“I’m always talking about the value of having big, bold ideas, and yet just as critical is knowing how to get a big, bold idea off the ground. That can be tricky.”
Kate White — author, leadership expert, and all-around magazine industry badass — knows how to turn ideas into reality. And in this piece, recently published on xoJane, she tells you how. The article contains several gems, but my favorite bits of advice are below.
Play “Shark Tank” With Your Concept
She suggests asking yourself “what reception your idea would receive from a panel of experts,” and considering the grade someone might assign it. “Just because your boss green-lit your concept doesn’t mean it’s really good,” she says. “Ultimately you don’t want to try to run with an idea that lacks legs…Playing Shark Tank could also help you see a flaw you can fix before you go forward.”
Get Feedback
White cites a study supporting the need to get outside perspectives on your ideas, which found that “hearing from a range of people has value and prevents you from falling victim to groupthink.” But she also cautions us to be cognizant of people who don’t really know what they’re talking about, and remember to rely on research, data, and instinct.
“In other words,” she says, “when you ask your architect boyfriend to weigh in on your idea for a new fashion app, take what he says with a big grain of salt.”
Slice the Salami
Big ideas that spawn big projects can become overwhelming very quickly, and that can cause people to throw in the towel. “A time-management expert I interviewed once compared tackling a big project to eating a whole salami — not very appetizing,” she says. “His recommendation was to slice everything down into more appetizing parts and focus on those parts, one at a time.”
Let It Go
Tenacity is a great thing; stubbornly holding on to an idea that’s just not working is not. White offers up some advice she once heard from Paperless Post cofounder Alexa Hirschfeld: “Even if your product isn’t as perfect as you’d like, perfection in your hands isn’t relevant. You need to know what your consumer thinks. When you put it out there, you can begin to collect data to make it more perfect.”
Read the full piece here, or check out Kate’s website.
The post How to Bring Your Big Idea to Life: Advice from Kate White appeared first on Conspire: A @Mindjet Publication.