Steven Johnson

When I was younger I had all sorts of crazy business ideas and product inventions, but no one cared because I was young. It was child’s play. Fortunately, some of that inventiveness child’s play found an outlet with Legos. Yes, Legos.

As I got older, I would still have business ideas, inventions and other out-landish ideas, but the advice I got by many was “don’t tell anyone.” “You don’t want anyone to steal your idea.” This advice sometimes seeped through, but most of the time I never listened.  I could never understand how a great idea could ever achieve greatness without talking about it.  I imagined how hard it would be if you spent all of your time not talking about the idea. That by the time you were ready to pursue the idea, you’d already be mentally and emotionally drained from keeping it locked in your head for a long period of time.

In addition, I figured the more people I told the more feedback I would get, and perhaps I would reach a tipping point where more people would want to help and join the cause. Moreover, I thought that some feedback could actually make the idea better than the initial version, at which point, the idea would be something else completely. Something very different then the first idea and so all those who heard version 1, the outdated version, would have not heard version 2, the updated and improved version.

After watching Steven Johnson‘s video below (especially around min 11:40), my idea to share my ideas now seems like it was and is the right path.

Guess the point is, share and tell. I think I’ll be doing some more idea sharing on this blog in the future.

(And no NDAs)

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• Where Good Ideas Come From (avc.com)
• Where good ideas come from: Steven Johnson on TED.com (ted.com)