Great Design , Big Ideas — What’s Your Next Big Thing

How to Prompt the Out the Box Thinking

We looked at some questions you could ask yourself and some ways you could frame your thinking in order to encourage yourself to come up with new ideas. Often, these ideas involve finding products that people want and then giving them those solution .

But there are those real outstanding innovative genius who are able to invent and produce “ New” Innovative invention which satisfy broad consumers of all fields , a product specifically launch at the right time, all for the right purpose , even before we know we need them , it is such process which defines high “ Product value creation ” provide the highest added value

One of the most famous individuals when it comes to this kind of breakthrough is the late Steve Jobs. Consider the iPad for instance. This is nothing but a larger phone that does less than a computer. You can’t fit it in a pocket and you can’t write your word documents on it. So, what use is a ‘tablet’ to anyone?

Of course, the answer is that a slate with a multi-touch screen and a mobile chipset gives us instant, comfortable access to the web wherever we are. Instead of straining our eyes to read websites on our phones, or sitting in a home office waiting for a PC to boot up, we can kick back on the couch and enjoy reading the news in a tactile and comfortable manner.

We didn’t know we needed this, but the initial sales of the iPad showed us that we did. And that is what made it so innovative and so game changing.

Now the question becomes: How to Create Innovative Product with Value that will be appreciated .

The place to start that process is not you, but your customer. What is the importance of creating value for your customer? At the heart of investing and business building is an exchange of value.

As an entrepreneur, you are exchanging value with numerous people — your stakeholders, such as your suppliers, customers, and investors, who want to assist and support you if you in turn give them value by paying them money or giving them something in kind which represents value to them.

As an entrepreneur or small businessperson, your customer for your products is paying you for a perceived/expected value. If the customer receives the expected value or more, you have a happy customer. You have fulfilled the promise of your value proposition and your exchange.

In order to evaluate how good your value proposition is for your customer and other stakeholders, you need to look carefully at what’s going on in the marketplace, or the Arena .

Why do you feel your idea represents an improved solution over what is in the market?

Do you believe your idea can change the world?

Do you have a solution to a pain/problem which the market immediately recognizes and for which it will pay you a high-margined profit?

Or will millions will pay you a lower-margined profit so that you still make lots of money Or, do you have to educate your market to make them aware of the value of your product, which can take a lot of time, money, and resources?

Take for an example, a company named Nuance which seized upon an opportunity to come out with an answer to an age-old office problem: transcribing dictation notes into written copy. How did they solve the problem of the two-step, time-consuming process of dictating into a dictation machine and then having to retype the dictation notes into a word-processing document?

They developed a software program called Dragon Naturally Speaking, “so that” businesspeople can talk into a microphone that translates their spoken words into written words on their computers. Today they’re recognized as the premier dictation program in the marketplace.

Great Design , Big Ideas — The Next Big Thing

In a Wall Street Journal article, “How to Come Up With a Great Idea,” the description says, “There is no magic formula. But that doesn’t mean there is no formula at all…Where do the eureka come from?

At the heart of any successful business is a great idea…But those great ideas don’t come on command.

And that leaves lots of would-be entrepreneurs asking the same question:

How did everybody else get the inspiration to strike — and how can we work the same magic?”

Here are some of the ways great ideas are discovered:

Observe things in your own life that are frustrating you and ask the question: is there a better way to… (fill in the blank).

Think big, not incrementally. To raise money, investors want ideas that impact people’s lives by simplifying or improving things.

Look at how things are done routinely in other industries and bring those practices to a different industry.

Test things incrementally, where you are not risking large sums of money. This saves you money and gives you the flexibility to move forward or make a large change or pivot if something is not working out.

▪ Note this important point: The more money and time you commit to an idea, the more you can get locked into that idea or solution — and this often leads to failure. Your ego and emotions become involved as an entrepreneur, creative type, small businessperson, or investor. You must prove you are right and stop listening — tune any wise advice out from consideration.

Give your subconscious mind time to work: keep thinking about coming up with an idea related to something on which you are working or just be very observant when you are seeking an opportunity and keep asking your mind to notice something different — a big improvement. Then do other things — go off and relax. Sometimes, even when you are doing boring stuff, the idea comes to you. Many of the most successful companies, including PayPal and Hewlett Packard, started out with a completely different vision.

