Idea Generation


Ever experienced this? You’re sitting in front of your chosen medium – a blank page waiting to be filled with wit, a blank canvas waiting to be infused with the perfect collaboration of colours — or perhaps your trusty sitar, waiting to strum out your next opus…but you can’t think of a single idea to fill the void.

There are many ways to generate new ideas. You can use a mindmap, an online idea generator, or make a wheel of ideas and give it a spin when your well of creativity has gone dry.  There’s even an app for your next million dollar idea.

Chances are, you are full of ideas. You have them all the time, but might not have a process to store them until you can actually do something with them.  Find a way to store these ideas, and then take the time to review them on a daily or weekly basis. Record your ideas as you have them on your smartphone, tablet, iPod, or computer, or write them in your hipster PDA, moleskin, or even the cocktail napkin at your neighbourhood pub. When the idea hits you, write it down and look at it later. Some ideas seem brilliant at first glance, but a quick second look reveals that it probably should never see the light of day. (Battlefield Earth, anyone?)

If your ideas look good on the second or third glance, create a plan to put them into action. Or you could wait for someone else to do it so that you can tell everyone that it was your idea first – but you were too busy to make it happen.

Generate your ideas and make them a ritual. If you do, you will find that they develop from something stuck in your head to something that showcases your talents, creates additional value for your customers and makes you and your colleagues look really, really good.

 


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After spending way too long in the corporate world, Jason has switched to full-time freelancing. With any luck you enjoyed this article - and if you need one of your very own, give him a shout! @brandscaping on the twitter, or at brandscaping.ca

Discussion

  1. Sergei on the 27th May

    Has found on the site “Personal progress” (http://manprogress.com) an interesting articles about generation of useful ideas (http://manprogress.com/en/methods/generation-ideas.html)

  2. Ryan on the 17th July

    I noticed you had a link for mindmapping but not for “On-line idea generator” Thought I might add a link to one that works nicely:

    http://ideagenerator.creativitygames.net

    Try it, it’s fun.

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