Some people need to communicate, but they do not have an audience. Their potentially great ideas are never heard, and they disappear when they die.

What a shame. People should have the opportunity to express their ideas. They should be sought out so that they could use their knowledge. This might save a tremendous amount of research money because the people who are doing the actual work might know a whole lot that the researchers in their ivory towers wouldn't even think of doing.

As an example, I was talking to a fellow who was working in an army and his job was to lay mines. He was quite an expert on mines in the field after working on it for several years. He was discussing the problem of people who get stuck in these mine fields. Sometimes the authorities have to send helicopters to evacuate people who were innocently caught up in a mine field.

He had a great idea. He said they should develop something that you could manufacture, sort of like the foam that kids spray on people during Independence Day or Purim. He envisions a material that could fit into a regular sized spray can, could expand to a very large volume, and which would harden quickly. The result would be similar to the polystyrene that you find in boxes of electronic equipment to keep it from getting damaged.

He claimed that a person could wait a reasonable amount of time until it hardens, say five or ten minutes, and then he would be able to walk safely on the polystyrene path that he created and he could leave the mine field safely.

This product does not seem very difficult to develop or invent. It would be a cheap solution to a serious problem, and it could save lives. My acquaintance had a brilliant idea, but he never had the opportunity to tell it to the right audience.

I asked him why he told me about his idea. Surely, he would be able to accomplish more by telling the right person in the army than by telling me. He said they never asked him so he never had the opportunity to say it. The army spent millions of shekels and dollars to develop products that might not be as good as this wonderful, simple, effective, inexpensive, and lightweight idea.

Communication involves listening

Communication requires that the right parties have a desire to listen. Those who who have things that are worthwhile to say would be able to say them to the right people at the right time, in the right way, without being hindered, and so that they would feel welcome in what they have to say. Some of the suggestions, of course, would not be appropriate, but a whole lot of them might make a whole lot of sense and might revolutionize the world, in this case the army.

All because the people have to be given the opportunity and the position and the chance to be able to say what they want to say and to have people listen to their important things.

Communication is much more than saying things the right way. It also means needs two other factors:

• The right audience
• An incentive to say their piece.
  • They must know that nobody will laugh at them
  • They must know that nobody will get upset at their opinion
  • They must know that their opinion will be welcomed