Today a student asked me about what was required of a practicum exercise.

We are going to be reporting on the 2nd Global Media Ethics Roundtable using social media tools.

The students question was can I post a video and be done?

I suppose but what a waste of time and possibility.

It seems it was and is the possibility that eludes so many people when it comes to engaging in anything.

Can you see beyond the activity?

Can you see how something can, will, should or might be used in another context?

If not the simple problem is the idea has not been frozen long enough, the time necessary for others to get engaged and be brought up to speed.

Which brings us back to education once again.

Are we getting educated just for a grade or for the knowledge we might be able to gain and apply in other directions?

I suspect most students are in it for the grade, too bad.

Of course the question of why some ideas work and others do not is the fuel for a whole shelf of books on innovation, management and leadership.

After reading HOT SPOTS and NUDGE, 2 books that I think are essential to any students curriculum today, I realized that a key component to idea uptake is the story.

And the biggest problem we all face when we take our great idea to the larger community, even if that is just your manager, is the roblem of explaining the idea.

The principle problem is that when you have an idea you have lived it and the unobvious has become obvious, but for the most part only to you!

Ideas that work are those ideas that you have been able to slow down and allow others to see all the nuances. I call this ideafreeze.

The concept is easy, but the reality is much harder given that by freezing and slowing the idea you yourself face the potential of getting bored and suffering from idea-wander and losing your own focus.

Here is an example of an idea is  amazing but still needs to be slowed even more to allow others to get it straight in their heads, or become adopters. And most of the time even if the idea is out there and it has failed to freeze, to slow enough for others to get on it still fails to take off.

On Demand Books should be an instant hit, but they have not yet taken off, I suspect because the story has not been made easy enough for all to understand and that would require slowing the idea down to the point that there would appear to be no momentum… and that is the point where you thaw and accelerate.

Check it out!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDe_Jy4HnMY[/youtube]

Go read Hot Spots and Nudge to get a feel for the idea process and then think about the communication factors, the freezing and thawing of the message, needed to allow others to embrace the story as you have.