“It is better to steal a good idea than to have a bad one of your own.”
Dennis, a Dutch friend, shared this expression with me just this week. As an American, my first thought was… You can’t do that! Taking someone else’s idea is wrong. Plus, you’ll end up with a lawsuit.
While building this article, the true meaning of that phrase came to mind.
I recently read an article that frustrated me. It was about the trash system in the Netherlands.
(Stick with me – these ideas are connected).
Long story short… In the Netherlands, any trash that can’t be recycled, gets incinerated – turns into nothing. And, the steam from the incinerators, powers the electric trams, Metro system, and heats 15,000 homes.
The Netherlands is a small country, there is no room to store trash in landfills. In the early 1900s the Dutch stopped dumping and started incinerating their trash. Nowadays, nothing but steam is emitted into the atmosphere.
Maybe this isn’t because the Dutch are so ‘advanced’ and forward-thinking, as much as necessity was the mother of invention and they had to choose incineration. Nevertheless, points go to the Dutch for finding a way to make waste… not wasteful.
Then there is the phrase; “Out of site, out of mind.” This seems to be the approach to trash we have in the United States. Our country is so vast, there are landfills everywhere… and often we hide them under dirt… So they’re out of site. We do hear about landfills filling up and the problem with certain items taking scores of years to breakdown… if at all.
So, here is where Dennis’ comment comes into play. “Stealing ideas” doesn’t have to mean a company logo, secret recipe, or proprietary process.
It can be the obvious stuff. Stuff other people, companies, cities, and countries are doing better than you.
And, what frustrated me – as I indicated a few paragraphs back – is that there exists a solution for landfills and garbage piling up across America… and the Dutch are doing it. Not only would this idea fix our landfill/waste problem – but the by-product is clean electricity!
Incineration has a bad reputation in the United States, and “out of site” landfills that are “out of mind” bother us less. (Actually, I’m pretty sure the answer is “landfills are cheaper than incinerators.”)
What This Has To Do With Marketing
Learning from Others
First, it is amazing what you can learn and apply to your own business or discipline (or country), by studying another seemingly unrelated one.
Stealing from Others (Using Best Practices)
Secondly, the U.S. should steal this good idea from the Dutch instead of the bad idea we already have.
In business we call this kind of stealing – best practices. Where are the bad ideas…
- At your company?
- With your packaging?
- With your benefits plan?
- In your managers’ meetings?
That you could replace with a good idea (best practice) stolen from somewhere else?
One of the benefits of a company hiring externally, is that you have the potential to bring in good ideas from other organizations. Talk to your outside-hires and harvest what they know.
Create Next Practices
Finally… perhaps… instead of following someone else’s ‘best practice’ why not one-up that idea and do a ‘next practice?’
I know I’m already asking a lot for the U.S. to adopt a better system than landfills… But if we’re going to steal the idea from the Dutch and incinerate our trash, are there additional ways we can plus the idea? Make the factories work better, more efficiently, generate even more power? Not just follow, but lead? Plus the idea.
Sure McDonald’s Monopoly game collect-and-win promotion has been popular and drove incremental traffic and buzz (for a while). But, is there a way you can take that concept and improve it?
The Starbucks Card is handy, but re-loadable gift/stored-value cards have been around for years. Why not link the card to the customer profile, monitor purchase trends, and suggest new beverages? Or perfect food pairings? They’ve already asked me to register the card and have my email, why not give me advanced notice and a special price on the new promotional flavored-latte since you know I’m a loyal flavored-latte drinker? Why not offer me a banana-nut muffin ‘on the house’ since you see I buy 16 a month?
What good ideas are out there for you to steal or plus?
I like the way you took a Dutch cultural attitude and expression and interpreted it for us, Paul. We can call it best practices or “borrowing” and it’s the same thing. Why re-invent the wheel on the basics that produce results?
Personally I’d like to borrow a concept that works for many other businesses. It’s not very novel, but it sure is a good objective. It’s called generating a profit.
Awesome Paul! I share the same sentiment to the teachers at my school. Don’t reinvent the wheel, just design the wheel to fit your specific classroom! If someone else/group has a great idea that you can customize to benifit your students…use it with confidence and energy. Best practices in education should reflect hardwork and the intiative to do what is best for students. Your insights for business continue to feed my colleagues for educational excellence. Thank you.
I completely agree, it’s not about stealing a specific idea, but using obvious ideas or improving an idea and cultivating it into your own concept. In the end if you steal an idea it will come back to bite you, but if you use a concept and make it your own you can create a market share for your business.
Incinerators may not have caught on in the United States because the waste stream might be different (more plastics, for instance). Harrisburg, Pa., has an incinerator that has been costly and has not worked efficiently.
You mention how Starbucks tracks what you purchase, and you suggest they could tailor offers to your tastes.
One of the things I don’t understand is why clothing manufacturers who have large direct retail operations don’t ask customers what they want to buy for next season and sift through those ideas. Or, why not create some limited edition clothing that will only be made for orders placed in advance?
Some manufacturers limit the color selection in plus sizes but have a wide color selection in misses’ sizes for a particular garment. By allowing customers to order in advance, women who wear plus sizes could choose colors from the whole range (in textiles the company already has contracts for) instead of facing more limited choices. And the company would have new data about the color preferences of these customers and could serve them better.
I appreciate you making the distinction between ideas, which can legitimately be borrowed, appropriated, and used by others, and intellectual property which can, at least from a legal perspective, be stolen.
But in either case, I believe we as a culture have an overly individualistic notion of ideas. To the extent that ideas are generated by a complex amalgam of language, education, experience, and genetic chance, I think of them as a collective good, the value of which is measured not by priority of occurrence but by the ingenuity of application.
Brilliant point. Look at the topology of an outside industry with similar defining characteristics and apply their solutions to your own industry.
For example, Clockwork Home Services, Inc. is taking this approach with several of its in-home services franchises (One Hour Heating, Mr. Sparky and Ben Franklin Plumbing) The company has identified a savings of the customer’s time as a felt need and promises on time service or your money back – guaranteed. Plumbing, HVAC, electrician… it doesn’t matter, they are all in-home service companies and have the same defining characteristics, so the strategy works.
Heck, they could have gotten this idea from FedEx or Domino’s Pizza.
It’s “Out of SIGHT, out of mind” (not “site”).
/pet peeve
Yeah, sorry, couldn’t get past the multiple misuse of “site.” Hard to sound like an expert when you don’t use a proofreader. Sorry, dude.
“Beter goed gejat dan slecht bedacht” It sounds better in Dutch.
The saying is used a lot by game journalists. They use the saying to indicate that gameplay elements from other games have been integrated into the game they are reviewing.
In my current profesion, web design, it’s not uncommon to take pieces of code from other websites and tune them to work on your own. In fact, many web designers share these things on their blogs.