Hey-
Lately, I’ve been keeping a book on my desk called Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson.
Here’s his TED Talk on the idea of ideas and innovation:
As we head into the fall and winter, still wrestling with the pandemic, it seems important to think about innovation and ideas and come up with some new ones to deal with the aftermath of the pandemic.
This morning, I wanted to drop three ways that I come up with new ideas into the newsletter in the hopes that you find them useful.
10 Ideas Practice:
I learned this from a guy called James Altucher. And, when I actually use it, the increase in ideas comes pretty rapidly.
I also remember reading a book called Goals by Brian Tracy in my late-20s when I was sitting in my office late one night trying to figure out ways to sell more tickets that said to pull out a piece of paper and to not stop writing down ideas until you hit 20.
And, Seth Godin had this to say on ideas.
The point with all of this is that one way that you can create breakthrough ideas is by having more ideas, period.
Don’t judge them. Just push them out.
Steal From Other Areas:
Y’all have probably heard me talk about lovingly stealing before. This is exactly what I mean by that.
My friend, Zoe Scaman, talks about being a magpie, and in her telling, she follows what is interesting to figure out how to make cool stuff.
She might define it differently than I do, but it is the same thing.
We both are out there looking for ideas in new and unusual places, then bringing them back to what we are working on at the time.
In practice, what does this look like?
Maybe you are a marketer in B2B…why not steal something from hotels and hospitality?
Maybe you are in sports business. Why not steal from the world of B2B?
Possibly you are in education marketing. Have you looked at what folks are doing in B2C?
Add or Subtract from Your Current Ideas:
Y’all should be familiar with the concept of bundling and unbundling services.
If you are an American, god forbid you to try to unbundle your cable package! Am I right?
Another way I think through this stuff is by adding and subtracting from the original idea.
In the before times, I was doing a lot of workshops…I called them “The Whiteboard Workshop” and we’d have a great day together going through a business, uncovering goals and sticking points, clarifying where the business was going and how the business would win, and, finally, assigning action items and responsibilities.
Great stuff!
A lot of fun for me and the people I was working with.
As we’ve been going on with the pandemic, I’ve been thinking about how to bundle and unbundle the workshop to deliver it virtually or independently.
The same can apply to any idea.
This isn’t a comprehensive list of ways to generate new ideas or innovations on an idea, but they are my three go-to techniques because they are the ones that I use most frequently.
Do y’all have any ideas to share?
If so, I’ll collect them and stick them in next week’s note or on the blog!
Dave