NBT005: Secrecy

I like talking. This is not news to anyone who knows me. I like to talk about myself, what I'm up to, funny things that happened to me on the way to the other thing… I also love talking about other people, and listening. I'm not the most interesting topic of conversation, but if I come up, I'm an expert on me.

Anyway, one of the side-effects of working on my Next Big Thing is that it's often necessary to keep schtum about exciting developments. This is only going to get worse as I enter the lurid landscape of Intellectual Property law.

The unhappy issue that this kind of silence brings is that it makes it difficult to really gauge how useful something might be, or what the tastemakers around you might think of it. Playing your cards close to your chest means no-one's around to tell you if they're worth playing.

If I were braver or had more profile I'd probably shout from the rooftops in my normal boisterous way, safe in the knowledge that no-one would be foolhardy enough to rip off an idea by the great and powerful Me. But that's not the case… yet, so for now, shhh…

It's important not to underestimate how big a deal IP is at this early stage. Social media hipsters would probably say I'm being paranoid and a bit Old Media by being so guarded, but what I have may just be something no-one's ever done before. Not like Meegloo, which tries to do social reporting "but better"; this might be something using technology that, although not in its infancy, hasn't yet reached its zenith.

So first comes the business plan, then the non-disclosure agreement (or should that be the other way round?) and after that, who knows?