Many Ways to Think About Ideas

Just to convince you further that there are many ways to recognize innovations more broadly, more deeply and more completely in order to increase your competitive advantages, I ask that you take a minute and consider just how varied the underlying concept of “ideas” is, as well as how we use these variations every day.

Consider the following:

• Ideas as food: he left a bad taste in my mouth with his half-baked idea.

• Ideas as plants: they harvested a lot of good ideas, and although some of them may die on the vine, some will take root.

• Ideas as resources: they ran out of ideas a long time ago.

• Ideas as value: she has a wealth of insights and is a treasure trove of ideas.

• Ideas as products: make sure you package that idea well or they won’t buy it.

• Ideas as fashion: that idea is very old hat and uses a really outdated approach.

• Ideas as people: her idea gave birth to a whole new product line.

• Ideas as seeing: the idea struck like a light bulb that suddenly came on. 

Just the way we think about ideas varies a lot as these examples show.  The more you understand just how many ways there are to see, develop, deconstruct, evolve, and adapt ideas, the better you will consider your ideas and then recognize the many innovations resulting from these ideas.  Alternatively, the more limited your approach, the more limited the results. 

The ability to consider ideas and recognize innovations can vary easily due to differences in culture, personality, leadership participation, and time availability, and can be negatively impacted further by bureaucracy, deadlines, rigid internal processes, poor goal alignment, limited information sharing, and many other factors.

Make sure you take the time to consider all of your ideas and the ideas of others, and then take the time needed to recognize your diverse innovations fully.