IDEAS FOR LENDING/BORROWING
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 - daily column #6707
Inevitably, regarding things labelled intellectual property, the question is whether they are intellectual and whether they are property?
Ideas and thinking come free but get ignored because finding the right idea for our problem situation or opportunity to pursue – is like trying to grab a handful of the best snowflakes out of a blizzard.
My point?
Too much noise and too much stuff mean we miss most good things. They just blow right by.
Ideas and thinking must be ubiquitous and freely available because everybody peddles their variation on a theme, their brand, and the next new great idea.
Well, nearly everyone.
Some people are selling or giving away other people’s best ideas.
That’s what Napoleon Hill did with his book Think and Grow Rich, telling stories of how other people were successful. Carnegie sold steel. Hill sold books. And anyone who reads his book gets great ideas for the tiny price of the book …
Notwithstanding copyright infringement, doing good work that shows you care is the first step, is it not? Who wants to take a second step toward being anyone’s customer if that first step was lazy, poor quality, haphazard, or carelessly handled?
Everybody is trying to knock down a door of resistance – whether trying to sell goods or services, get a date, establish a partnership, get readers, get buyers, get friends, get attention, or get assistance from any large organization or government – and we all fail more than we succeed.
Still, we eventually succeed.
Or at least persevere …
We make headway without being bloodied going through that brick wall of resistance.
Shouldn’t it be easier?
Case in point: I saw something the other day – a great idea at first blush. A guy started a website hosting stories [ https://www.first1000.co/]
about success stories in business, how great companies got their first 1,000 customers. The brand names being touted were impressive. I signed up to get their newsletter. Within moments of signing up, I got a welcome note.
I should say, a poorly written welcome note.
I explored and found the remarkable story about the history of Bloomberg.com, the success of Michael Bloomberg from humble beginnings. [ https://first1000.substack.com/p/Bloomberg ]Clever, inspiring, ideas worth ‘borrowing’ … but so poorly written.
It struck me as odd that somewhere, maybe in Silicon Valley, there is someone with this brilliant idea that I like, and he will probably curate a large following, but it struck me as just dumber than dirt to have it show so obviously – ‘doesn’t care enough’ written all over it. I wish them well. I wrote back suggesting the get a better writer or proofreader and maybe try using Grammarly.
My point, whether we are being social, making friends, or selling ourselves, we shouldn’t sell ourselves short by doing a sloppy job of communicating important ideas. Which not to say I don’t make lots of mistakes – because I do, and several eagle-eyed friends frequently remind me, and I appreciate their good-catches because they want to help me get better at what I do. I appreciate their support.
Reader feedback:
It just occurred to me that, at 18, Musings is officially all growed up. Let the Mature Musings begin!, RH, Calgary, AB