Writing & Sharing Ideas: Fears & ‘The Duh’
by JuliaWe can’t help but find this post flattering. When we send our ideas out into the big, bad world, there’s nothing better than discovering that people are listening and appreciate what we contribute. When I first came to Adaptive Path, I was impressed by how much people write and are willing to put their ideas out there. It can be damn scary. What I was also surprised at is why this works here at Adaptive Path: Sharing is an innate and encouraged part of our culture, even if the idea is half-baked, or…well…wrong. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have the usual fears around writing and sharing ideas. As part of my role, I help people flesh out their ideas and turn them into things like essays and R&D projects. In coaching people through that process, I have discovered that there are two main reasons why people don’t share their ideas:
- The ‘duh, everyone already knows this’
- Ahh! writing about ideas and sharing ideas with the world is scary
Here’s my sage advice for when I encounter these fears:
What’s obvious to you, probably isn’t obvious to everyone else. And if for some reason it is, it will just make them feel smarter about what they know — and who doesn’t like to help people feel smart? If it is something new, well, than someone just learned something new.
The worst thing that will happen if you share your idea, is that someone (or a whole bunch of people) will criticize it. The good news about that concern: That’s when it truly gets exciting. Take Todd Wilkens piece about Crackberry for example. If you read the comments, you’ll notice it was terribly unpopular with a lot of people. But once it took flight, it started an important conversation where people in various roles shared perspectives from several industries. It also got camera crews from three networks broadcasting from our offices.
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April 16th, 2008 at 3:50 am
Hey Julia,
Something else I notices about “The Duh!”, is that when you write well, and structure your points clearly, then what you’re saying will seem really obvious. People should work out where you’re going with it, and on reflection it should seem obvious to them. Thats the goal of education
So “The Duh” can also arise from a well thought out explanation of something. Many of my friends have handed me back Steve Krugs book “Don’t make me think” with a “It’s just common sense” remark. Without exception though their work always improves after reading it.
Des
April 16th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Very insightful. I would consider “the duh” to be ths biggest obstacle keeping me from submitting papers to conferences.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
[...] adaptive path » blog » Julia Houck-Whitaker » Writing & Sharing Ideas: Fears & ‘The D… Helpful reminder to not be shy about sharing ideas: “The worst thing that will happen if you share your idea, is that someone (or a whole bunch of people) will criticize it. The good news about that concern: That’s when it truly gets exciting.” (tags: ideas sharing writing fear criticism) [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
[...] from Adaptive Path, wrote a post about the value of writing and sharing ideas. The importance of sharing it is to give another [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Something else I notices about “The Duh!”, is that when you write well, and structure your points clearly, then what you’re saying will seem really obvious.