What a great question!! I wish I could write an essay on this or spent all my time here!!
DIVERSIFY & READ. Turns out that when you read about various disciplines (outside your core competency) you get this amazing ability to start making connections you hadn't made before. One of my favorite ideas related to social search for TV - where we had been exploring ideas for what we could do on the blank (idle) real estate on the TV when you pause it. And then we asked "why do people pause it in the first place" - and the conversations with folks in design/UX helped identify that one aspect was to get a closer look at something on screen - and that led to a discussion on "how do we find out what that is" and then "how do we get the answer".. and so on. Today we would say "computer vision" - but at that time we got to a solution that combined image-capture with social crowdsourcing
You can see some of it here (slideshare.net/nitya/the-evolution...)
TALK TO PASSIONATE PEOPLE. Don't listen for success stories. Listen for the failures. Listen for the irritations and frustrations and damn-i-wish-i-had-x moments that these conversations bring up. That's where innovation lies. If you look at the share economy - no one saw that as disruptive. It took someone to be the first to say "everyone has X and isn't using it - what would it take for me to get X on-demand"?
Attend/View academic conferences. In particular hugely recommend ACM CHI (Human Factors conference) - at the end of the day most meaningful innovation comes from a desire to make humans lives better.
DIVERSIFY & READ. Turns out that when you read about various disciplines (outside your core competency) you get this amazing ability to start making connections you hadn't made before.
Yes yes yes to this one. It is amazing how many good ideas there are outside your core focus. It's also a great way to break up the monotony of what your day-to-day focus is without getting too scattered. I do this so much and I feel like it's sort of my secret weapon.
I also like historical accounts of technology, like The Victorian Internet, which give you a lot of context into what it takes for invention to take place fundamentally. If something is true in 2017 and also seems like it was essentially true in 1917 and 1417, it's probably fundamentally true and not a fad.
Also: If you have a hard time finding time for books, audiobooks can really fit well into your life. 🙂
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What a great question!! I wish I could write an essay on this or spent all my time here!!
DIVERSIFY & READ. Turns out that when you read about various disciplines (outside your core competency) you get this amazing ability to start making connections you hadn't made before. One of my favorite ideas related to social search for TV - where we had been exploring ideas for what we could do on the blank (idle) real estate on the TV when you pause it. And then we asked "why do people pause it in the first place" - and the conversations with folks in design/UX helped identify that one aspect was to get a closer look at something on screen - and that led to a discussion on "how do we find out what that is" and then "how do we get the answer".. and so on. Today we would say "computer vision" - but at that time we got to a solution that combined image-capture with social crowdsourcing
You can see some of it here (slideshare.net/nitya/the-evolution...)
TALK TO PASSIONATE PEOPLE. Don't listen for success stories. Listen for the failures. Listen for the irritations and frustrations and damn-i-wish-i-had-x moments that these conversations bring up. That's where innovation lies. If you look at the share economy - no one saw that as disruptive. It took someone to be the first to say "everyone has X and isn't using it - what would it take for me to get X on-demand"?
Attend/View academic conferences. In particular hugely recommend ACM CHI (Human Factors conference) - at the end of the day most meaningful innovation comes from a desire to make humans lives better.
Yes yes yes to this one. It is amazing how many good ideas there are outside your core focus. It's also a great way to break up the monotony of what your day-to-day focus is without getting too scattered. I do this so much and I feel like it's sort of my secret weapon.
I also like historical accounts of technology, like The Victorian Internet, which give you a lot of context into what it takes for invention to take place fundamentally. If something is true in 2017 and also seems like it was essentially true in 1917 and 1417, it's probably fundamentally true and not a fad.
Also: If you have a hard time finding time for books, audiobooks can really fit well into your life. 🙂