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Brick No155: _______'s Big Idea
By Matt Weston, Thursday 11 August 2005 _______'s Big Idea I've removed the name to protect the innocent*, but last weekend, _______, a friend of a friend, spent the best part of a barbecue failing to explain his latest small business idea** to me. * I use the term "innocent" advisedly. It isn't always easy to explain something new, as you'll see below. ** And I can't elaborate much on the idea itself, other than to say it's techy. There are two reasons for this: first, _______ told me in confidence; second, I still don't really get it. The most important thing to note about _______'s big idea is that it defied categorisation. As he explained - it hadn't been done before, and the market was nichy. (If your small business fits snugly into an existing category or pigeonhole, you can probably stop reading at this juncture.) His idea defied categorisation, and that made it difficult to explain, even after a cold beer. But if _______ can't figure out an easy way to explain it to people like me, so that people like me can easily explain it to other people, he's headed for trouble. A frequently dizzying genre pile-up This is a first. We're going to turn to the trade of journalism for some pointers. Journalists are paid explainers. If the idea or story they're explaining defies categorisation, what do they do? Exhibit A. A review of the debut album by Clor, penned by music journo David Perchek. An excerpt: "[Clor's] debut is a frequently dizzying genre pile-up which shouldn't work but does. "You might say Clor are the anti-Oasis, in fact, since, instead of extrapolating an entire career from the least interesting bits of one or two horribly obvious things, they have instead put the last 30 years of popular music in a blender and produced something quite intoxicating. So prog- and jazz-rock co-exist with electropop, and echoes of Prince-ly funk with metal riffage." Do you see what he did there? Unlike my friend of a friend, _______, David Perchek used comparatives, not superlatives. Even though Clor defy categorisation, he figured out a way to explain what they sound like. If you don't like Oasis, you'll probably like Clor - that's easy to understand. And even hybrid comparatives like "Prince-ly funk" and "prog- rock" make sense to the music cognoscenti he writes for. Read, in full, why David Perchek gave Clor four stars. The problem with what I've written above is that journalism is on the wane, at least when it comes to spreading new ideas. Ten years ago, traditional PR worked. Journalists used to get people talking, but now they simply write about what people are already talking about. But now, for most of us, if we want our idea to spread, the fastest way is from customer-to-customer/ peer-to- peer/ fan-to-fan* (*delete as appropriate). We can't rely on journalists to translate our hard-to-categorize idea into something the public can digest. We need to figure out a way to do it ourselves. We need to do the job that the journalist currently does. Here's how - 1. The anti-Oasis The fastest way to explain something that defies categorisation is to say what it isn't: Clor are the anti-Oasis No batteries required. Ever. You play We Love Katamari without pressing any buttons 2. Prince-ly funk We don't like to be pigeonholed. But the second-fastest way to explain something that defies categorisation is to combine two familiar terms to create a hybrid category: Prince-ly Funk, electropop, jazz-rock (Clor again) Crossgolf took off when it became known as Urban Golf Isn't The Ball just a hybrid of James Dyson's first and biggest inventions? How not to do it: Strawberry Milk Sausages Remember to sign up: back to top |
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