Ah, the age-old question: Should you keep ideas to yourself? It's one that many of us have grappled with at least once in our lives, so why don't we bring it to the forefront and have an honest discussion about it?
Matthias Wagner wrote a post on this very topic - and while he brings up a lot of great points, we're pretty sure that you have your own approach to sharing ideas.
His take:
The more you talk about an idea the less exciting it will become to yourself, because people will tell you how great it is and that will give you appreciation for something you haven't even done yet' and why do it if you already got all the kudos!?! If you start talking about your idea to others they will start giving you feedback' and no matter how great the others are, the result is that your idea will average out' you loose the pureness and rawness. Your arrow suddenly becomes a circle!
We're pretty open about ideas here at ZURB. Whether it's a quick scrum to discuss ideas for new initiatives or just a discussion at lunch, we're constantly bouncing awesome ideas off of each other. When you surround yourself with T-shaped people, you're bound to generate a ton of awesome ideas and expand your creative mindset.
The other interesting part of Matthias' post: He advocates for building a prototype quickly:
A prototype is a great way to share an idea' give it to people and let them play with it. If it's a website or an app, release it and see if users like it. These kudos will be for real, because you are not just talking about an idea anymore, you are talking about the real thing. It's there. People can touch it and play around with it. Talk stops being based on assumptions.
We like his approach! Think about it - what better way is there to test your ideas than creating basic prototypes to see how well they are received by others? The feedback you get is invaluable and can help you iterate quickly on your idea, even if it was very basic or general to start.
Of course, you'll need a solid way to collect the feedback and make necessary adjustments to your prototype. You've probably heard of Verify and Notable, but what about Solidify? Solidify, currently in private release, is the quickest way to build prototypes. Collectively, these tools can help you speed up your iteration and your prototyping - helping you get to an awesome end product faster.
Bringing it back to the original question - Should ideas be kept to yourself? All things considered, we don't believe ideas are best kept secret. When it comes to product, feedback is essential for pushing forward on your ideas.
Do you prefer sharing your ideas or keeping them to yourself? Let us know in the comments.