The Mother Load

Seven days ago I attended the first day of a three day PRSA Conference in Detroit. This conference was the best conference I have ever attended and I realized that the reason I loved it so much was because I am passionate about the subject matter - Social Marketing and Media. The presenters were fantastic and the content was truly inspiring.

It was on the second day of this conference that I had two unique and individual ideas. Ideas that have brought me here.

Idea One: Create a blog about ideas, my ideas...all of them. I feel like every day I have new ideas, ideas about new businesses, services or products and they are all trapped inside my head vying for attention. I used to think that I had to be hush hush about my ideas because if I talked to loudly they would be scooped and some lucky person would run with them and reap the rewards. The truth of the matter is that a) in reality, all of my ideas are probably not gold mines and b) if I don't have the means to do something with my ideas then that's all they are...thoughts in my head that take up space and collect dust. So my first "idea" was to put my ideas out there and see what happens. Maybe someone will steal an idea and run with it and if they find success then at least my idea saw some light. But maybe other things will happen and I want to take that ride and explore what those "things" may be.

Idea Two: I have this great friend and former colleague, Stephanie, who shares my passion for coming up with the next big idea. We are always bouncing our ideas off of each other. Months ago she shared one of her ideas with me, and yes I do have her approval to share it. Her idea was to start a business that helped out moms. As a mother of three she finds herself buried in laundry on a daily basis. Her idea: start a laundry service targeted to mothers. A mom's time is precious and how great would it be to free up moms everywhere by "lightening their loads". So we kicked around ideas relating to the business. I wont go in to those details because they belong to her, but I will comment on the business name. She suggested calling it the Laundry Lady. We both liked the name and so like we had several times before, we parked it there and moved on to our next "brilliant" idea. So you may be wondering how this all relates and what my second idea was. For whatever reason, on this day - the second day of the conference - an alternate name for the business popped in to my head. What about calling the business The Mother Load. I later shared the idea with Stephanie via Facebook and we had some back and forth fun with it.

I don't know if the laundry service idea will ever come to fruition but on the third and final day of the conference I had another idea and that was to blend the two ideas above and create "The Mother Load" Blog. I love it, because for me it brings it all together. Seeing it and hearing it will always bring me back to that conference, it will always remind me of my friend and all of our ideas (some that I plan to share in future blogs) and it just seems to bring it full circle. For me I think it is "The Mother Load" of ideas!

So that is what brought me here and will bring me back.

Until my next idea,
Matthew

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” - George Bernard Shaw