How To Create Great Ideas

The process is really four basic steps which I will outline below.

* generate
* discuss
* filter
* internalize
* repeat


Generate

The first step is to free yourself to having ideas. The key to being creative is trying. Write your ideas down. Be reckless. It won't hurt anybody. And keep in mind, Most ideas suck. This is OK. The goal is volume, not precision.

Discuss

Ideas have half lives.

Some of your ideas you will realize suck after a day. For others, it may take a few days. If an idea lasts longer than a few days in your head, it starts to become worth discussing, both to validate it, and, if after validation it survives, to enhance it. Therefore, you must have a circle of associates you can discuss your ideas with. You will quickly discover that some people are good for this, and some are not. There are people who you will want to discuss very raw ideas with, and others that can only add value to more mature, more fully internalized(see below) ideas. I call this group of people you can run your ideas by your "vetting circle."

You should have a variety of types of people in your vetting circle. And though I have named it here, the idea is not formal. You do not need to declare that someone is in this circle. It is good enough that you have people who you can feel comfortable and free to talk to, that can add value. Some people in your circle may add value just by being *observable* recipients of your idea. Often body language and tone can communicate more about someone's reaction than what they actually say. In fact I would argue you can learn more from people's body language than from their words. Of course its also great to have people you can go back and forth with about your idea who can directly help make it better.

Filter

Eventually, you will stumble upon ideas that you like even after a few days. There will be ideas that light people's eyes up. Of course even then, is it practical? Can you do it? Can you give it to someone else to do? The best is when an idea is both great and easy to do. If you are Elon Musk, having a great idea might be building a spaceship. And for him, that might even be doable. For you, a great idea that is doable might be adding a comment button to your home page. Great ideas are relative to who you are and what your needs, interests, capabilities and resources are.

Internalize

By thoroughly exploring an idea space, and living in it, you get to a new place of understanding. From there you can have deeper ideas and extensions that grow from the new understanding. If you keep iterating, you will have ideas that you could not have had before, because living in the new idea space allows you to see things differently. In software it is often helpful to actually build a prototype to maximize your ability to internalize something. In an earlier stage this might just be a drawing on a piece of paper. Creating observable instances of ideas is also great for sharing an idea that others may not be able to internalize as well as you.

This is also valuable for ideas that manifest in physical form. Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the Palm Pilot, built a balsa wood non-working Pilot prototype. Part of the early history of Palm is Jeff walking around with this wood block in his pocket, to feel what it would be like to carry a small handheld computer. However you do it, getting to a higher level of insight is like standing on a plateau. Depending on your spatial visualization ability, and the complexity of the idea, you may need something more or less concretely in front of you to fully internalize new ideas.

Repeat

The most critical element of this process is not stopping. Your goal should be to internalize your new ideas and then begin this process again while standing on your new plateau of insight. Every time you take an idea another level away from where you started, you are more and more likely to be thinking about something novel and valuable. And so, iteration in your ideation is key.