When I mentioned the questions and answers service I set up on a site many years ago in my post on responding to negative reviews, it reminded me of something I meant to write a while ago.
Like most people who have worked in digital, I’ve spent many an hour trying to come up with new ideas or ways to evolve an existing one. Sometimes that’s been on behalf of an employer, and sometimes it’s been that search for the elusive ‘next Google/next Facebook’ that I suspect most of us spend time daydreaming about.
Besides the recent high profile sucess of a few Q and A sites, I’ve also seen the former UK rival of 140char.com get acquired. I say ‘former rival’ because towards the end of last year I wound down posting original content on the site and effectively put it on life support by simply collecting links about microblogging on Diigo which are then autposted. Meanwhile Shea Bennett continued to post brilliant content on Twittercism.com, which is now part of the MediaBistro empire (recognition which is heartily well-deserved).
At the same time, I also saw news of startup funding for a company which aggregates affiliate offers, but then automatically selects the one with the lowest price for you to recommend to people. Annoyingly I don’t have the link to hand, but I’ll be digging it out to follow the progress, as this was a suggestion I once made to pivot the Ditto project which I worked on a few years ago. And about 12-18 months ago, I’d started asking a few people about a great idea I’d had for a new startup which worked around content filtering – within the space of a week, I’d seen a news article about someone getting funding to launch just that service!
Image courtesy annais on Flickr (CC Licence)
This isn’t a post to claim I’m hard done by, or unrecognised genius. Question and answer sites aren’t a revolutionary concept, Twittercism was always a far more focused product which continued to build an audience with great content, and there’s nothing to guarantee either startup will succeed with or without funding.
But it’s about ideas, and one of the things I’ve realised over the last decade.
If you think you’ve got a great idea for something, whether it’s a digital idea or in the ‘real world’, there are three alternatives:
- Hold it really close, don’t tell anyone, and keep planning that one day someone will drop the £1 million you need in your lap by magic. Someone else might have the same idea, and you can complain that it was your idea first.
- Let it go by telling people about it, sharing it, and evolving it publicly. Someone else might have the same idea. Someone else might develop a business around your idea. Or you might find yourself being asked to get involved with people sharing the idea – whether that comes from rich investors or a group of people who think your idea is cool. One of the joys of the virtual world is that there is a huge pool of people who may have similar ideas and viewpoints who have complimentary talents, skills and resources that can help you.
- Go and bloody do it. Find money. Bootstrap it. Work on it in the evening if you need to support yourself through the day. Get the lowest minimum version of it out and see if people want it (And not just family and friends being nice).
And that’s really what I mean by saying you should let good ideas go – not just that you should let them fly freely away, but you should give them an engine, and see if they run for yourself. Just don’t sit on them endlessly waiting in case they magically hatch.
Image courtesy ieshraq on Flickr (CC Licence)
The best thing about all this is that it shows a percentage of my ideas are in the same ballpark as some successful businesses, or are in a ballpark deemed worth pursuing by others, which validates them by competition, if not success. Ideas aren’t a finite resource, and now, more than ever, I’m in a position where I’m able to choose the ones I believe are worth pursuing, and to let the others go. And without wanting to overdramatise, there’s something nice about knowing that if I miss an opportunity now, it’s because I’m in the middle of actively pursuing some others, whether it’s microniche publishing, or getting together with interesting digital people in the local area.
Negative reviews – Proof that responding works!
Back when I was Products Editor on motorcyclenews.com, I received a steady trickle of emails and phonecalls on the same theme. Each one was from a product manufacturer or retailer who had received a negative review or forum post and wanted to know what they could, and should, do about it.
Five+ years ago, the answer was mix of the insight and common sense that I possessed at the time. Unless the review or post was libellous (in which case the legal requirement was to remove it), the best thing that company could do would be to respond publicly with a polite and reasoned answer for what may have caused the problem, and if possible, potential solutions. That way they not only reached the complainant, but also the huge audience who would view everything without necessarily posting. It also ensured that the situation was likely to be defused straight away, rather than building up steam.
Photo courtesy Lars Plougmann on Flickr (CC Licence)
If only I’d had the 2011 ‘The Retail Consumer Report’ from Harris available at the time. (h/t Mediapost and Mack Collier). The survey of 1605 U.S online adults reveals:
I’ve finally got some empirical evidence to back up my conversations all those years ago! Funnily enough, the evolution of those conversations was a questions and answers section named Ask An Expert, which asked representatives from suitable companies to be available to respond to reader questions. I’d prefer you didn’t mention the amount of interest and funding sites like Quora have generated more recently!
But it’s actually an even more important approach to me now as a business owner, not only do I continue to advise clients to respond publicly to negative complaints in a polite, responsible, and most importantly, active way, but I also have a responsibility to monitor and respond to comments and reviews of the two businesses I’m running to make sure that we do the best by our clients and customers. And if after all that, you’d rather ignore my advice, Harris research and any negative reviews, then I guess pointing to the example of Craiglist and Craig Newmark won’t change your mind. I can only hope you’re not a client, and you happen to run a marketing or web design and development business!