“What’s your big idea?” is a question that chills me to my core.
Thinking outside the box
I think it’s a flashback to art class when I was 12 staring at a blank canvas and being told to create something. As someone most comfortable with concrete processes and concepts, being asked to create something from scratch is startling.
These days it manifests as an internal groan when asked to think outside of the box or put forward an innovate idea. Where do you start?
Break it down - take small steps
As with most things, when broken down into small pieces it seems less daunting. I enjoy baking and experimenting with different flavours, but I have often looked at the Great British Bake-Off signature challenge and thought ‘I wouldn’t know where to start’. Until one day, I realised that my salted caramel marshmallow brownies actually started with a tried and tested brownie recipe with extra bits and pieces thrown in.
Small innovations incrementally, can lead to a product or process which is radically different from the starting point. Constantly questioning why things are done that way or examining what would happen if I poured in salted caramel into the brownie mix, generate small changes when seen in isolation. Over time, small steps can produce innovative concepts.
None of the companies or products that we consider innovative have materialised in one fully formed big idea.
The founders of Airbnb bought a few air mattresses and offered free breakfast to make extra money by hosting guests visiting the nearby conference centre in their home[1]. Now there are over 6 million listings worldwide in over 100,000 cities[2].
Google began as a research project between two PhD students at Stanford University. They did not ‘invent’ the search engine but theorized that there was a better way to rank results by looking at the relationship between websites[3]. Twenty-Three years later and Google is ingrained in modern life – unrecognisable from its humble beginnings in the dorm room.
The fact is that being innovative is not necessarily thinking ‘big’ but could be broken down into simple steps. So, putting what you know on that blank piece of paper is a great starting point – and after that, who knows what you might have started or be a part of?
(This said, I’m not heading for the Bake-Off tent anytime soon)!
[1] https://getpaidforyourpad.com/blog/the-airbnb-founder-story/
