Note : This article was originally intended for fellow students at Full Sail University’s Web Design & Development program. Since I expect it could be useful for anyone, I decided to post it here as well. Since most of you guys are especially mum these days I’d like to tackle something I’ve heard way too often around campus when people mention final presentations: “Oh, I’ve got a good idea but it’s too early to talk about it.”.
What I’ve noticed is that is never too early to talk about it, because most of you, I’ll tell you right, will not talk about it until it’s too late. Your idea sounds exciting, amazing and maybe challenging in your head. But your idea has never been out in the real world, it never had to cross the street and watch out for better ideas zooming by. In your head your amazing idea is never going to get shot down by a one-liner from a friend you expect to be in your target demographic.
Now I’m certain some of you think that if you talk about your idea someone is going to take it. Sure, that can happen, but this is a school, things like that don’t go unnoticed, or unpunished. If you think you’d rather stay mum about your idea because it might have some weight in the real world, after you graduate at Full Sail, then let’s see if it can even stand on its own legs in our little world before you take it out to the big leagues.
A good idea is infectious, people get excited about it, they want to help you with it, will make suggestions to make it better or you will find out who doesn’t like it, and why.
Exposing your idea doesn’t mean you have to shout it out to the entire school, but you can start testing the waters, as early as possible. Go see course director, a lab instructor, a fellow student who’s early in the program or about to start his final project so you get the benefit of the knowledge he gathered.
If you manage to get someone else excited, do you have any idea how motivated it’s going to make you?
And what’s the worst that can happen? You could learn about your idea. Isn’t that why we’re here?