{
  "id": "protect-the-fragile-thing",
  "number": "050",
  "edition": "Practice",
  "title": "Protect the fragile thing",
  "standfirst": "The problems in an early idea are visible before its possibilities are.",
  "when": "A new idea is being evaluated as though it should already be complete.",
  "way": "Early ideas are partial and structurally fragile. Their defects are easy to name while their possibilities remain hard to articulate. Criticism that will later strengthen the work can destroy it when applied before it has enough form to defend itself.",
  "tryThis": "Separate today's conversation into two rounds: first ask what the idea might become; only then ask what it currently lacks.",
  "notice": "Which possibility needed a little protection before it could become discussable?",
  "person": "Jony Ive",
  "source": "The Contemporary Blueprint archive",
  "quote": "Ideas, by definition, are always fragile.\nIf they were resolved, they wouldn’t be ideas — they would be products that were ready to ship.\nI’ve come to learn that you have to make an extraordinary effort not to focus on the problems implicated with any new idea. Those problems are known. They’re quantifiable and understood.\nBut you have to focus on the actual idea — which is partial, tentative, and unproven.\nIf you don’t actively suspend your disbelief, if you don’t believe there is a solution to the problems, of course you will lose faith in your idea.\nThat is why criticism — and focusing on the problems — can be so damaging, particularly in the absence of a constructive idea.\nRemember: opinions are not ideas. Opinions are not as important as ideas. Opinions are just opinions.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://youtu.be/a6lxJdkaUMc",
  "contexts": [
    "stuck",
    "decide",
    "begin"
  ],
  "free": true,
  "related": [
    "build-before-explaining",
    "change-the-conditions",
    "put-it-outside-your-head"
  ],
  "sourceArchive": "The Contemporary Blueprint",
  "referenceKind": "quotation",
  "referenceExcerpt": "Ideas, by definition, are always fragile. If they were resolved, they wouldn’t be ideas — they would be products that were ready to ship. I’ve come to learn that you have to make an extraordinary effort not to focus on the problems implicated with any new idea. Those problems are known. They’re quantifiable and understood. But you have to focus on the actual idea — which is partial, tentative, and unproven."
}