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I want my idea to go viral and spread

Idea Seeding

All Tools
IDEA SEEDING@2x

The Context

Are you giving your idea enough light and air so it doesn't starve to death? Too many people have great ideas that stay trapped in idea form. They put their ideas in a box so they never spoil. But the irony is, in their effort to protect themselves, those ideas eventually get forsaken, forgotten or famished. Remember, ideas are free, execution is priceless. We have to share our ideas with the world.

The Tool

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Idea Seeding

IDEA SEEDING -- Grow the reach and legitimacy for your idea through constant, incremental exposure

Here are several key questions to ask about your idea. They won't help you go viral, but they will certainly increase the distribution of your seeds. Does the story of your idea grow in value with every new person that it touches? Mindshare is a byproduct of passion, consistency and commitment. Those things are the force multipliers of ideas. Is there something about your idea that makes people choose not to spread it? Imagine how many brilliant concepts you've come across in your life, but hesitated to share because of the social cost to doing so. Perhaps you were afraid of how it positioned you, or whom you might offend. Your idea needs less friction of introducing that story into a conversation. Whatever idea you're hoping to spread, keep these questions in mind. Keep experimenting.

Scott's Take

Scott's Take

The simple act of engaging with the world through a nametag has fundamentally changed my life in multiple ways. From communication to business to relationships to creativity to identity to spirituality, there are very few parts of my daily experience that have not been touched by this simple little experiments. Nametags really do stick, in every sense of the word. One subject that's been deeply compelling to explore is the study of ideas. Not only where they come from and how we create them, but also how they spread and why. And over the past twenty years, several patterns have emerged. Let's explore them through the filter of questions. Are you constantly sharing your idea with more and more people to make it more and more real? Wearing a nametag is a public act. It never comes off. Stays on my shirt all day, every day. Even in situations when it might be socially risky or inappropriate. This apparatus of constant exposure, while sometimes uncomfortable, has become the engine of legitimacy that has enabled my idea to sustain for two decades. Is your idea not only interesting, but also easy and fun to spread? What's ideal about nametags is, they're shareable. Not just the idea, but the actual thing itself. That's why I never leave the house without ten blank nametags in my wallet. Because people ask for them. And the simple act of somebody using one of them helps spread my idea.

The Rest

Doctorow, a favorite writer of my generation, published a captivating essay about this very issue. His theory is, creators should think like dandelions. The dandelion doesn’t follow all its seeds to make sure they get steered in the right direction and have their mittens and a packed lunch with them. Almost every seed a dandelion tosses into the wind is going to die without taking root, but that’s not what matters to the dandelion. They don’t care that every seed survives, they care that every opportunity to take root is exploited. A successful dandelion is one colonizes every crack in the sidewalk, not one that successfully plants all its seeds. And so, our job as creators isn’t to worry about having a single, central repository for our works so we can easily count copies and figure out where they're going. Because dandelions don’t keep track of their seeds. But once we learn to get past the vanity of knowing exactly how many copies have been made and sold and shared and find the zen of knowing that the reproduction will take care of itself, we’ll attain dandelionesque contentment. Proving, that the best way to have a great idea is to have a lot of ideas. Aim for volume, not victory. And trust the process to take care of itself. Are you both a creator of and a student of ideas?

The Benefits

Boost organic word of mouth for your work
Achieve greater mindshare with your projects
Exploit more opportunities for your ideas to take root
Make your idea more and more real with each passing day

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