So, You have an idea...

So you have an idea. This could be about a new product, or building an addon, or plugin, or building a service around your product. How do you go about pitching it to folks around you to build consensus.

The oft chosen path is to fire up a ppt. and start making slides. In Procter and Gamble, they had the idea of the one page memo. You write a one page (no more) memo that elaborates the idea and share it with folks around. No images, no gifs, no fancy colors allowed, just black and white text, within one page.

Amazon uses a similar memo format to get decisions going - especially strategic ones where the team leader presents a 6 page memo. The memo is circulated ahead of the meeting. When the meeting starts 15 minutes is allocated for everyone to read the memo (there are always some people who don't read ahead), and then the meeting starts.

Writing forces you to get clarity. The limitation of the one page (with the P&G format) forces you to be concise. It is perhaps one of the strongest and effective tools to bring people onboard your idea. PPTs are great - and can be a derivative of the one page memo - but PPTs are terrible when its text heavy, and when its just bulletin points, it needs a narrative to explain what you mean - and it takes phenomenal discipline to NOT distract using colors, images, and animation.

Try it out. You'll be pleasantly surprised how well it works.

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