The obvious isn't so clear

When trying to convey our ideas to others, it's important to remember that the things that are obvious to us, may not be obvious to our audience.

This happened to my grandparents when they assumed my mother knew her name. You see, my mom's name is Judith Ann, but everyone calls her Judy. As a little girl, her parents never called her Judith, unless she was in trouble and they coupled it with her middle name.

As in, "JUDITH ANN!! STOP WASHING THOSE KITTENS!!" (Some of you parents may be familiar with this tactic.)

So naturally, when her 2nd grade teacher asked what her middle name was, my mom told her it was Thann. As in Judy Thann.

Or take for example my 8 year old son Logan who, just this week, began taking a shower by himself in the morning before school (instead of an evening bath administered by one of us). This morning after Logan got out of the shower, my husband asked if he had washed his hair and his body.

I sat there thinking what a ridiculous question this was. Why else do people take showers but to wash themselves?

But, sure enough, Logan turned to him with kind of a quizzical look and said, "well...no, I just rinsed off."

And this was entirely our fault. We had communicated to him to take a shower, and he was doing exactly that. We assumed that he knew to shampoo his hair and soap his body while he was in there. Apparently people don't naturally know this.

The obvious isn't always the obvious to everyone.

If you find yourself having difficulty making someone else understand your ideas, take a step back. Do they know as much as you think? Or should you start at a more basic level? Go ahead and state the obvious.

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?

Ideas on index cards

Jessica at Indexed has so many amazing ideas. Can't imagine them getting much riper. Of course, that's the thing about getting ideas - You can continuously improve. I can't wait to see what someone with this much idea potential does next.

A recent favorite post on innovation.

Jessica takes index cards and draws clever diagrams with clever headers. Wonder what her idea inspiration was.

Look around your home or office. How can you transform an everyday item like an index card into a great idea?

Don't kill your ideas for small people

How many times have you been in a situation where you had a good idea, decided not to speak out, and then someone else came up with something similar and everyone liked it? That’s what happens when you kill your own ideas. You miss out on opportunities to show your colleagues, friends, bosses, whoever what value you can add.

On the flip side, have you ever spoken an idea aloud that no one liked? Or worse yet, that was harshly criticized or laughed at? Ouch. That doesn’t feel good, does it? It doesn’t really make you want to go out there and share more ideas either. This is why it is so difficult to stop killing your own ideas. Killing ideas keeps you from feeling embarrassed.

When I feel belittled by someone making fun of my ideas, I like to remember this quote from Mark Twain:

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the truly great make you feel that you, too, can become great.