No Such Thing as a Bad Idea

They say there is no such thing as a bad idea. Alex Osborn, considered by many to be the father of brainstorming, believed that in order to be successful at brainstorming, participants must “suspend judgement.” Osborn, like most savvy brainstorm leaders, understood the perils of what happens when people start criticising ideas in the midst of a session. And most every effective group idea generation methodology continues the tradition.

Now whilst this might be true, when looking back at some of the name ideas we had for the company, there were definitely some VERY bad ideas!

The name Charm was inspired by a story our CEO, Gav, heard when travelling in Kenya with a friend of his. He was driving past Uhuru (Freedom) Park in Nairobi when he was told that this was one of the parks where Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai used to protest. His friend went on to explain to him who Wangari Maathai was and all of her amazing accomplishments, not just her Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Gav continued his research of Wangari and saw a video of her telling the fable of the Hummingbird on YouTube, which is told as follows:

The story of the hummingbird is about this huge forest being consumed by a fire. All the animals in the forest come out and they are transfixed as they watch the forest burning and they feel very overwhelmed, very powerless, except this little hummingbird. It says, ‘I’m going to do something about the fire!’ So it flies to the nearest stream and takes a drop of water. It puts it on the fire, and goes up and down, up and down, up and down, as fast as it can.

In the meantime all the other animals, much bigger animals like the elephant with a big trunk that could bring much more water, are standing there helpless. And they are saying to the hummingbird, ‘What do you think you can do? You are too little. This fire is too big. Your wings are too little and your beak is so small that you can only bring a small drop of water at a time.’

But as they continue to discourage it, it turns to them without wasting any time and it tells them, ‘I am doing the best I can.’ And that to me is what all of us should do. We should always be like a hummingbird. I may be insignificant, but I certainly don’t want to be like the animals watching the planet goes down the drain. I will be a hummingbird, I will do the best I can.

We loved this fable and saw the powerful imagery and ideas that it evokes. But imagine if there were not just one hummingbird, but a hundred, a thousand or even a million hummingbirds, each adding their drops to the fire. How much bigger would their impact be?

Well, a flock of hummingbirds is actually known as a charm.

We want everyone to be part of this movement and part of our Charm,adding their drops together to make a huge impact!