Impatient Ideas
Clarke’s Law of Great Ideas eloquently summarizes the four phases your boss passes through after you insert a novel new idea into his alleged mind: It is impossible – don’t waste my time. It is possible, but it is not worth doing. I said it was a good idea all along. Members of the board, here is my idea. But it isn’t just your boss. It is your market that goes from utter disbelief to passionate involvement over time. Marketing’s job it to short circuit the disbelief/belief gap and reduce the time to mass market acceptance. It ain’t easy. If it was, then anyone could do it. Seth Godin recently opined on the topic, and provided a graph (we prettied it up) which shows that in the short-run, ideas are not warmly met by everyone. Yes, a small set of early adopters “gets it”, but most of the market fails … Continue reading →