Introduction:

A thought or a suggestion is all that an idea is, right? Unfortunately, the thought of creating an idea worth listening to or investing time into has become an uphill battle. In our busy lifestyle, our pursuit of achievement or lack of process is inhibiting us from creating our million-dollar idea. When did we lose our sense of creation? Why is it so hard to find again? For most business owners or entrepreneurs developing an idea for a new product, service or post has become an everyday part of the job. So what’s the best approach to developing new ideas all the time? Let’s look at three ways to generate better ideas for your business.

I have spent the better half of my career in medical device marketing. Part of the marketing role is to help develop new products. Although it might seem like there’s a special lab with exceptional scientists just testing and dreaming up new medical miracles like the pacemaker, there’s more to it. There are testing labs and fancy scientists with fancy equipment, but the idea part comes way before this. There is a rich and thorough process to develop an idea for a new medical device. It starts with Research on a problem, then moves to competitive analysis, and then on to the voice of the customers. In the voice of the customer process, the idea takes form or mass. We would interview 50+ physicians with the same questions and record the responses. The creation of the next new device was in the notes. These notes served as a way to document the answers to common problems in the physician’s practice. We would eventually boil down the notes into one big idea. Like many new product development departments, they have systemized the process of creating an idea.

Next, let’s take a look at a different industry completely. Let’s look at how the artist generated a new ideal from a very familiar concept. There’s a company called Nanoleaf Design and they make light fixtures. The first product was an energy-efficient light bulb that looked just like any other light bulb. They thought this would be a hit since it was helping create a better, sustainable plant, but sales were weak, and the cost of production was high. So they had to come up with another product. They need a new, unique product to encourage people to purchase their energy-efficient product. They started thinking about how people interacted with the product and how they used light. They did extensive Research or note-taking on how consumers interacted with light. They noticed that most people interacted with light the way they do while sitting outside. The light is all around them and not coming from one spot on the ceiling. They discovered that they needed to think more abstractly. They needed to feel like an artist. So they hired a team of artists to design the following product. The Nanoleaf team eventually created LED light panels that mimic natural light. So maybe the idea creation process is taking a step back and adding more value to your existing product or idea.

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I think we’ve kind of lost the science behind creating an idea. We’ve got a myth that the next big idea comes to us naturally or while we’re meditating on a mountainside. In the medical device example, the ideation creation process is rooted in note-taking. Is the ideal process ever-flowing, and we’ve just missed writing it down. In our Nanoleaf example, the idea process is rooted in taking a different look at an existing idea and adding value. Next time you’ve got a bad case of writer’s block or a new service idea isn’t taking off, take a step back, take better notes of your activities and interactions, and think abstractly about your day-to-day task to generate the next idea.