Where Do Great Ideas Come From?
One morning at breakfast, I was having a conversation with fellow EiT Fellows at MEST. We were talking about ideas and one of my colleagues asked,
” How did Bill Gates, and Paul Burchett, the founder of Gmail, know that this was what they should be working on? “
Right now, we can see how useful & inevitable these ideas are, back then they were just weird ideas. how did they know these were great ideas?”
Her question intrigued me, and I began to think…where do good ideas come from? How did Bill Gates know he had to build Microsoft or Mark Zuck, a social app? Did ideas fall on their heads, like the apple that fell on Isaac Newton? Or did they have a “Eureka” moment and run out naked in the bathroom like Archimedes?
Are great ideas a science or an art? Whatever they are can we learn how to get them?
P.S: This article is dedicated to the MEST Africa EiT Fellow of 2022, they continue to inspire me, and the idea to write this was a result of talking to great minds.
Getting great ideas can be learnt, either that or some humans were born with a “great idea gene” and what a sad life that would be if the world was that way.
Let's get back to “Positivity”, great ideas can be learnt. From my many years of writing and dumping great ideas, and years of listening to people sharing the world’s best ideas, these are a few tips I have learnt along the way about getting good ideas. I have observed that great ideas come from certain factors, if you do those, you’re most likely going to generate them.
Great ideas come from People
Science makes us feel like the best ideas are gotten in silent moments. After all, gravity was discovered when Isaac Newton was sitting alone under an apple tree, but that’s an exception rather than the rule.
Great ideas come from a diversity of cultures, interactions, behaviour as well as personalities, and all these things can only be discovered when you relate with people.
That’s why being at MEST is such an advantage, we get to relate with entrepreneurs from all over the world, and we experience their culture, their nuances and all of that. If you are in the midst of different people, take advantage of it.
someone asked me if I have an idea for our first capstone project. I told him, I didn't, and he was surprised. I knew that I only had to have a great team and great ideas will follow.
Ideas are a product of people and not the other way round. A great team will always make great ideas
Great Ideas come from Plenty
John D Rockefeller said ” You have to leave the good for the great…but you have to have the good first innit 😉. For you to have great ideas, you need to have good ideas to draw from, for you to have good ideas, you need a lot of ideas.
I find people falling into the trap of picking just one idea and obsessing over it like true love. Oops, bad move. You need to get as many brilliant ideas as possible before you pick one, make sure you are spoilt for choice, and then choose your top best, remember our design thinking class, with ideas, is quantity over quality
Great Ideas come from Different Fields
One thing that has helped me find great ideas is listening to a lot of people from different industries talk through TEDx & Podcasts I can learn a lot of things, from fields I know nothing about.
If you are into tech, do you know anything about agriculture? if you explored it a bit, maybe you’ll find a way to use tech solutions to solve Africa’s biggest agricultural problems.
If you are in the medical field, do you think acting is too cheesy, you might learn a new technique for patient-doctor resolution from the movie” who knows”
The most important thing is that you are watching and learning a lot of content from different fields and different mediums. Watch movies, listen to music, dance with others, and listen to lots of audio content (podcasts or books). Trust me, this will expand your thinking.
Great Ideas Come from Problems
Have you watched the movie “Pad Man” on Netflix? Lakshmikant hated seeing his wife wear unclean clothes during her period. He decided to make a sanitary pad for her, the whole movie was about him exploring new ideas and figuring out ways to get his wife to accept his new product.
Just like Lakshmikant, your best ideas may come from solving the problems of the people around you. For example. I hate how fast my phone fills up with the numerous pictures sent on WhatsApp groups, what if there was an easy way to see all those pictures
Another slight discomfort is how we have to announce about people’s clothes in the washing machine, what if we could attach a sensor to the washing machine, so you don't have to go down to check if it is available, with a simple prompt, you can see if the machine is being used, and you can even book your own washing time (cool right?) Again, think of what you don’t like, and come up with plenty of ideas from it.
I hope you’re able to use the tools here to generate great and lasting ideas. Remember the ideas that seem impossible and irrelevant today, might be the technology of the future. Think of how bizarre taking a rocket to the moon must have sounded 50 years ago. Do not discard “strange or impossible ideas”
If you found this helpful, or you’d like to share your feedback and opinions, please reach out to me at favour.onukogu@meltwater.org, I’m always on Twitter as well. Now let’s go build the next best thing.
Here’s to the next Unicorns, may we think them, may we build them and may we be them!!
