Ideas are the new Gold. As products, processes and resources become more plentiful, ubiquitous and easy to create; ideas will become the new currency. Companies will be made or broken on great ideas that can be executed into great plans.
There is a gold-rush happening. That gold rush is the commercialization of innovation.
As more skills, specializations are either off shored or become commodities the creative economy will rise. And I intend to be right in the middle of it.
Where will you be?
At school we were taught that there is only one way to solve a problem. With test and essays, we had to provide an answer exactly in accordance to the teachers answer book.
If I were to ask you what is 7 and 7 equal, the only answer is 14? right?
Wrong. I have not said what 7 is, whether its a number 7 or 7 eggs or written like “Seven” or any other definition.
The point from this silly example is that there is always more than one way to do anything. This is a key insight to the innovation process.
What do we do when we are thinking of ideas? We often stop thinking of new ideas once we come to one we think is right. This is exactly the mentality as the 7 + 7 example.
Keep going, create more ideas. You will find miracles.
Seth Godin writes a timeless article on following ideas:
Walter Hunt patented the safety pin almost exactly 160 years ago.
It looks an awful lot like a fibula, which, of course, is used to hold your toga shut.
My friend Kevin has one (not a toga, a fibula). An old one. He’s very proud of it.
So, the question that Walter Hunt didn’t ask is this, “Why should I bother patenting the safety pin? It’s already been done. I mean, even John Belushi has a fibula.”
Just about everything has a strike against it. It’s either already been done or it’s never been done. Ignore both conditions. Pushing an idea through the dip of acceptance is far more valuable than inventing something that’s never existed… and then walking away from it.
Great Ideas alone don’t guarantee success. Original ideas don’t either. Success is accomplished using a combination of execution and more importantly timing. Why do I say timing? There were dozens of video sharing sites before YouTube. Dozens of web mail applications before Gmail and many social networks before MySpace and Facebook. What these successful iterations did was combine an already embraced concept and take successful elements of the old and slightly adjust and tweak the features to what users really wanted. The timing had to be right for these companies to succeed. Timing as in: features, the date, current events, market overview, morale.
Often I talk to other entrepreneurs about ideas and they are reluctant to tell me as I might “steal their ideas”. The truth is that I have too much to work on myself and am not interested in the slightest in stealing their ideas. Most likely the idea is not my passion, so therefore not worthy of me. Its an interesting psychology. Lets compare:
Form Idea: Keep it under-wraps. Start to create product: tell people. Finish product: Tell everyone
It works better like this
Form Idea: Tell Everyone. Start to create product:Keep it under-wraps Finish product: Tell everyone
The reason being is I could talk about a product but you don’t really know the details of it. There is only a slight but small danger in sharing ideas and that is being beaten to market 1/2 way through a design, when you have time and resources invested. The risk is minimal. On the bright-side, you will have someone to compare against.
Most companies have contractors. These companies ask these contractors to cover travel costs. Some of these companies are slow to pay back these costs to the contractors. There should be a way for the contractor to charge interest to get their money back on time.
Think a contractor bank/fund protection for contractors. Valuable insurance.
