Simple ideas and the other kind

There are two kinds of new idea, and whoever you share yours with will know within a sentence which kind it is.

One kind is simple. A family on a street in Damietta has lost its flat to a fire and needs blankets and a hot meal tonight. Nobody needs it explained twice. People hear it and go to their cupboards.

The other kind is complicated. Suppose a resident wants the same street to separate its rubbish, so the collectors can sell what is clean, the bins stop overflowing and the lane stops smelling in August. It is a good idea. It also asks people to change a habit they have never thought about, to trust neighbours they barely know, and to wait months before they can tell whether it worked.

The mistake is to dress the second kind up as the first. A two-line notice taped by the stairs, promising a cleaner street by next week. People read it as a simple request, discover it is nothing of the sort, and quietly decide the idea was silly.

Shrinking the idea does not help. It only makes it easier to dismiss. What helps is giving up on reaching everyone at once and starting with the few who already care: the retired teacher who sweeps her own doorstep, the young couple who complain about the bins every summer. Ask them to try it for a season and see where it goes. Let them become the explanation for the next few.

A complicated idea does not need a shorter pitch. It needs a smaller group, chosen well, who are willing to take the long way with it.