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IdeaGenerator
MeatballWiki | RecentChanges | Random Page | Indices | CategoriesThere are people who spawn new ideas, with a high percentage of good ones, far more often than average. These are IdeaGenerators?. Unfortunately, fleshing out an idea, and testing it against other ideas, requires a good deal of time - so IdeaGenerators? need either a group of people to work within who can help flesh out, test, enlarge, and discard, or they need an unusual kind of fanaticism, which enables them to spin off and complete their ideas (when the rest of us are sleeping).
Was any good project made great without an IdeaGenerator?
discussion...
In my experience...
- An "idea" is generally a statement of an insight into how a recognized problem (a "need") can be resolved.
- "Ideas are a dime a dozen. What really creates a successful business is a good implementation team" - A quote from a (forgotten, but respected) public figure with a lot of entrepreneurial experience.
- Most people (and especially "Idea Generators") would be very well advised to specialize in doing those things that they are best at, and collaborating with other folk who have stronger skills that are the other Necessary But Not Sufficient components of a project.
- ...
-- HansWobbe
I work as a system administrator on an university, together with a team of other students. There are a lot of ideas and innovations introduced into the system by bored students -- interestingly, the best of them are the ones created "on the side", without telling anyone, just to see whether they will work or not. The ideas that someone come up and then someone else implemented tend to just lie there unused and be discarded after a while -- somehow they don't "catch on". For some time we had one guy in our team that was an "idea generator". He was universally hated by all of us, to the point at which we had to split out ways. He had hundreds of ideas, and he insisted on implementing them -- but most of them were out of the scope of his expertise, so he'd pressure others to implement his ideas. There is no moral in this story, I just somehow felt it may be relevant.
I think this page is a good "crux" point. I like both the page itself, and each comment.
I would contribute a reference.
It's a book, called [The Myths of Innovation,] and it's my new bible.
What I would change in this page, is the idea that: "There are people who spawn new ideas, with a high percentage of good ones, far more often than average."
I'm not sure what I'd change it too, but there's something very fishy about this line to me.
If I may shoot from the hip:
- Ideas, in themselves, are not "good" or "bad;" Rather, it's the applicability of an idea to a context.
- Sensitivity to context is a major factor in making a good idea.
- I've noticed that Lady Luck gets a lot of respect from those who've made things that have worked.
- Society is usually an element of context. Even if you come up with a mathematical proof, there has to be a society ready to listen to it.
"Good" ideas fail, for social reasons, as do "bad" reasons. Further, society is partially reasonable. Understanding and inducing society is a part of many innovations. Then again, some times things just happen by accident.
-- LionKimbro