time you may end up throwing out a half-idea that could have been brilliant, so you can’t always leave the final say with the techies or designers, but take to heart the concerns of the team who will make your ideas into reality at the first step – not the last.
If that team happens to be you, learn how to look objectively at your own ideas. If you’re still married to it, take Ze Frank’s advice and execute your ideas as soon as you have them. If they work, perfect – stay the course and see it through to the end. If they’re impossible or stupid, then you’ll find out very early on, and you won’t have wasted time or money on creating a finished product that just sucks.
You can’t always make half-ideas into real ideas, but you can recognize them early, before they have a chance to bite you in the ass. If an idea doesn’t work in real life, it doesn’t count.
[Add-on: Dr. Firestone's presentation also included a four-minute animation about why we should move to the moon. I'm still wrapping my head around that.]
