“We are entering the era of Ideanomics,” said US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan at the beginning of the new millennium. Not surprisingly, others state “Ideas are the currency of the 21st century,” indicating the central importance of ideas in the Age of Value Creation. What do you know about ideas? In today’s article and in two weeks from now, let’s discuss ten important aspects that you need to understand about ideas.
1. Ideas are the starting point of innovation: Ideas are the driving force behind the development of mankind; they kick-start innovation. This finds its reflection in the definition of the term innovation by long-term innovation leader 3M as “new ideas — plus action or implementation — which results in an improvement, a gain or a profit.” As such, you may have the best innovation management system in place in your firm, but if your people and you think you’re not creative and cannot generate interesting ideas, you will not have tangible innovation results. So remember the words of the French cleric Ernest Dimnet: “Ideas are the root of creation.”
2. Ideas are intangible. The Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw helps us to understand another important aspect of ideas: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” While apples are tangible, ideas are intangible. Because of their intangible nature, more than one person can use an idea. For a creator, this is both good news and bad news.
The good news is that it allows us to collaborate with others during ideation and brainstorming exercises; one person might have an idea, and others can build on it or refine and improve on it. The bad news is that the intangible and exchangeable character of an idea makes it easy for people to steal a good idea and use it for their own benefit without compensating the creator. Therefore, as an innovator or an innovative company, make sure to protect your idea by registering your Intellectual Property. Then, trust or hope that you can legally enforce your ownership rights in court in case of IP violations.
3. Ideas are transient: Here is a question for you: If you order a pizza from a delivery service, do you immediately start eating the pizza when it arrives? Or do you wait for minutes, hours or days until the pizza is cold, rancid and stale? Learn a lesson from this metaphor on how to treat your ideas: Eat the pizza while it’s hot. Write down a good idea the moment you think of it.
Ideas are transient. They vanish from our minds if we don’t write them down immediately. So make it a habit to jot down ideas right away in a notebook, on a napkin or any piece of paper. Or if you are geekier, speak your idea out loud while recording it on your mobile phone. Remember that you can deal with an idea at a later stage, but you must note it down as soon as possible.
4. Ideas need to have an action element. An idea can be defined as “a thought or suggestion about a possible course of action.” Do you still remember 3M’s definition of innovation from the beginning of this article? In short, it’s: meaningful ideas + action = innovation. So note that an idea sentence must have an action element to enable you to take action and arrive at innovation. So linguistically speaking, if you write down an idea, your idea sentence needs to contain a verb. An idea sentence consists of at least one verb and one noun (or adjective). For example, “Advertise in the Bangkok Post” is an idea, “Bangkok Post” is not.
5. Ideas come to us as visuals: Think of the moment when you receive or hear an idea. Does the idea come to your mind in the form of a written sentence that you cognitively see in front of your mind and then read out? Or is it more that you see the idea as an image or activated short-movie in front of your eyes? Or even both? Chances are that ideas come to you as visuals, particularly if you are naturally more of a visual thinker. In addition to verbally expressing your idea in an idea sentence as described above, consider adding visual explanations and context to your idea with a simple sketch or a quick-and-dirty drawing. If you communicate your idea both verbally and visually, it is easier for others to understand your idea and its value, and you will notice that people are more attracted to an idea that contains a visual element.
In two weeks from today, we will continue this article with the final five recommendations on how to deal with ideas.
© Dr. Detlef Reis 2009. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 27 August 2009.