Conversation - a simple and big idea

Back in March, I wrote about my horrific customer service experience at the oral surgeon. To be fair, I thought I would share a contrasting experience at the dermatologist. Not to give you more personal information than you want, but a month ago I had 5 moles removed from my back (yuck). Two of them turned out to have "bad edges" which apparently means that, if left unchecked, they might later develop into skin cancer. Not good. So I had to go back in and get more of my skin removed to get rid of those nasty cells. If you read my previous post about my wisdom teeth, you understand my squeamishness about medical procedures (truthfully I'm a total weenie).

I went in yesterday to the dermatologist, where she explained that she would be making two incisions to remove the cells and would subsequently stitch them up. Unfortunately, they don't put you to sleep for such a procedure and you have to lie there awake with visions of great chunks of flesh being removed from your back. Ugh.

They get started, and as they do, they begin talking to me. Not about anything much. My kids, my siblings, their kids, their siblings, our shared fear of dentists... Before long, it was all over.
Not really so bad after all.

When I compare the two procedures (wisdom teeth versus back flesh removal), the dermatologist was actually much worse. After all, you're awake for heaven's sake. But my experiences were completely different. The dermatologist talked with me and put me at ease. This was such a simple thing for her. All she had to do was talk. And it made a night and day difference in my customer experience.

How can you take a simple idea, like a conversation, and turn it into something big?

The point of getting ideas

There is no end to the journey of getting ideas. There is no magical place you will reach where you will no longer have to have ideas. The point of getting ideas is to have more and more and more forever.

By the same token, if you come to a lull in your ideas, keep going. Keep brainstorming. Keep reading. Keep playing with toys. Keep doing all the things that inspire you because you'll get through it.

You have never reached a point in time where you will get no more ideas.

Think big

One of the things you can do when you’re looking for idea inspiration is to think bigger. When you’re reading something, don’t just think of the information in the context of that particular story. Think about the fundamentals of the information and how you can apply them to what you are doing.

For example, Dharmesh Shah over at Hubspot just put up a nice piece on product launches. He gives seven lessons on launching new software. You may take a glance at it and think, “I’m not launching any new software, now or ever. This doesn’t apply to me at all.” But look again. The underlying principles can apply to any idea.

Take the first lesson – It’s not too early to release. Dharmesh talks about how if you wait until everything is perfect, you’ll never go to market with your product. You’ll be making endless tweaks.

This applies to your ideas. If you wait to talk about an idea until it’s perfect, or until there is no risk that anyone will dislike it – you’ll never offer any ideas.

In fact, all of Dharmesh’s lessons fit perfectly with having new ideas. Here are the rest of Dharmesh’s lessons with my applications to ideas in parenthesis:

Lesson 2 – Be ready to iterate (Be ready to refine and tweak your ideas)
Lesson 3 – Provide a simple feedback mechanism (Let people respond to your ideas without getting defensive)
Lesson 4 – Respond to feedback (Be open to the ideas of others and use them to make your ideas better. Let go of idea ownership.)
Lesson 5 – Track as much data as you can (Take lots of notes - even if you don't use them now, they may come in handy for future ideas)
Lesson 6 – Don’t waste time coding reports (Keep your notes, but don’t obsess over them. Go back and review them later, but don’t catalog and alphabetize!)
Lesson 7 – Watch it spread, nudge it along (When you get a big idea, encourage others to talk about it and participate in it. Ask others for their opinions, and pay attention to who is embracing your idea or not)

You can repeat this exercise with any bit of information. Try pulling out the fundamentals and applying them to your world, even if at first it may seem a little out there. Innovation starts when we take information we have and combine it in unexpected ways.

Some good ideas have to die

I know you’re probably sick of hearing about Google. I am a little bit too. But I did enjoy this description of how they get ideas, provided by Social Media Influence. Apparently, Google gets so many good ideas from its employees that they have to kill a bunch of good ones. I think that’s an important point. Once you start having a lot of good ideas, you will not be able to take action on every single one. You will need to learn to let go or you’ll be spread too thin. When you’re working on too much at once, everything will get a crummy implementation – if it gets one at all. Believe me, I know this from experience.

It’s better to sacrifice a few good ideas than your reputation for getting things done.

Are you getting too many good ideas? Which ones should you let go of?