Comments on: Why Good Ideas Don’t Take Off

By: Lori

Lori — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:41:43 +0000

Paula, I hope you send them a note telling them exactly that. They need to hear it. Too many companies are passing off trash as content these days.

EP, I'm sure there are other reasons, too. :) Good ideas flop all the time, and yes, it's always been that way. Our job is to help these people find a way to make their ideas see the light of day.

I keep thinking Apple has made an absolute killing with the iPod because that idea was packaged and sold as hip and cool. Necessary - yes, I guess so. But there are so many MP3 players on the market that are hundreds less than the iPod. Yet what do we buy? Why?

By: Anne Wayman

Anne Wayman — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:29:19 +0000

I'm like Jenn… and I suspect you Lori… more ideas than I have learned yet to handle… got a book idea and haven't yet made it go… yet my soul tells me a good one. So I'll wait and try it again or something.

By: EP

EP — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:17:48 +0000

Those are all very good points, although I am sure there are many more reasons as well. It really is quite a mystery, don't you think? Why don't the better products prevail? Why don't the better candidates get elected? Why aren't the better teachers the ones who have the say at our schools? On and on it goes and where it will stop nobody knows. Something tells me it's ALWAYS been like this, though.

By: Paula

Paula — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:25:33 +0000

One idea I had that went nowhere (for me, anyway): I pitched the local daily paper on an original TV column, something to set them apart from other similar sized papers who rely on AP feeds. This paper has a movie guy but there isn't a first-run movie theater in the city limits (population 150,000); it has so-called food reviewers, all who call food "yummy," "tasty" or describe food vaguely by saying it "tastes just right"; and it has sports guys who report on nearby big city teams as if they were local teams. Due to high unemployment more people in town watch TV than go to movies, eat out or go to out-of-town sporting events, so a TV column seemed like a better fit with the readership.

The EID called me thanking me for my interest, but said they had no need for a TV column at that time.

A few months later they added an (unpaid - I know because I know the guy who wrote it) TV blog to their site. A year or two later they had a young guy from their printing or layout department write a TV column/blog. Only problem was he couldn't write to save his life, and did a DS-quality "mash-up" of things he read online.

This paper didn't want to pay a nominal amount for a solid TV column written by someone who'd been covering the industry for more than a decade. The mash-up "column" was so bad it only lasted a few months. Earlier this month they ceased carrying the Sunday TV section.

When my subscription ends I'm not renewing. I want to help support the print industry, but I don't want to pay for the privilege of watching the once-good newspaper self-implode through a series of bad decisions. (I don't count not picking up my column as one of those bad decisions, but trying to foist a poorly written mash-up on subscribers was one of many bad decisions.)

By: Lori

Lori — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:49:29 +0000

Jenn, I'm with you. I've had too many good ideas go nowhere because I forget to send them out. Dumb!

Devon, exactly. Flat marketing kills any good idea before it starts.

By: Devon Ellington

Devon Ellington — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:51:38 +0000

Flat marketing. If there's not a hook that grabs potential new audience members, they'll move on.

By: Jenn Mattern

Jenn Mattern — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:46:30 +0000

I'm usually full of ideas, short on time. That's been the big reason good ideas don't take off for me. There are only so many hours in a day, and sometimes it means setting one good idea aside (a site, new tool, new e-book, new marketing strategy) to pursue something even better. Lots of good ideas don't take off. It's not that they aren't worth pursuing or following through, but simply that for every good idea there are probably half a dozen better ones.