TED: More ideas for your noggin

So today during Social Media class we watched an awesome video from TED, which reminded me that I had yet to explore the videos on the website. If you’re even remotely excited at the prospect of hearing extremely smart people talking about great ideas in every field imaginable, then I strongly encourage you to check out TED.

Well, finally I did tonight, and after watching one video, I just kept clicking and clicking and clicking on more. And the more I listened, the more it made me think (such that now my head is buzzing, and I’m pretty sure it will keep me awake for a while).

End of ramble (sorry).

Anyway, I watched Malcolm Gladwell’s speech, on what we can learn from spaghetti sauce and realised that what he was talking about was basically the idea behind the Long Tail, which we were discussing about in class today.

The 1st thing about the video that I liked: the democratising of taste.

He talked about how marketers were asking the wrong questions by trying to create the perfect mustard, or the perfect Pepsi, because we all have different preferences that cannot be met with just one type of mustard/Pepsi. From what I gather, trying to find the perfect version of a product is

1) undesirable because what you deem is “perfect” won’t make everyone happy anyway, so why waste your time and

2) impossible because what you then deem is “perfect”, isn’t really.

This coincides with the concept of the Long Tail. Businesses and marketers need to move away from trying to find the holy grail, that big hit that will rake in the big money, because of the above 2 reasons. Why spend all your resources trying to find that one product that you think will satisfy the masses, when you could serve all your customers (and citizens) better by giving them exactly what they want? In other words, satisfy the “misses”, rather than the hits, because

1) it’s the “misses” that are craving for their needs to be met and

2) due to the nature of the long tail, the “miss” market is infinitely large.

Long story short, businesses need to recognise the diversity of human beings by giving them exactly what they want, not what the businesses think that they want.

The 2nd thing about the video that I liked: that Howard Moscowitz (not too sure about the spelling) didn’t give up on his breakthrough idea after being shown the door the first time.

This was sparked from the comments from my previous post, where I asked what happens when you have a great idea but the people you’re pitching to, for a variety of reasons, reject it. Businesses that are scared of creative ideas and don’t take risks, in my opinion, don’t get very far. And I’m pretty sure many businesses are still afraid of taking a chance.

This puts individuals with creative ideas in a difficult position, and such was the situation faced by Howard as described by Malcolm Gladwell. So I really liked that Howard didn’t give up and managed to convey his idea to business that got it (Prego).

I did disagree with one point in the video, that people don’t know what they want. I think that people do know what they want, but it’s just that sometimes what you want hasn’t been created yet, so it’s simply a case of not knowing what to call exactly what you want.

On a general level, we all want one thing - happiness. We want happiness in our personal lives, happiness in our career, happiness when we drink that cuppa, happiness when we walk our dog in the park, happiness when we turn off the light and turn to our favourite side to sleep on. Businesses need to realise that they ultimately should think about how to help their customers on the way to happiness, and customers need to realise that they deserve to find that desired happiness.

And the best way to make them happy is to give them what they want.

See this post on how customers want business experiences that make them happier and this post on how businesses need to help their customers feel less stressed.

With that I bid you a goodnight.

[Photo taken from http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2007-04/pat-cooper-

spaghetti-sauce-and-other-delights.jpg. I just thought it was pretty darn hilarious.]

Good men, bring your ideas to life.

Came upon the concept of Ideaicide while reading John Moore’s blog, Brand Autopsy. Ideaicide, a term coined by Alan Parr and Karen Ansbaugh, means the killing of ideas by person(s) in a corporate setting. In other words, ideas are shot down on the basis that they are too radical, too new or too different from the company culture.

In their manifesto Ideaicide: How To Avoid It And Get What You Want, they illustrate ways to pitch our ideas such that ideaicide does not happen (literally bringing our ideas to life, haha).

While the manifesto is an interesting read overall, I felt that the section on relatibility was very useful:

Ideas are usually rejected out of turn for being too “something”—too fast, too unproven, too far beyond the corporate image. “Too something” is a reactionary description used to take the edge off ideas that are strong, bold, and a little scary at first sight. Your challenge is to help people discover a means, harmonious with the culture, to accept your concept.

People need something familiar to relate to in order to gain a sense of comfort with the new, the strange. Creative ideas take the facts, feelings and everyday fictions we all share and find new ways to connect them. By making the new and strange seem familiar, you not only establish an opening for your audience to interpret your idea, you create a backdrop against which the edge of your idea will shine.

Make your ideas relatable. I liked what it says because it happens to me a lot. An idea that to me is creative gets reactions that range from ‘don’t-get-it’ stares, skeptical eyebrow raises, and even “Haha! Oh, you weren’t kidding?”.

It sounds simple, but I think many people forget to make their ideas relatable, thinking that they can sell the idea simply because it is new and/or creative.

I think the worst thing to happen is not having your ideas rejected, but not allowing your ideas to be heard in the first place due to fear of rejection. Talk about them, invite others to suggest improvements, or even just write them down, but never kill your ideas. Which reminds me of this saying:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

- Edmund Burke

Alan and Karen put the power back into our hands when they say “Ideaicide is your problem.”

The manifesto Ideaicide: How To Avoid It And Get What You Want is available here.