{"id":9279,"date":"2014-10-12T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-12T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=9279"},"modified":"2020-04-03T18:01:02","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T22:01:02","slug":"get-next-big-idea-less-2-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/get-next-big-idea-less-2-minutes","title":{"rendered":"How to get to your next big idea in less than two minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"

To build something new is an art. It takes asking yourself some \u201cWhat if\u201d questions, figuring out challenges, and tapping into your resources to see what you can build at hand.<\/p>\n

Too often, people ask questions like: \u201cWhat ideas are hot right now?\u201d, \u201cWhat is the competitor doing?\u201d, or \u201cWhere is the market going next?\u201d. When people lack direction, their minds gravitate towards trends and paths set by others. Although there is nothing wrong with following others, it\u2019s best to resist where others have gone in order to build something new.<\/p>\n

Ironically, children are great role models for innovation. Give them a bunch of building blocks and they will build, rebuild, and repeat with no fear of failure. Their persistence is the critical spark in the creative process that most people lose when they become more risk-adverse. But as children get older, they are encouraged to build racecars, airplanes and spaceships that come with assembly instructions instead of working with free-form building blocks.<\/p>\n

All ideas, great and terrible, are built from smaller ideas (or blocks for our illustrative purposes). Blocks can be broken down into three categories that we all have: communal, network, and personal blocks.<\/p>\n

Communal blocks are the blocks that everyone has to play with. In real life, these blocks can be ideas from any category, but for illustrative purposes I will use popular blocks from within the startup tech scene: wearable technologies, Internet of things, online to offline, mobile, crowdfunding, location-based services, online dating, and chat\/communication apps.<\/p>\n

Personal blocks can be assets, skills, or even passions you may have.\u00a0For example, some of mine are design, photography, cooking, graphic arts, community management, and gaming.<\/p>\n

Network blocks are the personal blocks owned by your friends, colleagues, and network.<\/p>\n

So how do you build something with those blocks? Great ideas are created at the communal block level. Original ideas are born out of the possibilities assembled by arranging pieces. Combinatorial creativity is the ability to ask, \u201cWhat will this look like?\u201d again and again, the same way a child would, but with a more informed vision. Your next big idea is to put that into practice and tap into your personal and network blocks. Communal blocks can be assembled with endless combinations.<\/p>\n

After building, an inventor must start over, and rebuild, again and again, until he or she finds an idea they like. Personal and network blocks come into play as the inventor creates the foundation of an idea. The creator looks to see if they have the pieces to be able to build an idea into reality.<\/p>\n

When I placed my blocks together last year, I chose communal level blocks of cooking, mobile and GPS navigation, which led to the creation of SideChef<\/a>, a step-by-step cooking guidance app.<\/p>\n

To build this idea, I used the blocks I was comfortable with, such as design and photography, to imagine what the app would look and feel like. Cooking has always been tricky for me, so I wanted a GPS-style navigation system for cooking, while sitting comfortably on a mobile device in my kitchen. It would be an app that would walk me through the whole process of cooking, similar to GPS for traveling.<\/p>\n

I added features like step-by-step pictures, voice guidance, and automatic timers to SideChef. Then I tapped into my background working at Blizzard Entertainment when I built their World of Warcraft gaming communities, and I imagined what the app would look like if I added a community-building infrastructure to cooking.<\/p>\n

Eventually I included user-generated content, allowing anyone to upload and share their own culinary creations while they built their own following. I needed many blocks to create this idea, but I did not have recipes and content. I am not a chef, and I\u2019m also not a programmer. Thus, I brought together coders and chefs to form our SideChef founding team. We created an app that has grown to a library of more than 1,000 recipes with more than 100 chef and blogger contributors.<\/p>\n

Every new idea starts after believing in yourself to find your own answers. Look around and use the blocks you already have. Don\u2019t give up. Try and try again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To build something new is an art. It takes asking yourself some \u201cWhat if\u201d questions, figuring out challenges, and tapping into your resources to see what you can build at hand. Too often, people ask questions like: \u201cWhat ideas are hot right now?\u201d, \u201cWhat is the competitor doing?\u201d, or \u201cWhere is the market going next?\u201d. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1310,"featured_media":9455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to get to your next big idea in less than two minutes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"All ideas, great and terrible, are built from smaller ideas.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/get-next-big-idea-less-2-minutes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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