Coupla Jerks, Part IIb: Great quote

Currently, I'm reading Planet Google, a pretty interesting read so far.

In light of my previous post on the foundation for ideas, I thought I'd share this excellent quote from the book with you. It's from Kevin Scott, a software engineering manager who used to work there.

Ideas at Google do not burst forth from the heads of geniuses and then find their way unimpeded to huge audiences of receptive users. Rather ideas emerge, are torn to shreds, reformulated, torn to shreds, prototyped, torn to shreds, launched to internal users, torn to shreds, rebuilt and relaunched, torn to shreds, refined some more...and launched, whereupon they are torn to shreds by bloggers, journalists, and competitors.

My take - away? Don't be afraid of letting your ideas get torn to shreds.

Coupla Jerks, Part II: Laying the foundation

The first step in building ideas is to get lots of them to choose from. It gets your creative juices flowing and lets you build something bigger.

But to get a lot of ideas, you have to overcome that nagging voice in your mind. You know the one that tells you things like:

• Someone else is probably already doing this.
• No one will think this idea has merit.
• The timing's just not right.

And on and on.

I thought like this at the beginning stages of Coupla Jerks. I kept thinking that everyone already knew how to leverage social media tools. How could I come up with something that would add value? I kept getting more and better ideas of how to share my knowledge with people, then killing them off.

Then, when I finally decided to move forward with a course about making better cold calls by using LinkedIn, I tried to think of the best way to present it. I brainstormed about 50 ideas, from the totally crazy (build a LinkedIn profile for the roma tomato in my brand, roma creative) to the mundane (just use my own profile as an example).

The entire time I went through this process, I had to focus on not talking myself out of my own ideas. And I'm the biggest advocate I know for not killing ideas! It's a hard thing to do for all of us.

So lesson from the first step: Are you creating a strong idea foundation for yourself? Ignoring the nay sayers (even the ones in your own mind) and letting ideas flow?

Coupla Jerks: genesis of a crazy idea, part I

Well, along with a hilarious nameless collaborator, I've launched Coupla Jerks.

Coupla Jerks is offensive training materials for freelance writers. In other words, training brought to you by a couple of jerks.

What in the world? Offensive training material? Isn't that a little... too different?

This is the reaction I've been getting from many. Since this blog is all about getting more ideas, I want to share with you how I got this one.

About 6 months ago, I started to notice two recurring themes (although at first, not at the same time):

1. People I knew were asking me about new web tools.

Colleagues wondered how they could use LinkedIn more effectively. Friends were asking what this Twitter thing was all about. My mom wanted to set up a FaceBook profile.

As I looked for resources to send people to, I found that there weren't a lot of resources for targeted audiences besides people looking for a job. In other words, a lot of advice existed for the unemployed to use new web tools, but for freelancers like me? Almost nothing.

2. Most training materials are boring

So much of the training material that exists is just plain lame. Even the well written stuff can be a little dry. While I can race through a good novel in a few hours, it can take me days and days to force myself to finish a business book.

I wondered why more written material didn't entertain as it taught. I thought of the book Blue Ocean Strategy, which teaches that you can create a new market by combining two things that haven't co-existed before. Maybe by combining training material with somewhat offensive comedy I could create something new and different.

Over the course of creating Coupla Jerks, I've gone through every phase of my Building Ideas Structure. In the next few posts, I'll walk you through how I did it and how the structure applies. Kind of a learning by doing example. I hope it inspires you to get an idea and follow it through to execution.

Maybe Coupla Jerks is a far fetched idea that will never take off. But then again, 25 years ago, who ever thought people would be paying $100 to go to the circus (Cirque Du Soleil anyone?)

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.

Unexpected Gratitude

Never forget how much saying a simple "thank you" can mean to someone. Especially when it's unexpected.

Take, for example, events at my house last night.

Let me start with some background. My 8 year old son, Logan, is one of the pickiest eaters of all times ever. He lives on a steady diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples/apple sauce, and ramen noodles. Occasionally, he'll have some scrambled eggs, but only if you make them all in one piece and call it an "omelet" even though it's not folded over and has no filling.

He doesn't like cheese (seriously - who doesn't eat cheese?) or french fries (or potatoes in any form). And last summer when he began eating a hot dog and a bun, at the same time, we considered it a major step forward in meeting his nutritional needs.

Because of his many food aversions, I often find myself playing the role of short order cook at dinner time. I cook something for the rest of us to eat, and then I fix Logan his food. And yes, I've tried giving him no other options but what we're having. I found out it hurts me to watch him starve much more than it bothers him to not eat dinner for days at a time.

Which brings us to last night. Stressed and tired, I decided that everyone could eat what I made for dinner or else.

Of course, Logan barely choked down one bite.

But then when we excused him from the table, he looked at me and said, "I'm sorry I didn't care for dinner. Thank you for making it. You did a good job."

So what's Logan having for dinner tonight? Ramen noodles or peanut butter and jelly.

His choice.

Who will you thank today? I'm sure it will be worth your while.

Failure is the secret to success

Look how Honda has been reading my blog:

Customer service saves the day

I had an amazing customer service experience a week or two ago.

I was trying to get something done on one of my websites that's hosted at GoDaddy.com. I couldn't figure it out, and I was getting frustrated. I wanted to make the most of the time I had, but couldn't get anything else done until I completed that task. I decided to call them.

They didn't have a 1-800 number, which made me angry because now I was going to have to waste cell phone minutes calling long distance. When I called, there was a 7 minute hold time.

Totally livid now, I hung up the phone and entered an online help request.

Of course, because I revert to the maturity level of an immature 8 year old when angry, I went on Twitter and complained really loud about GoDaddy.

Within 10 minutes, Alon from GoDaddy did 3 things:
1. He tried to call me to help, but the number that was in my record was outdated.
2. He sent me a message on Twitter, in an attempt to get a new number. (Rant over, I had already closed Twitter out and didn't get the message)
3. He sent me an e-mail with easy to follow instructions so I could complete my task.

Wow.

Not only did I feel a little sheepish (ok a lot), but now I had to tell everyone about how great GoDaddy's service had been. And I did.

What will you do to make people tell stories about your company's service?