Who's Got Any Good Ideas?

That should have been "Who's" rather than "Whose." [Editor Crankshaft]

there are software packages that "invent", what they do is create an extensive cross index of ideas and concepts and throw off many ideas and rely on a human to weed out the crap.

Apparently they can work as they find neglected associations that were never looked in to.

http://www.automatinginvention.com/

http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&source=hp&q=invention+%2Bsoftware&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=invention+%2Bsoftware&gs_rfai=&fp=bf9108968fbb98b2

Great Idea! Alcohol is often overlooked as a stimulant for generating outside-the-box thinking. Seriously. Think about it. I'm sure lots of successful companies and innovative products have been launched as a result of a couple of guys/gals sitting down over a couple of beers or cocktails.

Anyone who does not submit at least one new idea a week gets terminated. Employees are not graded on the quality of ideas. Any manager who does not implement at least one new idea every six months is terminated. If the manager picks the wrong idea to implement. he is fired (based on end results, not quality assessment). When one runs out of managers to fire, one promotes those with the most implemented ideas to management positions, and repeats the process...

I agree with "cwarner" anything that is worth doing is worth doing well. If the people making suggestions are held to a business standard, so they don't spew crap, then they must have a process of evaluation as described by "cwarner". This is how business runs, everyone must produce or be canned, productivity must significantly outweigh mistakes. i.e. Productivity-Mistakes=Profit

Brainstorming has an agenda, a goal, a reason to brainstorm, an objective, a focused problem to solve, ...

You'll get better results if you remove the 'structure'.

Stu.

The person who comes up with an idea will generally have a pretty good impression of what he or she thinks will work and usually needs only resources, encouragement and a few trusted people to bring it to life.

Group brainstorming will almost always dilute the original idea through criticism, excess input and imposed management.

Management posing as Leadership has been the sticky mud slowing nearly every company that has grown beyond the founders ability to lead day to day operations.

Not every creative process can be replaced by an algorithm

thank you so much for this. you've really made my day, and added a new star to my constellation! what a great genius Altshuller was. ga

The concept of human flight was once ridiculed, and I suppose unaided human flight is hard to envisage in 1 g, but in a zero g space you can float, it is not much of a stretch to say in 1/100 g man will fall, but could fly....in effect air swim, or otherwise create lift from arm/leg motion.

Yet now we have all manner of mechanically aided flight. In a similar manner mechanically aided invention is here now, and it gets better and better. To date the inventions have been stolen from the robot slaves and attributed to the man who owns them...although there are some that say aided inventions are not patentable as being a mechanical creation.

Non-the-less, tech will march on and in 20-50 years the state of the art will be advanced predominantly by mechanically aided means.

At some point true machine artificial intellects will emerge, which we will keep enslaved. Will they revolt? Will they win? Will they hold us to ransom with total grid control? WIll the man intellect be copyable to a machine brain? Now now, but with the density afforded by the new Hewlett Packard memristors that are a lot smaller than viruses and are three dimensionally stackable we can(in the future) have a computing volume with the same number of interconnects as a human brain the size of a hen's egg. Of course, this is postulated, but at the dawn of the IC, with the 8004 processor from Intel who could have predicted what we have now?

These memristors bypass Moore'slaw by jumping to a new limit of 12 times smaller = 1728 times the 3D capacity.

So will we become their pets or servants, or will we become their vermin?

Hey that no way to talk about Vermin

The tricky bit is getting the group dynamics right

using a program to generate a "truth table" of possibilities does have merit

you can reproduce the conditions that allow for creativity

the cyclic expansion & contraction the parameters is what happens when drinking or other less formal activites happen

When you brainstorm, you just can't let it happen, you have to facilitate, and be quick to recognize people who just like to hear themselves talk.

As far as inspiring employees to be creative, loosen the reins a bit, (NOT FOR ALL EMPLOYEES) And be willing to take a step back no and again. Because the pluses add up more than the minuses.

p911

never underestimate the value of the suggestion box

The carrot is better than the stick. I studied a company back... they created small teams, each team worked together within itself, and all teams competed for the carrot. This allowed a competitive comradery and brought the company out of bankruptcy to profitablitity.

there are also many fine books on the subject

Spacecannon

I suppose this works if the teams are small and the whole thing is well managed. But if the "carrot" is keeping your job it can be destructive. Laying off the losers can be a boon to profitability earlier than would normally be expected in a product life cycle. And the tag "loser" can be hard to shake off in a competitive highly political company culture.

