Sunday, May 1, 2011

What’s ego got to do with it? (and the death of the dog and pony show)

Creating ideas is certainly not the same as selling them. It's a lot harder for one thing.

In fact, in the crowdsourced world, you are encouraged NOT to put a spin on your presentation, especially if it’s a concept proposal that you’ve written. Concept statements are encouraged of course. In fact I think they should be mandatory and have a set of text fields that must be filled out before uploading. It forces the creators to focus on their idea in one sentence or two; it demands that you have a real idea and not just the hint of one. Too often creators will simply regurgitate the brief, describe the visuals or repeat their headline in place of a real concept statement.

The presentation in the analog world can too easily supercede the “quality” of an idea. No where to hide online. If your idea does not work, no amount of spin or bravado will sell it. Dog gone, pony dead.

(Note on visual for this post: it was a print ad that I did many years ago - that headline never ran of course)