Ideas, idea-sources, solution-ideas and problem-ideas

Many people say they "have a great idea". If you are a programmer it is likely that you have met people who neither have money, neither tech or domain skills, but some "killer idea" they think worths a billion.

I have figured we should define and seperate ideas from each other much better than now to understand the problem. Read on to find out how!

Various Ideas based on the approach

An idea is an idea, it can be everything, but how we group and define further meanings of ideas beloning to each group? I call them idea-kinds.

Idea kinds based on approach:

• Problem ideas: These are an idea of a problem to solve (create a cheap DIY AR-headset kit nearly as usable as Hololens)
• Solution ideas: These are an idea of a solution to some problem or possibility (for example the main spatial mapping hardware that is cheap enough to sell as a kit for AR headsets)

I hope you get the difference. A problem idea is that kind of an idea that is not much more than a wish: "I wish we could land on the moon". This is rarely helping anyone to reach the moon however, because there are countless people who are having "wishy ideas" like that - just so few people have ideas about how to put it together. Can an idea be a "problem idea" when a technical person says it? Yes, but mostly non-tech, business people tend to come up with these kind of "killer ideas". They better have money to spend on the idea, because in case they cannot work on the problem themselves too, these kind of ideas literally worth nothing.

What is a solution idea then? I hope you see that this is something that literally brings us closer to and on the moon - even if we do not originally wish for that, just find it possibility falling out from our idea later. This might be the idea of a multiple-stage rocket where every stage will fall down from the spacecraft when its fuel have been ran out so the weight of the craft decreases with dropped stages.

I have to point out, that a solution idea does not have to be as hard that only rocket scientists can come up with them!. Also no one said that there can be no solution ideas coming from the business side of the coin, but many-many-many cases only problem-ideas are being told...

Ideas and idea-sources

Also when I was tasked with creating a "creative workshop" at an IT and software development company I quickly made an online "innovation bank" that so sadly few people were using. There is a reason why few people were using it, but that does not count now - however the structure of it (invented by me) was really meaningful I think.

It had three main folders:

• Ideas: These were ideas - either solution- or problem-ideas.
• Idea sources: These were a collection of interesting new stuff that one should know about as you can have bottom-up designed ideas around them. These could be devices, technologies, software stacks, business models, equipments, frameworks, tools, etc.
• Creativity excercises: These were a collection of excercises that help creativity flourish. They are not meant to "create" creativity, but to help it grow when it appears and help to build an environment where creativity will appear.

I think many people completely forget about "idea-sources" when they are managing innovation. Hell they even forget about listing their very own, but already existing technologies!

Tags: idea, startup, creativity, definition, business, notech, software, ar, hololens, mr, idea-source, excercise, innovation, management