A great way to pitch an idea is to tell a story.  Explain how you came up with your idea by explaining the situation, the problem that arose, and the difficulty you experienced in solving it. If your situation  resonates with your audience then you’ll have an easier time explaining your idea and how it would have solved the problem.

For example, the idea for Twegather came from the experience of planning a “geek” BBQ. We used Twitter to communicate the BBQ and soon we found that people were replying to and retweeting the invitation. The word spread quickly.  The problem was we had no way to easily track how many were coming, how many were thinking about it and how many couldn’t make it. Our idea was to build an application that would keep track of this for us.

Now I’m not saying that telling a great yarn means you’ve got a great idea. Others may not feel the same urgency as you did to solve the problem. But at least it won’t be because they didn’t “get it”.

All great ideas originate this way. They solve a concrete problem in a simple way. Now it’s up to you to explain your idea in a way that people will understand.

Care to try your hand at telling your idea as a story? Come out to TeamCamp this Thursday, November 3rd. RSVP here.

- Chris

PS – For more great ideas on pitching ideas  read the book “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath. The Heath brothers reveal the anatomy of ideas that “stick” and explain sure-fire methods for making ideas stickier. You can download the first chapter here. Interestingly, the process of making an idea sticky, i.e. keeping it simple; making it unexpected, concrete, credible and emotional; and then telling it as a story; is a great way to test if you’re on to something.