An amusing take on generating new ideas — try your luck, this might work better than a slots machine.
On a more serious note, there are several “structured innovation” techniques that actually work — the one that I had a chance to study sometime back is TRIZ. Check it out!
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Hi it is a good discussion about idea generation, but my opinion is something different. Every mind generate ideas but not all relative to hi/her work. So most of them are gone after sometime because of lack of interest and execution. So the most important issue is how to generate ideas in your interest of field. Very simple but first think on the following
If you want to cut a harvest of rice then you first must have the seed for it. In the same way. if you want to have a billion dollar website on social networking then it will be your harvest…ok…
Now from where the seed will come…..
Simple, if you are having a enough knowlegde in this field or know how the orkut, youtube, myspace etc are working it means your mind is capable enough to generate that idea or seed. but its not generating…
ok… now the conclusion is our brian is now knows what it has to generate (seed for social networking website) and it is capable enough to generate it(knowledge of that mind), …. now your mind need the special kind of signals in which state it can boost its creativity. or you can say that we need a level of conciousness where our unconsciousness meet it.
in simple words….how to generate that signal;
Just think like a dream waver or like story writter of bollywood movies all exageratted things are in your favour, you are doing every thing well, your website is issuing its IPO etc………..I means focus on your harvest…when it will be clear to your mind …..after few days.. then it will start working on it at conscious level and start saying no you can not fly in air because you are not having wings, but your conscious will say ok we can use a plane or a helicopter.. after a few days or weeks mat be months and years.. without doing any extra effort it will generate the best and the polish idea on it.
I known it need few more explanation which may take many more minutes to read.
yes one thing more dear friend i have tested it on a lot of ideas and now i am enjoying this supernatural art of idea generating
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While TRIZ leans more on the structural relativity of patterns in both problems and solutions, Random theory bases itself on the expression – “tinker on endlessly, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.” Both station at extremes.
If you would notice, in both postulates there is a visible hurry to “label” a method which is antithetical to intuitive element that fuels innovation. Possibilities are limitless from initiatives charged by curiosity, than by a deliberate quest for a solution. But Randomness taken too far tends to bleed a project pushing it to the point of no return – need to put firm “stop loss” plugs in place.
Structured innovations stop at achieving desired results and venture no further. But that’s where the innovative adventure begins 🙂
Interesting thought there, Alok. Perhaps my thought process was fuelled by what Krish said about sub-prime being a structured innovation rather than TRIZ itself.
Since Taleb was a derivatives and a lot of his earlier thoughts are based on financial randomness (or the lack thereof). The subprime problem today and the earlier risk issues with Long Term Capital in 1998 are attributable to black swans turning up. (“Only a small percentage of loans default”)
A digression: Sub-prime lending (the whole series of stuff) has a lot of structure, there’s a market, there is finance, there is leverage. It’ll work fantastically, except when interest rates are high AND the housing market falls AND inflation looms large AND $700 billion worth loans are resetting in the next year AND default rates are 30%+ already AND balance sheets are too leveraged. What are the chances of that.
(I just read http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2004/10/07.pdf to see how TRIZ was applied to financial principles. Some aspects like asymmetry etc. are what ignore low probability stuff)
What Taleb says is:
“Even academics are starting to realize that a considerable component of medical discovery comes from the fringes, where people find what they are not exactly looking for. It is not just that hypertension drugs led to Viagra or that angiogenesis drugs led to the treatment of macular degeneration, but that even discoveries we claim come from research are themselves highly accidental. They are the result of undirected tinkering narrated after the fact, when it is dressed up as controlled research. The high rate of failure in scientific research should be sufficient to convince us of the lack of effectiveness in its design.”
and
“Trial-and-error has error in it; and most top-down traditional rational and academic environments do not like the fallibility of “error” and the embarrassment of not quite knowing where they’re going. The U.S. fosters entrepreneurs and creators, not exam-takers, bureaucrats or, worse, deluded economists. So the perceived weakness of the American pupil in conventional studies is where his or her very strength may lie. The American system of trial and error produces doers: Black Swan-hunting, dream-chasing entrepreneurs, with a tolerance for a certain class of risk-taking and for making plenty of small errors on the road to success or knowledge.
– – –
If, when we structure innovation, we reduce the chance of accidental discovery or even error, we’re probably less likely to innovate in the first place.
I understand that going behind accidental innovation is impossible (it’s like trying to get lost). But if try hajaar things and aren’t afraid to fail you will accidentally innovate and going by Taleb’s view, you’ll do that more often than not. What I think Taleb means is – ditch trying to structure the process and tinker with whatever you’re going to. Something is bound to blow and that’ll get you going.
Lesson in this for me is that just because certain things in an excel sheet aren’t looking fantastic, there’s no need to get knickers in twists. Go ahead and try it out, something is bound to happen. That facebook post of yours, now, for instance…..