So I’m sitting here today with about 30 minutes to go before my taxi comes to pick me up to go to the airport, and I’m thinking to myself, what exactly makes something a good idea? We’ve all at one time or another recognized a good idea simply by intuition, but what does our hunch tell us about how we determine really what a good idea is?
I can think of many times whether I’ve just seen a new product, or watching an episode of Dragons Den where I might sit up and exclaim “genius”. I managed to determine within seconds whether an idea works for me.
I guess the more important question is what makes an idea good in the perception of the masses. After all we are all trying to sell an idea, whether that idea comes in the form of a product, a service, or a message of some variety.
What might seem a good idea might also be seen as a terrible idea by other people. How do we determine what for ourselves is a great idea, one that we would happily part money with in order to buy or participate in.
The first thing which comes to my mind when I think about this more philosophically, is the notion of value. If a idea has no easily perceived value, then I’m pretty sure that it isn’t worth my time to research it more. Remember that value is only perceived by others, so you can’t determine yourself whether your idea has value. Until you present it to someone else, it has no value at all in your own hands.
I think a good idea also has to be future focused because we already have all the solutions for our past and present, and for those which don’t work, you must not fix them in the past or present, but fix them in the future. Remember that an idea is always a solution to some problem elsewhere.
Every single thing that was ever invented is a solution to a problem.
So talking about the solutions, they are all obviously geared towards someone, so I think what else makes an idea good is whether you’ve identified who the idea is for. What is the current status of the problem for your identified target. If you can clearly state who the target is, and why your idea would work for them, then you are one step closer already.
What else makes a good idea? I’m not really to sure to be honest, so I wanna throw this post out there and ask you lot what you think makes a good idea.
Have a quick think and post a comment below about what qualities do ideas need to have for you, which make them good.
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