What do you do with your idea?

Do you hold on to it?    Give it away? Share it?

The idea is the most important thing in the world of blogs, which is a form of social media. The idea is the one characteristic that distinguishes a person. Traditionally, we tend to protect our ideas with our lives. Why patents, trademarks ®™, and copyrights © exist.

Yet in the evaluation field, how often are patents, trademarks, and copyrights involved? Perhaps if ideas were not shared, evaluation would not happen. Where would the world be if that were the case?

Take for example the advances in evaluation theory over the last 20 years (examples include developmental evaluation; empowerment evaluation, systems thinking, evaluability assessment among others). Although many of these would  be considered “approaches” and not theories, they ALL STARTED WITH IDEAS; ideas that were developed and shared and developed some more and shared some more.

Some thoughts on ideas (with sources):

“Most of the bloggers and site developers spend most of their time sharing their ideas and insights with their readers. But if you listen, you’ll find that your readers share a lot with you too.” nurraineeer@gmail.com

“Well, it is always great to see writers interested in building community of readers but it’s rare to see writers asking if readers are making use of the information they are offering. This is good, I must confess. I have gained a lot here one of the things I have gained has to do with changing my approach in writing. I should also be interested in knowing if readers are utilizing the information I pass to them. Thanks very much for this post…I think this article is useful to both readers and writers too.” servicenora@gmail.com

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” Oscar Wilde

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” Marie Curie

These are just some words about ideas. I challenge you to post an original idea; share that idea; implement that idea.

That is my intention (resolution) for 2016. (I believe that stated intentions get accomplished; resolutions may not.)

my.

molly.