Seth Godin: Big ideas
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Seth Godin: Big ideas
1–5 of 5 posts
Re: Seth Godin: Big ideas
#2I see his point.
Re: Seth Godin: Big ideas
#3I see his point.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. GOOD ideas on the other hand are rare ... and much more important than "execution." DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT - THINK THIS THROUGH YOURSELF:
Assume you have an awesome ability to "exectute" and you have a well-developed rep for doing so - what kind a project would you most likely align yourself with and risk your rep for - a crappy idea, a mediocre idea, or a fantastic idea that nobody's thought of before and will change the world for the better?
See - the good idea is a prerequisite to attracting people who can execute because if you're that good, why waste time executing anything but the best ideas.
And people who have high quality ideas keep them to themselves until they can figure out a way to 1) profit from them (or at least get recognition) and 2) keep competitors from squashing them before they even take off.
I'm sorry but articles to the contrary, I've never come across a blogger who proclaims that GOOD ideas are a dime a dozen and that they give them away all the time for free .... who actually had a very good idea. Sure ... THEY thought their ideas were good, but I doubt anyone but their most loyal blog readers would agree.
In case you still disagree, try walking up to Google's headquarters and saying you'd like to drop off some flowers for your girlfriend ... I guarantee you won't get far without signing at least one NDA and having to present your ID.
But if ideas are so cheap and easy, why do companies invest so much in making sure they control them? Because they're not cheap and easy and people who never came up with any truly good ideas proclaiming, "good ideas are cheap and easy" is as insulting as saying that if you put a hundred monkeys in a room full of computers for a long enough time, eventually they'll come up with something better than Ruby on Rails to make web stuff with.
Ideas, yes. GOOD ideas that attract the best people to execute and have the ability to be transformed into $$$ ... don't kid yourself.
Re: Seth Godin: Big ideas
#4I see his point.
What point? How many of his "good ideas" became multi-billion dollar companies? People who say "ideas are a dime a dozen" rarely know what a good idea is, let alone come up with them. Ideas, maybe. Good ones, no way are they a dime a dozen.
Re: Seth Godin: Big ideas
#5"I responded that ideas are easy, doing stuff is hard."
Ideas per se are easy; good ideas, not so easy.
"History is littered with inventors who had 'great' ideas but kept them quiet and then poorly executed them. And history is lit up with do-ers who took ideas that were floating around in the ether and actually made something happen."
This suggests that, if you share your ideas with people, but are a bit slow in executing, someone else may beat you to it. It's perhaps a waste to have a good idea and not bother to execute it, but once you decide to act on it, giving others the chance to act faster doesn't seem like good plan.