Google's Project 10 to 100 is an exciting initiative, but suffers from a serious flaw. Ideas to be submitted must be described in 300 words or less. Okay, so you're supposed to have a big idea and then describe the scope of that idea in fewer than 300 words? But what if a person with a good idea is not capable of writing very tersely? Then we'd all miss out on benefiting from the worth of their idea.
Suppose in 1989 Tim Berners-Lee had been asked to describe his idea for the world wide web -- in 300 words or less. Would he have been up to the task? Would he have been able to choose the right words to describe the scope and usefulness of the web? And would it be fair to ask him to do so?
Suppose you were called before Congress to testify on a matter of deep passion to you. When you step forward to testify you find out that your comments must be limited to 2 minutes or less. How would that feel? It would feel like they're not interested in hearing what you have to say.
Suppose in 1997 Sergey Brin and Larry Page were asked to describe Google to a potential investor and were required to limit their explanation to 300 words. Could they have explained in 300 words how Google is vastly different from other search engines? Big ideas, by their very nature, require more detailed explanation for people to understand how and why they're useful.
Famed folk singer Malvina Reynolds composed a charming song titled Little Boxes, back in 1962. I couldn't help but think of "little boxes" when I came across the submission page for Project 10 to the 100.
The human imagination does not like to be boxed in. Confinement scares away good ideas. We can't afford for good ideas to be scared away.
Google has made a mistake on this. There's time to make a correction, but not much time.
Phil Shapiro
The blogger is a community activist, professor of education and technology commentator in the Washington DC-area. He can be reached at: philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
Prior blog postings -
YouTube Reaches a Billion Video Views per Day
After Lightning Strikes, One iMac Becomes Two
It Feels Like Freedom is Coming
Book Review - Google SketchUp for Dummmies
Using Screencasts to Communicate with Local Government
Visiting Google's Cafe Thoreau
