Dear ADB Community,

We want your ideas.  Wait!  Hear us out.  Think about it til you’re done reading this post and if you think of a business, nonprofit, development or social change idea (or fragment of an idea) that you think might make the world a better place (even if it sounds ridiculous or ridiculously small), follow this link and publish it online for someone to pick up and run with.  Let’s open source the social change idea marketplace!

We published an article a couple months ago about a project that Seth Godin gave students in his 6 month alternative MBA course.  All 9 students were given a week to come up with 111 business ideas each, to demonstrate Godin’s contention that ideas are worthless and execution is priceless.  To underline this point, all 999 ideas were published free to the world, free for anyone to pick up and execute.  You can check them out at here.

We have huge numbers of young, talented and eager people out there looking for inspiration and so many wonderful ideas that people are too busy to develop or are otherwise unable to pursue.  In a small effort to open source this mutha and open up the idea marketplace we want to replicate Seth’s 999 free ideas project with a social change twist.  In conjunction with the the social change group FutureShifters, ADB is compiling a list of user-generated ideas for social businesses and social change initiatives.  If we get a good response we’ll compile all the ideas and publish them here on the site.

Do you have a rough sketch of an idea that might help shove the world in the right direction?  Publish it for the world to read!  It can be for profit, nonprofit, big, small, tongue in cheek or dead serious.  Maybe it’s been eating at you for a while or maybe you just thought of it this second (or you will by the time you finish this email), either way, share it with the world.

Don’t have the details worked out?  Don’t think it would work in the real world?  Wouldn’t have that big an impact?  Not sure people would go for it?  Think someone somewhere is probably already doing it?  Share it anyway!!  Who knows, maybe someone will read it and run with it.  Maybe they’ll take it in a direction you never even thought of.  Maybe your idea, that you were never gonna do anything with anyway, will inspire someone to pursue their own world changing idea.  You never know.

The post’s almost over, have you thought of an idea to share?

Here’s how to share it: Go to http://futureshifter.ning.com/forum/topics/your-big-ideas and click on the “Reply To This” arrow at the bottom of the introduction to post a comment with a 1-4 sentence outline of your idea.  That’s it, easy as pie.

Looking for inspiration or just curious what other people are thinking about?  After you post your idea stick around and read what other people have submitted.  If something strikes you, run with it.  Remember, the ideas are worthless by themselves but you have the potential to make them invaluable with the right execution.

Thank you all, we can’t wait to read what you come up with.  Please pass this to all your friends and let the idea sharing begin!

Your Friends @ ADB