My friend Andy Nulman is conducting an interesting exercise to help promote his book about surprise. Andy is a brilliant marketer and his blog about surprise is one I read regularly. Despite his inherent skill in marketing, or maybe because of it, he’s crowdsourcing the marketing plan by encouraging his blog readers to send in “those ideas that you always wanted to do, but for some reason couldn’t and didn’t.” A firm believer in The Wisdom of Crowds, Andy is
looking to embrace, and put into play, your way-way–way out-there ideas for it; the type your employer was always too conservative to go with you on, the type that you may have been afraid to bring up, the type that nobody in their right mind would ever even contemplate.
I have some “out there” ideas but I think I’ll share those with him directly. I also have some thoughts about doing things this way and they’re mostly positive. Mostly.
Even the guy who wrote the aforementioned Wisdom of Crowds notes the shortcomings inherent in the process. The crowd can be too homogeneous (not enough perspective to weigh all the factors), too emotional (if you’ve been watching the political conventions the last couple of weeks you understand…), unable to reach consensus, and other factors. That said, I’m a believer in the process but I prefer to use the crowd’s output as an important factor in decision-making, not the only factor. Businesspeople often rely on research as a crutch and not as a tool. Don’t make that mistake!
So Andy, this post is my surprise to you today. Hopefully someone who is smart enough to read my blather is also “out there” enough for your purposes. Help Andy. Send him your ideas (I’m starting to sound like Jerry Lewis) – Andy@AndyNulman.com and please tell him I sent you!
Consult Keith 