Is your idea a “Place Holder”?
Maybe you’re asking yourself, “What exactly is a place holder?”
When you submit a short description of a general idea with “more to come soon” or “will follow up later” essentially, you are putting a little “reserved” sign on your idea, which we call a place holder.
However, there are complex questions that come with place holders- for example what happens when the idea basics are “reserved” but never come back to and developed into a more elaborate picture?
“Reserved” signs
I used to work at a restaurant and nothing was more frustrating than when a table was saved for a reservation (little reserved sign and all) and the diners wouldn’t show up and wouldn’t even cancel the reservation! So we had saved the table all night, turning people away for no reason.
That’s kind of how we feel when we see a place holder that is never come back to or developed further. A potential creative and innovative experience isn’t fulfilled because the “owner” isn’t there to think it out.
–Okay, we know everyone is busy and has loads of other important things to do (on and off platform) so we understand, sometimes it happens that you can’t come back to your place holder idea–
So what to do?
We know every case is different- so there is no one way to handle all place holders. But when you know there’s an idea you’re not able to come back to- please leave a comment underneath and let others know you aren’t going to develop this idea and someone can either, collaborate with you or begin with this idea as their base.. It’s most considerate to let the idea continue on it’s way!
About the author
Jess is Community Manger at jovoto, spending her time creating dialog and encourage ideas with the community. She is also responsible in assisting jovoto’s communication outreach and growth.
i’m so glad you guys are bringing this up, this happens very often!
I know! I did this a lot recently and could not finished my ideas… My apologies.
From my experience I would recomend that if you really have a good idea and want to have a ‘place holder’ in a contest go ahead, but dont do it qith many ideas cause you would not even focus properly in any of them and the achieved results would not be the best. Better to have a good one, well developed, than many crappy ones…
this comment is a place holder for something real clever i hope to say later if i have time.
It’s all about taking time to develop the ideas that are important to you and the community is responsive to. It’s true, it’s about quality, not quantity!
nothing around here is about quality. in fact the reason so many ideas never get developed is because they are immediately bashed and the owner decides in the end not to invest time into their vision, since it is a complete gamble whether a majority of simpletons will accept what they don’t comprehend.
Good subject, Jess. ;o) I think it helps if people keep asking questions about placeholders: When do you show the update? Are you still working on it? etc. I had this when I uploaded a mere sketch in a contest and didn´t at once find the time to develop it. People kept asking and lamenting, so I finally had to do something – helped me a lot. ;o)
Good suggestion Janne. It’s true, encouragement is an important factor.. And I’m glad it has worked for you!