What's your Big Idea?
Matthew Knott
A passionate, creative and proven leader with unwavering entrepreneurial spirit thriving in building diverse, highly effective and collaborative teams.
"Ideas are worthless."?
When I heard this for the first time in Daniel Priestley's Entrepreneur Revolution, I felt myself recoil, but it was closely followed by:
?"Implementation is everything."
This is maxim 6 of 7 Maxims to Cultivate a Culture of Results in Daniel's book. I like this quote in the context of the book a lot. To me, it drives home the message to any aspiring games business that you can't just keep wallowing in the warm glow of ideas. You actually have to turn them into something. Yet personally, I know my instinctive reaction to the worthless claim was correct. I often find myself daydreaming, imagining and escaping into my ideas, and it's glorious. I am creative at heart. I still draw, paint, make and do creative things. This imagination space re-energises me and generates fuel for my work. If you've ever come out of a games ideation session, I'm sure many will recognise this feeling.
In the UK, there is a game show called The Crystal Maze, the players, having completed a set of challenges, win crystals and exchange them for time in the final challenge where players are locked inside a geodesic dome. The host calls for the fans on the floor to start, and a whirlwind of gold and silver tickets uncontrollably fly around the Dome. The players leap around trying to catch the gold tickets, which count toward their score, whilst the silver tickets count against their score, its against the clock, so it's frantic, and there's no time to sort out the gold from the silver and get them in the box. On the final whistle, the box gets locked. If the team have enough gold, they win a prize. If they collect too much silver, they go home with nothing but the experience.?
All of the teams use different strategies to get as much gold as possible. Most of the time, it's a free for all, with all the players leaping around and grabbing as much as possible, ALL look like they are having a fantastic time.?
Now, imagine you're one of those players, and the golden tickets are ideas. As the fans fire up, how will you grab the best ideas? What's your strategy for your next big idea?
One of the biggest challenges for any aspiring game company is how to capture their best ideas and thinking from its team. It can be frustrating failing to capture ideas, so what's your plan to capture your best ideas?
Here are my 4 pillars of game creation.
Capture Everything
Don't filter your game ideas out at the source. Capture them all, no matter how disparate or dislocated from the subject. I have a suite of apps I use from?OneNote?or?Evernote?for brain dumps) to?Miro?and more traditional Pen and Paper, Post-its, Plasticine (yes, you can also use your Legos), and?Otter?is fantastic if I want to record myself because it transcribes it simultaneously. This can also bring up some surprising 'ideas', especially if you record yourself talking while driving.
Iterative Ideation
An old colleague of mine used to say, "If you can't say it, write it, if you can't write it, draw it" - I'd add mime it, roleplay it, sing it, dance it, sculpt it, and there's more. Find a way to communicate and capture (see above) your game idea. It's fair to say that not all communication is verbal (there are studies by Albert Mehrabian which illustrate this - look up the?7% 38% 55% rule ), so be expressive, get resourceful and hold nothing back when you capture your ideas.?
Ever heard the old adage 'practice makes perfect? Nothing could be closer to the truth when talking about game ideas. Be relentless. Play, rinse and repeat your ideation methods and sessions as often as you can with enthusiasm.
6 Thinking Hats
I love working with others sharing moments of creation, and I came across the 6 Thinking Hats when a friend of mine created their own version of it. The original breaks down the creative process in much the same way a computer would break down a computational task, by asking the ideators to 'put on' a different coloured hat to help process an idea. It's an alternative to the argumentative system, which I find destructive and conflicting.
By reducing the complexity and confusion of emotions, information, logic, hope and creativity that we all juggle during the ideation process, ideas develop with shared understanding, free of constraints and full of hope and optimism. I think my favourite aspect is its ability to remove judgement from the group experience - judgement is fundamentally opposed to the creative process, in my opinion. There are books, training and a whole host of resources on the web too, and of course, there are other methods, but this one is my favourite.
Ideation Events
Creating an ideation event creates momentum even before the session. Setting up the day, turning it into an exciting prospect to meet your fellow 'ideators' ready to go. Nourish them spiritually, physically and mentally, so they show up prepared to play in advance.
Finally, I would add that no person has the monopoly on game ideas or inventions. Whether you're one person daydreaming about games or a team of game people embarking on a fresh new game. You can all contribute powerfully and meaningfully.
领英推荐
"Can you start the fans, please!"
Some Recommendations
I'll share articles and posts about the games (and related) businesses in each newsletter and post some other?exciting?games business news and developments.?
Books.
6 Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono
Entrepreneur Revolution by Daniel Priestley
Podcast
Articles.
About
Thanks for reading The Golden Path, a fortnightly newsletter unlocking the potential of your games business. I've been passionate about games and play ever since I took a career-based psychometric test, aged 14, where my top result was Toy Designer. Every games business is different. The unique combination of people, products and place always brings a unique set of challenges.?
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Love this!