Most Ideas are Crap

What's in an Idea?

Usually, when I initiate workshops, I quip "Most ideas are crap - including the ones you will generate at this workshop...". Perhaps not the most pedagogical way to introduce an ideation session, but nevertheless true.

How do we characterise a good idea? Or a bad one for that matter... I have revisited this illustration many times. You can find it here at the Information is beautiful website:

As you can see, the good place to be is in the upper right corner. Here we find the ideas with a clear conceptual structure and a well defined function. The upper left corner is not that bad either - here we find the well presented ideas but with non-existing or poor functionality. You might say that above the line you will find all the ideas that are well presented, with varying degrees of functionality.

Below the line we find all the ideas with loose or poor conceptual structure, with disfunctional to less functional ideas in the lower left, and slightly to transfunctional in the lower right. Below the line we have all the ideas that are difficult to grasp - if that's the problem, they are of course difficult to convey.

Chindōgu

Literally translated,?chindōgu?means unusual?(珍,?chin)?tool?(道具,?dōgu).

Chindōgu?(珍道具)?is the practice of inventing ingenious everyday?gadgets?that seem to be ideal solutions to particular problems, but which may cause more problems than they solve.

The definition above is from Wikipedia. You can find lots of stuff about Chindōgu on their website. The ten rules of Chindōgu are:

1. A Chindōgu invention must be, from a practical point of view, (almost) completely useless. If you invent something which turns out to be so handy that you use it all the time, then you have failed to make a Chindōgu. Try the patent office.
2. You’re not allowed to use a Chindōgu, but it must be made. You?have to be able to hold it in your hand and think “I can actually imagine someone using this. Almost.” In order to be useless, it must first be.
3. Chindōgu are man-made objects that have broken free from the chains of usefulness. They represent freedom of thought and action: The?freedom to challenge the suffocating historical dominance of conservative utility; The freedom to be (almost) useless.
4. Chindōgu are a form of nonverbal communication understandable to?everyone. Everywhere. Specialised or technical inventions, like a?three-handled sprocket?loosener for drainpipes centered between two?under-the-sink cabinet doors (the uselessness of which will only be?appreciated by plumbers), do not count.
5. Chindōgu are not tradable commodities. If you accept money for one, you surrender your purity. They must not even be sold. Even as a joke.
6. The creation of Chindōgu is fundamentally a problem-solving?activity. Humor is simply the by-product of finding an elaborate or?unconventional solution?to a problem. You try your best, you nearly succeed. Then you realize, sardonically, that your problem may not have been all that pressing to begin with.
7. Chindōgu are innocent. They are made to be used, even though they?cannot be used. They should not be created as a perverse or ironic comment?on the sorry state of mankind. Make them instead with the best intentions.?
8. The International Chindōgu Society has established certain?standards of social decency. Cheap sexual innuendo, humor of a vulgar?nature, and sick or cruel jokes that debase?the sanctity of living things?are not allowed. If you’re looking for baser humor, we have a feeling it can be found?elsewhere on the internet. Actually, we’re pretty sure.
9. Chindogu are offerings to the rest of the world. They are not?therefore ideas to be copyrighted, patented, collected and owned. As they?say in Spain: “Mi Chindogu es tu Chindogu.”
10. Chindōgu must never favour one race or religion over another. Young and old, male and female, rich and poor — All should have a free and?equal chance to enjoy each and every Chindōgu.

Sometimes, inventions initially conceived as Chindōgu turns out to become succesful products. The Selfie Stick is one such example. You could say that by failing some of the Chindōgu criteria it became a commercial success. A great and groundbreaking idea is an acquired taste. And very rarely, the movement from initial idea to fully implemented concept leaves the idea untransformed. A realised idea is the result of chemistry and combinations.

Innovation is more about Math and Chemistry than Physics and Management

I regard ideas as input (components, ingredients, atoms) - this input can then interact chemically or physically and combine with other inputs to provide something of a higher quality (better taste, higher strength, more beautiful appearance). As a chemical engineer, I can of course relate to the notion of idea development as an Innovation Reactor:

We don't get the exquisite idea just by filtering out the not so good stuff, to get to the great stuff. This is how we usually depicts the life of an idea, as an innovation funnel with well-defined steps, evaluation criteria and gatekeepers:

We should not search for ideas. Just like gold digging, the odds of finding the great nugget are pretty slim. And we all know that the big fortunes during the gold rush was made by the equipment suppliers, not the gold diggers.

Maverics & Heretics

What happens to the inventors, the ones that bring out the initial "crazy" ideas? Well, history has a lot to tell us about that. Again, Information is Beautiful offers some provocative insights. Have a look at their piece on Mavericks & Heretics. Here you find a list of 40 heretics (just a small sample) - maverick scientists whose radical ideas were ultimately proven correct. The screenshot below shows that this is happening even today. In this list we find 11 Nobel Prize winners.

The consequences of coming up with absurd ideas can be severe, ranging from ignoring to killing. The most vicious scientific domain seems to be medicine:

Navigating the Complexity and Unpredictability of Innovation

It is easy to ridicule the initial rejection of ideas with the wisdom of hindsight. But there's a lot of common sense to this. If we gullibly jumped on any new thought we would soon perish. And it is just as easy to ask for an open mind, or to quote the truism about "all ideas are great" - because they're not. The opposite is equally untrue - "all ideas are bad".

Maybe it is more fruitful to state that all ideas have the probability to become great implemented concepts. But all ideas are not created equal, so the probabilities vary a lot, and most probabilities are on the low site.

But just as some elements are more reactive than others, some ideas are more likely to react and become great than others. And there are tons of literature out there claiming to crack the nut of predicting an ideas potential.

One of the models I often revert to is this:

This model illustrates that you have to get a lot of elements right if you want to implement an idea. And the elements are interconnected, sometimes mutually exclusive and very rarely synchronous.

What's the solution? I don't know really. Despite my many years in the field, I still don't know.

One of the more succesful approaches, I guess, is the MVP approach, made famous by Steve Blank and Eric Ries. The concept of making small and easily verifiable experiments gives the inventor a license to pivot a concept, without too much ego or money being tied up in the idea. Also Design Sprint, pretotyping and XYZ hypothesis hold some promise. I may address these concepts in one of the upcoming newsletters.

To Finish on a More Positive Note...

The people depicted in this newsletter title are the pioneers behind the computer mouse (Douglas Engelbart), Velcro (Stephanie Kwolek), the computer mouse (Douglas Engelbart), the pacemaker (Wilson Greatbatch), and Virtual Reality (Morton Heilig). These four concepts did not have an easy childhood, as you will see from this video:

What do You Think?

Reflections and suggestions are much appreciated, either as a comment or by mailing me at [email protected].