Comments on: Are Smart People Wasting Time on Bad Ideas?

By: Loan Modification leads

Loan Modification leads — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:49:00 +0000

Smart people knows how to spend their time right… but your right… some smart people do not know how to spend there time right… thank you for blogging this.. it really teach us a lot.. a good blog.. congrats.. rn

By: Loan Modification leads

Loan Modification leads — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:49:02 +0000

By: car loan modification

car loan modification — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:42:35 +0000

he nature of this thread is whether smart people (where smart = business smarts) are wasting their time and talent on bad ideas. What’s a bad idea? In this context, a “bad idea” is a company, business, or commercial endeavor that has no real chance at success and where the best case outcome is not really that interesting. ——— good idea

By: Syven

Syven — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:06:37 +0000

When it comes to learning opportunities, bad ideas are the mistakes which are the learning opportunities. I do think that smart people can have bad ideas, but it is dumb people that implement bad ideas – for how can anyone be "smart" if they are conscious that they are pursuing a bad idea. If bad ideas are a part of trial and error then learning from mistakes is crucial, and if I am truly smart I will get better at figuring out what bad ideas are. I do go online to make the mistakes I hopefully won't repeat in the real world. That isn't to devalue the virtual world, but like Michael Schrage depicted in his book Serious Play, prototyping may begin with a bad idea but through successive iteration – a good idea may emerge. In terms of going online to start a business, the startup failure rate is pretty high and so our conception of a bad idea needs to extend beyond the product or service level, all the way cashflow is managed. The first year of our business was nearly disastrous but we are still in business ten years later because it was the ability to turn bad ideas into good ones and examining our thinking. We refer to that as becoming speedboats that compete with tankers. I am not here to promote our business, but I am here to try new things online that others may classify as a horrendously bad idea – but that the difference between those that follow the conventional root is that I think that emergent behaviour is worth its innovation potential, but this has to be in the form of a process, a "serious play". M.

By: Charles Hudson

Charles Hudson — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 02:22:50 +0000

danny, wow, sounds like you have some strong opinions about this! i think the process of taking a raw idea and turning it into something is a great learning process and can be really rewarding, both personally and professionally. i just wonder if perhaps the risk meter hasn't gone a little bit too far. it's really tempting to make ex-post judgments about whether something was a good or bad idea. many times there simply wasn't any way to know a priori. but, that being said, there are some ideas that do have higher odds of success from the start than others. thanks for contributing to this post!

By: Charles Hudson

Charles Hudson — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 02:18:48 +0000

This is a very thoughtful comment – thanks for adding it. I certainly think that many times it's as much about the journey as it is about the outcome. That being said, some paths offer better learning opportunities than others.

By: Syven

Syven — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 15:53:48 +0000

At the group level it goes back to the Jim Collins refrain "Built to Last" vs "Built to Flip" but the focus I think should be on good ideas that fail rather than bad ideas (that may succeed!) and that comes to supporting long term thinking and the relationship between what is sown and what is ultimately harvested. At an individual level the value of playing with a bad idea is that you get to learn what a good idea is and sometimes we don't know what we don't know, and until we engage an idea that we consequently find out that it is bad, but coming back to the "Built to Flip" mindset – the dotcom crash accelerated development of the internet, the phoenix that arose from bad ideas is faster acceleration. Instead of focusing solely on what a "bad idea" is, we need to constitute what a good idea is and recognize quality alongside speed and potential. What counts IMHO is if we are learning from mistakes or watching history repeat itself – for instance those in orderly environments recognize that agile development is a bad idea, but those in arena's where flexibility and iterative processes are a natural advantage, requires people to adjust to that way of approaching work. How open and adaptive we are to systems thinking or environmental maturity is as important IMHO as how our minds work and how we relate to creativity. That makes me think also that I may be discounting or personally underestimating myself how adaptive it is that I actually am. M.

By: Charles Hudson

Charles Hudson — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:51:08 +0000

Hunter, I think it's actually rational to spend some cycles on those ideas where it's not clear that the payoff will be high, but where your hunch is that there's more to it than the average idea. All it takes is one of those to work out to make the others worth your time.

By: hunter

hunter — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 20:16:00 +0000

I have new ideas all the time. 95% of them end up interesting me and IMHO, could create some value for somebody. A much smaller percent (~10%?) are actually worth my own time given opportunity cost. Why do I then sometimes spend time on the projects located in delta between those two benchmarks? I think it's mostly psychic satisfaction – sometimes there are just interesting explorations or goofy things that i want to pursue. I want them to exist so i'm willing to take a lower ROI on my time (or capital) invested. Rational? Perhaps not.

By: danny

danny — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:36:54 +0000

relative to what? staying in a cushy consulting job for several years to pay off your student loan, buy a nice car, and hopefully ultimately parachute into a fabulously senior position within a fabulously successful, hot company? bad ideas exist in many forms, and they always have. human capacity for creativity is not market-driven, it doesn't ever change. regarding start-ups, it's deceptively easy to monday-morning-quarterback any idea and pigeonhole it as apparently good or bad. i'm suspicious of anyone who thinks they can always tell the difference. ideas are malleable and like art are subject to interpretation and execution. the only dynamic in this whole equation is perception of risk. we happen to be in a time where risk appetite is extremely high. sometimes this appetite is unintentional, and that's a problem. those who appreciate the inherent risks and jump head-first into pursuing any idea with eyes wide open are not wasting their time at all. and those who lack the appropriate perspective are probably headed for a bad hangover. as you intimate, regardless of which bad idea we may choose to pursue, it is best to sign up for the experience, not the outcome.