"You feel a little jittery," says Paul Williams in a post at the Daily Fix blog. "Is it the presentation? Or the pot of coffee you drank this morning while rehearsing? You gather your laptop and index cards and head to the conference room."
In his hypothetical scenario, your team has gathered to hear your ideas for the summer of 2010. And everything seems to be going smoothly until you pause for questions. First, someone says, "You know, we tried an idea similar to this in '98 and it didn't work." Then someone else chimes in with: "Do you think this is a good idea in this economy?" Even allies add their skeptical voices to the conversation.
According to Williams, you've just become the victim of idea killers, or "[k]illjoys armed with their favorite invisible weapon—killer phrases." To combat them, he argues, you must be prepared for their attack. And that means understanding the "Five Stages of Idea Acceptance" outlined by Chic Thompson in What a Great Idea! 2.0:
- It is irrelevant to this situation.
- It's relevant, but it's unproven.
- It's proven, but it's dangerous.
- It's safe, but it's not saleable.
- It'll sell, what a great idea!
Prepare for killer phrases by understanding each barrier you must overcome. "You can have four of the five locks open," says Williams in a nifty bit of Marketing Inspiration, "but the door won't open until all five are unlatched."
More Inspiration:
Matthew Grant: Online Marketing and the Numbers Game
Ted Mininni: Shifting All Of Your Advertising Online? Not so Fast...
Len Kendall: The Perfect Pitch Isn't a Template, It's a Timeline
by Christina "CK" Kerley
Comments
by A-Rock Mon Aug 24, 2009
Definitely an important problem to be aware of, but the post forgets the most vital part: how to solve the problem! "Prepare for killer phrases by understanding each barrier" isn't much of a solution. The article in the link at the top goes into some details about how to apply your knowledge of the Five Stages, but this was left out of this email/post.
by hazel wagner Mon Aug 24, 2009
There is another way to circumvent the killjoys or get them to come over to the creative side. The brainstorming method requires a buy-in and understanding to the process. It the group understands that lots of ideas, including ones possibly looked at before, when considered all together, can produce something great, they can learn to go with the flow and silence their negative thoughts.