How Do You Know If You Have a Good Idea?

I’m not sure there was a better question I heard during our “Sea Legs” workshops here in Mexico City. (And these rising stars had no shortage of great questions.)

“How do you know if you have a good idea?” This profound query came at the tail-end of a robust day.

My answer was true, but a bit pat.

I said a good idea should make you feel something. I bolstered my answer with the classic line often attributed to legendary creative director Phil Dusenberry that goes, “If you don’t feel it in the board room, the audience won’t feel it in the living room.”

The emphasis on ideas that make you feel something: a laugh, a cry, motivated to take some action.

It was a fine answer, but something about it was bugging me.

Today’s communication efforts are sprawling and complicated.

I didn’t feel I gave a good enough answer and wouldn’t you know it — it kept me up that night.

I got out of bed early the next day and wrote down some notes and came back with a better answer.

I re-confirmed that a good idea should indeed make you feel something.

I then went further and talked about how a good idea should reveal something.

And then went deeper and talked about how a good idea should drive all the executions of the communications eco-system.

The Sea Leggers appreciated this deeper answer.

I kept going with one more thing.

I told them that ultimately the best method for determining a good idea is the timeless framework from legendary designer Milton Glazer. His notion is that there are only three reactions you can have to a piece of work:

Yes, No, Wow.

Meaning…

Yes, I understand the idea. It’s on strategy. Fine.

No, I don’t get it. I don’t like it.

Or…

Wow.

Yep, Wow is in, you can’t control how you’re feeling. And your overwhelming reaction is to just go, “Wow.”

Sure enough, the next night we were all together at an art studio creating masks for a Lucha Libre wrestling event we were about to attend.

We had tasked ourselves with taking existing wrestling masks and making them uniquely our own.

We were armed with glue guns, scissors and various pieces of glittered craft foam.

I saw several fun improvements our Sea Leggers were making to the classic masks.

And then out of nowhere, one appeared that was completely amazing.

One of the rising stars from our Paris office emerged with an Art Deco masterpiece.

She crafted the foam pieces into magnificent gold and green feathers. The mask looked like a piece of art that belonged atop of the head of some kind of mythical goddess. Or a piece of sculpture you’d find in an Art Deco masterpiece like the Chrysler Building or Rockefeller Center.

It was such an incredibly high-brow approach for something as populist as Lucha Libre.

But in the end it worked magnificently.

I tell you all of this because each person who saw her mask had the exact same reaction: “Wow!”

So how do you tell if you have a good idea? Start with this. Is your first reaction Wow?

Image: Julie Navarro