Us creatives do this thing a lot where we come up with an idea and put it on the backlog, where it stays until it grows old and grey.

It’s a sad place – like the “waiting place” in Dr. Seuss’ books where everybody waits forever.

What frustrates me, though, is not when someone abandons a good idea. It’s when they share it out in the open… and nobody does anything about it. Especially if the idea has “revolutionary value”.

Example:

There are 1000+ talks on TED.com. Some of them are revolutionary — meaning they should be used as a starting point for a worldwide disruption. Whether it involves disrupting the educational, health, or business field, it has to be done for the good of mankind. Yet, nobody disrupts anything.

The knowledge is there all pretty and powerful, but nobody acts on it because they don’t have the power to, and those who do haven’t seen this talk, so we’re back to square one. Oy vey.

And just when I was completely frustrated with the system…

I got a revelation.

The revelation came in the form of a — surprise surprise — TED talk. But not just any old talk, but THE talk of all talks. And the only reason I call it that is because it has potentially solved the open source dilemma.

(The dilemma being — free information but zero follow-through.)

So this is the TED talk:

Notice anything different? It has its own page (timewellspent.io) that includes information about how you can make a difference and apply the principle. There’s also a list of cool resources on the bottom. But most of all, there’s the call to action: get involved.

Think about it for a second. This person didn’t leave his idea hanging. He took it and made a “thing” out of it. So naturally I posted in on Product Hunt, and even though I don’t know how many people actually got involved, I can tell you it got 24 upvotes. (That’s before they removed it.)

Mind the ripple effect.

I’ve experienced this a lot of times — someone says something, I remember and repeat to someone else, and it ends in a collaboration, or someone posts something on social media and before you know it, it’s everywhere.

One tiny action can result in a tidal wave.

Let us all remember #thedress – not sure who posted the first tweet, but I’m sure that’s what started the chain. And it’s still going…

So because I am a self-professed do-gooder, I’ve decided to always spread the word about anything that could improve humanity or at least a tiny part of it. This is why I formed the “This Helps People” collection on Product Hunt. It’s full of admirable projects.

Even if you think nobody will hear you that doesn’t mean the ripples won’t spread. Bear this in mind the next time you hear about a cool idea and share it. Sharing is a small action that means someone’s doing something about it. Who knows, maybe the person you share it with and the one they share it with will form a chain that leads to the right hands.

And then our best ideas won’t be “hanging” anymore. They become real.

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P.S. If you love TED talks as much as I do, read “5 Brilliant TED Talks for Leaders“.