• Insights

An idea can change the world, they say. The power of an idea is usually proportional to the capacity that it has to spread. Of these two, the first one is not quite true, but the second one is actually spot-on.

You see, ideas alone cannot change the world. The idea has to get seeded in someone’s mind to be acted upon; the vision has to be then formulated and brought into the real world for it to start impacting the things around it. In many cases, a well thought-out idea has come quite close to changing the world.

The truth of the matter is that you don’t go looking for ideas when you need a business idea, or a clever marketing campaign. In fact, ideating has to become part of every process that we do, so that we can be different. Ideating ranges from the way we organize our staff to the way we do things, or even how meetings are held in your organization. Ideas are the way by which you can live and think differently.

Here are 5 tips to keep in mind while ideating:

1. The ambience. How you design you workspace, the simple things that you keep on your desk can get you in the right atmosphere to nurture ideas. Try something simple—get a block of play dough and keep it on the desktop—use it to come up with one interesting design in a week.

2. Practice makes perfect. You are either born perfect—in which case you will be labeled an eccentric and doing well in the artistic community. If you aren’t one, then the other option is to train. Take typical scenarios, and given that hindsight is always 20:20, see if you can tackle a problem differently. It gives you a license to be bold, and offers you a peek into the window as to when a creative idea can find its place.

3. Diversify your company. Kick that colleague whom you have been hanging out with who is part of the workflow at your office or startup. If you are in marketing, sit with people who are doing something totally different from what you do. It would not even be a bad idea to have a floating workspace rule in your company. Some people do like to have their routine, though, so it doesn’t work for everyone. Keep that in mind, but shuffle your team to mix and mingle.

4. Debate, with principle. There is a well-known concept in negotiation called principled negotiation. The key is to keep your focus on what each one of the parties requires and keep emotions out of it. It would serve well to create versions of that for inter-company communications.

5. Hire people from diverse backgrounds. Seen a resume where someone has a degree in law and then went on to become a software engineer or a process engineer? Hire such candidates. When you are introducing your silos to each other, people from such backgrounds will prove effective conduits to make that communication happen easily and comfortably.

The tides are changing. There was an era when only technology companies ruled the world, and the business team was required to strike partnerships, collaborate on research and deliver integration solutions. Today design is an essential part of any offering, even as the products are starting to offload the burden of everyday living. To have a team which doesn’t even bring these different perspectives together is a dud to start off with. And I am perfectly serious when I say this.

VIJAY ANAND is the Founder of Proto.in and Vice President (Incubation) at IITM’s RTBI.

©Entrepreneur August 2010

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