The best part of last week was to put my thoughts on the ideas to the test. To be forced to articulate what I actually meant and had in mind, and to answer questions from Yellow.
Thoughts can be quite unorganised. They need time do develop until there is substance in them. One great way to achieve this is to discuss them with other people. You need to be able to clearly explain what the thought behind the idea is. Otherwise you won’t be able to sell it. It goes for investors, the people you want to work with and your users.
A tool
In my research deck there are four slides for each idea. The inspiration for them is taken from Alla Zoller’s how to write great conference proposals post where she in part 1 talks of ‘The setup’, ‘The plot’ and ‘The point’. This is how she explains them:
- THE SETUP answers the question ‘Why?’ and leads the reader in
- THE PLOT is the difficulty or problem that you are addressing
- THE POINT is the message that you want to get accross
I’ve applied them to the ideas and added a further explanation of ‘The point’ that contain the key principles behind the idea. It’s a really great tool for identifying why the idea is relevant, how it matters, what the key message is as well as the key take aways. Whether you’re working on an idea, writing a conference proposal, article or generally need some clarity in ‘what’ and ‘why’, this tool that Alla writes about is one I recommend.
Below is how I’ve used them in my template slides:
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fisserman/21438069/
