October 12, 2009

How Do You Capture Your Irresistible Ideas?

published this at 8:53 am

Be Irresistible Instead

Every great movie star did a movie or two for the cash until he or she could do the movies he or she really wanted to do. That’s one thing. It’s fine to do if we know that’s what we’re doing. It’s a skill-building, bill-paying short-term strategy that works to keep us solvent.

But, if we’re not careful, we can get so busy doing, that we lose sight of the end game — the strategic goal out there on the horizon. While we’re busy making money to pay the rent, we can have outstanding ideas and let them get away while we work at things that don’t inspire us.

Work without inspiration steals energy. It keeps us in the same place or moving in the wrong direction.

What powers and fuels a career or a business is irresistible, value-added, real WOW ideas — what folks need, wish, and dream for — can’t live without ideas. Even if you’re working on something that’s boring, are looking for your own irresistible ideas that will head you to your own horizon? Here’s how to know one …

  1. An irresistible idea addresses the practical and the emotional simultaneously. Think of a great car that makes you feel something when you drive it. Irresistible ideas appeal to the child and the adult in us.

    2. I bought my Toyota MR-2 Spyder for many reasons. It had great performance specs — practical. It has its flaws — 1.9 cubic feet of storage space. The WOW is the faux titanium door handles — emotional. No other car has them, not any Porsche, Ferrari, BMW two-seater. I know. I look inside them all. They all look boring to me. Those door handles make my car look like it cost 3 times what it cost. It will also allow me to resell it much higher. And the dealer was willing to sell and service it at a great price — it fit into my life.

    An irresistible idea fits easily into our lives. We don’t have to work to buy that product, to learn a lot use it, or to explain it when we share it with our friends. Irresitible save us time, saves us money, or gives us a sense of ease and comfort.

  2. Irresistible ideas are in the details, not in giant bells and whistles.

    3. Every car has an engine and four wheels. Trying to improve on those gets you into trying to be original. Original is risky and expensive. Why not piggyback on what has been tested and perfected. Irresistible ideas come in the back and the side doors. They approach things from the inside out. They make things work better, feel softer, stop being a pain. Irresistible takes one part and makes it elegantly simpler.

    Irresistible ideas are joyfully unexpected. I still love the person who invented the wireless mouse.

  3. Irresistible ideas are authentic. Spectacular ideas can’t be knocked off with the same effect, because they came from customer-centered thinking. Gotta be Apple to make the iPod. Gotta be Iain Dodsworth to make TweetDeck. I can’t build your event or product your way, because you are the special sauce that makes it just right.

The most irresistible ideas come from where your passion and your intelligence cross with the places you spend the most time. We have more ideas than we might actually realize and when we’re busy working on something tiring it’s easy to forget them.

How do you capture your irresistible ideas?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Filed under Idea Bank, Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Successful Blog | 9 Comments »


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9 Comments to “How Do You Capture Your Irresistible Ideas?”

  1. October 12th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
    Travis Campbell said

    Liz-

    This is a worthwhile conversation. I was finding a pattern in my ideas. Essentially, they almost *never* came when I was working (implementing recent ideas, hopefully) instead, they came at inconvenient times.

    Try as I might, I would find a piece of paper and write them down…but then papers were everywhere, and often these scribbles of ideas were lost. I also did a digital recorder, but the recordings were gone because I’d forget to review them (not to mention people giving me strange looks as I recorded an idea in the grocery checkout).

    Now everything worth remembering goes in a business journal. A traditional old pen to paper approach…yes low-tech. For me it is good to get away from tech at times. These ideas are easily referenced, and transferable to a mindmap if they make it that far. It also promotes a little more sanity. :-)

    -Travis

  2. October 12th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
    Christopher Catania said

    I used to keep a Moleskine notebook handy but now I keep an idea folder on my Blackberry Storm Memo application. I tend to get so many ideas for blog posts and other things during the day that it’s easy to just whip out my blackberry and jot down the idea in just a few words so I can recall it later. I have separate folders for each area that the ideas fits best in. This helps me to not freak out when I have no ideas. I just go to my idea folders to pick one out and develop it. I do this for books that I come across or one my friends recommend.

    I also use Twitter to capture ideas. Sometimes if I think I won’t remember the idea I just tweet it because I always review my tweets to review where my mind has been lately.

    Be aware: the business of capturing ideas is a hard discipline to develop like any routine. But when you do develop a system, it will transform your blogging and other creative endeavors.

  3. October 12th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Travis,
    I’m guessing the day you got that business journal was the day you decided that your ideas had value. Am I right?

  4. October 12th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Christopher!
    Twitter is a nice place to capture ideas as long as we get back there quickly. You’re much more disciplined about that than I am. I can see your care in your comment. Did you figure out your system or did it develop over time?

  5. October 13th, 2009 at 6:02 am
    Kelly said

    Liz,

    Irresistible ideas are in the details, not in giant bells and whistles.

    So true and SO well said! I’m always trying to tell clients that. In fact, it’s getting the engine-and-four-wheels part right, and quickly, that allows you the time and the freedom to soar on those details.

    Love this post!

    I capture my ideas by: always having multiple pens within easy reach (you never know when you might need to capture the idea in RED, haha), and being willing to race to write a half-formed idea on anything that doesn’t move, and worry about making it look or sound nice later.

    Regards,

    Kelly

  6. October 13th, 2009 at 8:00 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Kelly!
    Exactly how I feel. I often see folks trying to combine an elephant and an alligator rather than making one or the other easier to work with and lighter. heh heh

    Wish I had your energy to capture every idea that came this way. I’d love to chase my ideas even more. :)

  7. October 13th, 2009 at 8:29 am
    Lydia, Clueless Crafter said

    Rather than being an idealist here, you spoke of the often unsaid sacrifices we have to make in order to get to the authentic.

    In the beginning, it takes extra fluff to get in the door. But, as we move forward we can replace that with the authentic.

    @Christopher I use a Moleskine still. Ouch, hope this doesn’t put me in the Stone Age!

  8. January 25th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
    Jyl (Mom It Forward) said

    I needed to read this post today, Liz! Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the rocky road that often lies between the first page and the Happily Ever After of our goals and dreams, right?

    I appreciate your reminder to not be so busy doing that we lose track of inspiration.

  9. January 25th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Jyl,
    You are so much. Don’t ever lose what you bring to the valuable goals and dreams that you inspire in all of us.

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