Look Out The Window: Write the Press Release First

Talk about a great way to look out the window! According to this article from Wired, the way to pitch an idea to Jeff Bezos at Amazon was to write a press release. (You only need to read the first three grafs of the Wired piece -- the rest is about Amazon's foray into cloud computing.)

What a brilliant idea this is. Not because press releases are so important (they aren't, and sometimes aren't even needed at all.) It's that the exercise of writing the press release first is the epitome of looking out -- rather than in -- when evaluating a new idea. It forces you to answer the question: Is this interesting to anyone but us?

I'd love to try this.