Essentially, a bug list is a running list of things that “bug” you. That’s how Lorraine Sarayeldin stumbled upon the initial spark for what would become her food business, Pom Pom Paddock. She became obsessively attuned to the things that annoyed her – like, for example, making cauliflower rice by hand for every meal. Forget about the solution in these early stag- es – instead, keep a bug list and, over time, you’ll find a problem worthy of your attention. “The process of innovation comes down to trial and error – testing new concepts and seeing what leads further down the path towards progress.” Because limiting your search to “good” is practically hopeless. Instead, you should be looking for more ideas – and the best way to start the flow is to generate bad ones. In her acceptance speech for the Innovators Award at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Awards, singer–songwriter Taylor Swift attested to the value of bad ideas within the creative process. “I really, really want everyone to know, espe- cially young people, that the hundreds or thou- sands of dumb ideas that I’ve had are what led me to my good ideas. You have to give yourself permission to fail.” Step 2: Generate bad ideas Why start with bad ideas?
Generate bad ideas, and your failure-avoid- ing mind will eventually do the rest. Step 3: Try out more than one The last piece of the puzzle is to recognise that innovation is a low-yield activity. That is to say, very few innovative ideas actually work. If you want to know how you can have an innovative idea that works (and who doesn’t want that?), then the answer is, try a bunch of the things that you think might be inno- vative and see which one actually works. There it is: three steps to innovative ideas. Jeremy Utley is the Director of Executive Edu- cation at Stanford University’s d.school, and the co-author of Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters.
HTTPS://YOUTU.BE/ONTBQ33EDX- 4?SI=ABKHTMW23BK9MACJ
Video: By the end of this talk, you’re going to have a solution to every problem – or so Stan- ford Professor Jeremy Utley confidently asserts in the first few moments of his discourse on innovation.
INNOVATIA
30
INNOVATIA
31
Powered by FlippingBook