Little ideas

Trevor talking at The Battle of Big Thinking about the power of Little Thinking.

Nicely illustrated.

Some of his key points (not in the order he presented them - that seems to have got lost in the note-taking blackhole):

• Worry about the little things
• Little ideas have room to grow
• Someone else will if you don't
• Don't always throw away the old
• Improve on something a little
• Changing your perspective can make something little look big (and vice versa)
• Give a shit, most people don't
• Say something nice about someone
• Fill the kettle

Perhaps because it was such a simple idea (and very amusingly presented) it's the one that's been rattling about my head since yesterday.  As it's the little things that often touch people in more direct, everday ways than big, abstract thoughts, they often end up mattering more.

There are lots of nice examples out there to illustrate how the personal touch matters:

• JC Crew impresses Church of the Consumer Blog
• Try phoning Barclays for an insurance quote and you get straight through to a person not an automated system.  Lovely. 
• Here is an interesting post about the Where the hell is Matt? video, and how Stride gum got involved in a very low key way with big results.
• Russell's written about similar things a few times; e.g. somewhere in here and here.
• Obligatory mention of Innocent, illustrated by Russell's photo from Fruitstock which I've shamelessly stolen to put up here.  All the little things they do add up to something bigger.

Comments

[Holycow]

Liz - nice synopsis thanks for sharing - (I think everyones pics are blurred incidently). Thanks for the links to the other little stuff too - great! I used the Barclays thing in a recent presentation about adding humans (analogue) back into the value chain (digital) and the impact it can have can be dramatic. Cheers Mark

[graham]

Hi Liz,
I didn't make it to the APG event so it's good to read your synopsis of Trevor's presentation. I pulled some thoughts together on The Little Idea a while back you might want to read them here.
Thanks Graham

http://grahamfurlong.typepad.com/work_hard_be_nice/2006/07/the_little_idea.html