Saturday, January 6, 2007

Great Minds Don't Think Alike

Yesterday I attended Eurekamp, a full day gathering of all sorts of people, exchanging thoughts and ideas about anything creative or innovative, in a semi-organized format. They say "great minds think alike", and Eurekamp has just contradicted it.
Every now and then I get a new idea of something fun or helpful, but innovative. I usually play with it in my head, sometimes write it down, and if it's really good - I free some resources to make it done, as I'm currently doing with Cartly. Nevertheless, there is no alternative to talking about it with people. But will that suffice? Think that you talk about your idea with a 100 people, and they all say "sounds great, go for it" - how good is it? It's as good as a 100 people saying "it's bad" is bad. A 100 people's opinion is not worth much if they all think the same.
In Monty Python's "Life of Brian", Brian woke up in the morning, only to discover that a huge crowd is waiting outside his window, waiting for his word of mouth. He tried to convince them not to blindly follow him, and shouted at them "You are all different!", and the crowd shouted back "Yes, we are all different". Then a single voice said "I'm not".
But a versatile crowd's opinion is important not only as feedback to your startup idea, but also to as small idea as it can be, raised in a company, and as feedback to the way you lead your company, your family or friends. Just think that you're the CEO of a company, where all your employees agree with every decision you make. How good is it? It's bad. It's like not having any feedback at all.
If you want to be innovative and creative, gather around you a versatile crowd that won't have one opinion, and that won't blindly agree with you. It's a crowd of individuals.
My page at Eurekamp: www.eurekamp.com/boazkantor

Boaz.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But what if you're the only one with the vision? What if everybody else can't see afar?
What if people around you predict only failures, when only you can see the truth, can almost taste it?