How to Become More Inventive and Creative

Here’s one of the best tips for building a great company, whether you are a solo entrepreneur or you want to build a team and a hyper-growth company:

Imagine more than your business idea. From the day you start thinking of an idea for a business, imagine you are an investor and a customer in your own business.

What idea or solution to a problem would make them feel they are getting a ten-to-one return so they are compelled to invest in your company and buy your products?

To understand a little more about creativity, it can pay to better understand the neuroscience of what is actually happening in the brain when we have a novel idea.

According to the science, creativity is what happens when the brain takes two separate ideas and combines them to form one new one. In this way, there is actually no such thing as a truly original thought — rather, it is just an inventive way of connecting two alternative thoughts.

This is where invention comes from and where creativity comes from. It is the same force that — in the wild — would have helped us to understand that a stick is a bit like a finger and so we can use that stick in order to get the apple down from the tree.

But why are some people more prone to this kind of novel connecting-the-dots than others? Researchers have looked into what makes a person inventive and creative but more specifically, at what prevents us from having novel ideas.

Where does “ Open Mind “ or ‘Out of the box thinking’ come from?

The answer may lie with a ‘cognitive bias’ called ‘functional fixedness’. Functional fixedness simply means that you are focusing on what things are supposed to do, rather than thinking about what they could do, which limits the ideas you can have.

Let’s take a hammer for example. Is it a ‘hammer’? Or is it an implement capable of much more?

To illustrate, studies use a challenge called the ‘candle box problem’. Here, participants are given a box of tacks, a candle and a hammer and asked to attach the candle to a wall in such a way that it can remain in position while burning — like a lamp.

Most people attempt to use everything as it is designed — by tacking the candle to the wall. Of course, this doesn’t work.

The solution is to attach the box to the wall using the tacks and then to stand the candle in the box. This is an example of overcoming functional fixedness.

How to Prompt the “ Out the Box Thinking”

So how do you prompt this kind of ‘Out the box’ thinking?

The studies showed two things. One is to relax and to remove stress. The more relaxed we are, it turns out, the better we are at coming up with unique ideas.

This ties in with the way that the brain finds connections. It does this by exploring the web of different ideas we have stored in our heads — called our connectome. When two areas fire at the same time, that can give rise to a novel solution; that’s when we have our ‘eureka’ moment and we come up with a new way to solve a problem.

Likewise, the part of our brain responsible for imagination and for coming up with novel ideas — the default mode network — is most likely to be active when we are engaging in mundane tasks.

Unfortunately though, if we are stressed or rushed, then our brain does not tend to explore the connectome in quite the same way. Instead, it focuses on the ‘here and now’ and we gain a kind of ‘tunnel vision’. After all, it isn’t much use to be thinking of novel ways to get apples out of trees when we’re being chased by a tiger!

When stressed, we are also more inclined to think using pre-set patterns. We are more prone to prejudice and functional fixedness. We don’t have time to question — our brain needs to take efficient shortcuts to identify what we can use in our environment in the simplest way.

The brain is most creative and inventive when it is relaxed and calm — and the ultimate example of this can be seen when we start falling asleep and enter the nonsensical ‘hypnagogic state’. We don’t want to go this far, but if you’re trying to come up with a way to productize your service, or a new idea for an app, studies show that going for a walk can help you to be more inventive and to think outside the box.

From the day you start thinking of an idea for a business, imagine you are an investor and a customer in your own business.

What idea or solution to a problem would make them feel they are getting a ten-to-one return so they are compelled to invest in your company and buy your products? Remember: everyone wants to feel she got a bargain and tremendous value in an exchange with you. Share the wealth and you have a much better chance of attracting investors, customers, and other supportive stakeholders.

So, while you’re brainstorming for ideas for your new innovative business, ask yourself what’s available to you right now in terms of resources, materials and their possible uses

And what you should also take from all this, is that you can’t ‘force’ an idea. We’ve learned the correct questions to ask and the right way to go about finding ideas, but if they don’t come immediately, don’t fret!

Your brain works best when relaxed and forcing an idea runs counter to this. So instead, relax, go for walks, talk about it and let it form naturally. Most ideas don’t come overnight fully formed but rather take a while to gestate and grow over time