In life you often encounter what can best be described as fine lines. Those times when life asks you to stop for a moment, and consider your actions. Sure going one way might bring you great pleasure, increased wealth and widespread success even, but what if those same actions have a direct impact on others? And what if that impact is not only hurtful it also has the potential to derail someone else’s work, something they have laboured over long and hard? What I ponder would you do as you stand before that line? Before answering ponder this … what you say next will have a direct and long term impact on your personal brand so think carefully.
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| Thanks to thewoodenshoes |
Will you jump over the line giving no thought to what you may or may not land on?
Will you stomp your size 9’s right on top of the line not caring who or what might be struggling to eek out an existence between the cracks?
Or will you back away from it, knowing that while the temptation is there to gain significant personal benefit, crossing that line might inflict a world of pain on someone else?
In the business and consulting world you come across this issue early on in your career. The first time someone mentions something in passing, and you later have an opportunity to present that idea as your own. It’s a true test of your values, integrity and professionalism …
Sadly throughout my career I’ve been on the wrong end of this equation all too often.
Some people have minds that can put things together (like Ikea bookcases), others remember complicated things (like long medical terms or legal precedence), and then there are those of us who can’t do any of those things, but for some reason our minds keep spinning with ideas. Ideas are what we can offer this world.
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| Thanks to owenbrown |
I’ve seen this often amongst artists, designers and product developers.
Over time they get used to seeing their ideas regurgitated elsewhere. Their frustrating response is that they don’t mind seeing their ideas popping up occasionally on someone else’s lips, because they know there will be another idea along shortly.
But somehow that feels unfair, and over time their resolve slips away until they no longer freely give their ideas to the world, and we are the ones who miss out.
Now days the pilfering often comes hidden behind a gushing comment about how ‘inspiring’ you are.
Please don’t get me wrong it warms your heart when someone genuinely mentions the ‘I’ word, it may not pay the mortgage, but it truly warms your heart and adds so much to our baked bean lives.
But when it’s done in the context of ‘that’s a great idea’ and you can hear the persons subconscious finishing the sentence with … ‘I can nick that’ … our souls deflate, sending us cowering back into our introverted locales, never to voice another idea again. Is it any wonder that so many creatives teeter on the verge of depression?
I’ve even heard … ‘that’s a great idea, thank you’ with the ‘thank you’ somehow signalling an unwritten agreement of … ‘thank you for coming up with that idea and handing it over to me on a fine silver platter so I can use it from now on, with no royalty required’. Meanwhile the artist is left blinking not realising that by simply opening their mouth they’d entered into a negotiation.
I was discussing the issue of ‘thought plagiarism versus inspiration’ with some colleagues a few months ago, and one suggested that sometimes people hear an idea, store it away and truly think it is their own when they repeat it. An interesting perspective given it came from a serial offender, who not five minutes earlier had echoed someone else’s idea. Maybe ignorance is bliss, or at least a handy excuse.
So I am left to ponder this issue, an issue which has baffled me for many years.
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In the past I have adopted a ‘three strikes and you’re out policy’ but that no longer seems to work in the current Me zeitgeist.
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Perhaps all creative types should begin each sentence with the phrase … ‘Everything I am about to say is copyright’.
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Or maybe they need a disclaimer like at the end of every Olympic telecast or inside our book covers … a small business card perhaps that can be handed over at the end of each encounter, stipulating … ‘all ideas expressed are owned by the nonplussed person standing infront of you. No part of this conversation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission from the copyright holder’.
I’d genuinely love to hear your advice, either online or off, as to how to approach these situations. That way I could spread the word to other creative types, so we don’t all fall back on to our default strategy of stifling ideas and spiralling into depression.
The first suggestion I received on my private facebook page was from ‘N’ (I won’t mention your full name) who suggested we post the idea to ourselves so we have a record of the date. Other suggestions were less positive and focused on ‘naming and shaming’ repeat offenders. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to constructively approach this issue as it’s bound to happen again in the future.
STOP PRESS: I wrote this a few days ago and interestingly when I woke up the next morning the Nova breakfast team was discussing this very issue!! Clearly I am not alone.
2 Comments
I wish I had a good suggestion for you. I guess keeping some kind of record of dates and names of conversations where you feel this is the likely result may give you some sort of back up. Not that that will help in an instance where the other party gives no indication they intend to claim your idea. Sorry.
I think the ‘store away and later believe the idea is their own’ response is an excuse.
Good point Chris. Just a reminder that like in business make sure you put things in writing 🙂 Have found some interesting ideas on the net, will blog about them later.