DESCRIPTION:
One of my most ardent beliefs is “An idea shared is an idea squared.” I have had that philosophy since my early days in advertising. It carried through to my work in radio and later to QVC and other DRTV projects.

I have always loved astronomy. Growing up on a farm in an area with little light pollution, I saw a lot through my “Sears Best” telescope. When we started to sell them on QVC, I remembered an old article I had read in the 1950’s about astrophotography. The magazine, Popular Science, I believe, showed a technique for taking photos through a telescope without using a physical interface. I tried it and got some wonderful photos of the moon and the rings of Saturn.

I wondered if the technique would work with a camcorder. I tried it at home with a sample of the telescope we would be selling. It worked great although, like taking still photos through a telescope, it required a little trial and error practice. But I got some stunning video of the craters and mountains of the moon. I dubbed the process astrovideography.

The night we were going to sell the telescope on QVC, the folks in the control room offered to transfer my video to their equipment, which made it much easier to play on the air. We sold a record number of telescopes at midnight (it was a Today’s Special Value). The phones really spiked when we showed the moon video. I told the producer to make a note that the other hosts could use my video and wrote up a little explanation so they could tell the viewers how to do it just as I had during my presentation.

My immediate superior called me at home the next morning and asked me if the other hosts could use my video. I told him they were already using it. I was surprised that he called to ask since I always let the other hosts use anything I had done to help us sell more. He thanked me and the company even gave me a nice bonus for my efforts.

Whenever you can help your team, you should. I have always held to the notion that there’s no limit to what someone can do as long as he or she doesn’t care who gets the credit (a quote attributed to many people). My moon video opened up the telescope business for QVC. After the success of the first telescope we did entire hours of ‘scopes, selling everything from simple reflectors to large refractors and even some catadioptric units, which are very sophisticated and advanced. Not too shabby for a TV shopping channel. I took video for all the ‘scopes we sold using the Moon, Mars, Venus and the Rings of Saturn. Telescopes had a very long and successful run on the Q.

If I hadn’t shared my efforts with the team, we might not have had the sales necessary to continue selling telescopes. As I’ve said many times, every time I share an idea or technique, I get an idea for another. With one very powerful telescope, I took video and still photos. I even had a custom 2 by 3 foot print made. That telescope became the biggest seller in company history when people realized they could use their still cameras to create some good looking enlargements to hang in their homes.

An idea shared is an idea squared. It works every time!