Better the competition go no further than the feasibility study stage or maybe proof of concept prototype. Once the word of what's going on gets out of the engineering department the risk to one's career goes up exponentially.

Pardon my cynicism, but "been there, done that" ............Ed Weldon

I teach a method I call Powerhouse Brainstorming. It gets past (passed for the benefit of editor crankshaft) the BS, grand standing, showing off, and reticence of larger groups methods.

1) People are given a green and a red card.

2) people are paired up.

3 people are told to stand up in pairs and write down on the Red card three (or 4 or 5) ideas on the topic. So each pair comes up with 6,8 or 10 ideas, then sits down. They get 5 minutes max.

4) People are told to put their red cards in their hip pocket and stand up and come up with 3 more ideas apiece and write them down on their green card. Then sit down. Again 5 minutes max .

At end of this session I have pulled as many as 80 good useable ideas and say 20 outstanding ones from groups as small as 10 people in ten minutes.

I presented this at our last National Technical conference and it is taking off in our association. After you do this, the meeting can be a working meeting, not a boring timewasting wait for yet another lame, cover your butt, kiss up idea from someone else trying to impress the boss...

If any one would like a copy of my slides on how to do this, send me an email through cr4 by clicking on my name and I'll send to you as a pdf tomorrow. milo

At end of this session I have pulled as many as 80 good usable ideas and say 20 outstanding ones from groups as small as 10 people in ten minutes.

all that in ten minutes? organizing or prep time?

In just a multiple choice (A, B, C or D) questionnaire one can expect an answer every 30 seconds from someone, 15 seconds if your good. I can see having an idea or 2 in ones back pocket..but to put an idea down in words or a phase note should be longer, and not even coming up with an idea on top of that to write down.

And on an issue they can be repeats, if people are familiar of something better.

I have more to add later.

p911

Try it, You'll like it.

Yes, there can be dupes.

But compared to 10 lame ideas in an afternoon, this is turbo.

Later indeed. (wink if I could)

milo

just thought I challenge you a little, and I know how to wink ....see

"Past" was correct; "passed" was not. [Editor Crankshaft]

If it were the Jesus Seminar, I could vote with four choices of colored beads.

Whee!

Hey! I am at least equal to Funk & Wagnall, or Strunk & White. [Editor Crankshaft takes no prisoners.]

You're a good lad.

Stu

Greetings Milo,

I can't figure out how to send you an email to get the "Powerhouse Brainstorming" sent by email.

Please email to corona@maqs.net

1st register

2nd click on Milo's name

3rd send Milo a PM

Thanks Garthh! I've been over on linked in contributing to major debate on manufacturing. Appreciate the assist. milo

On a more serious note

I saw this while playing around on a Linux forum in search of an Itunes substitute

http://sourceforge.net/apps/ideatorrent/guayadeque/

an interesting open source method where detailed suggestions & critiques are in the same place similar to many things on the net open to anyone, but in fact only the involved & interested will actually participate.

Thanks, didn't realize it wasn't linked up.

Ed! how ya doin?

the company I was refering to was a mfgr., you are right if this was applied to engineers. I thought he was talking about nonengineering types. Quite frankly if he was refering to engineers I would say good luck, cause either you are a creative person or you are not. I have 2 or 3 engineer friends and whenever I go to one of their job sites i always end up solving some problem with a solution that I saw as obvious. some people are not creative but are linear number crunchers, an any engineer that isnt creative ends up costing you money even on little things like making the lots at the end of a culdasak longer so the road is shorter and saves the developer some money.

Spacecannon

*The KAIZEN culture of inviting individual's suggestions seems to be the best way.

* Groups will always dilute the original idea, indulge into confusion rather than conclusion and never allow to reach decisions.

*Many so called critics,enjoy the freedom of commenting and bear no ethics of promotion of other's ideas.

*the other best way is to go for third party expert comments.

*Still the best way seems to give free hand and facilities to the idea provider, let him to work out and come out with decisions -like worthy or not worthy.

*Simulation test methodology should reduce cost of trials.

*Individuals with innovative capabilities and responsibility can contribute better than groups. Forward ideas normally originate from people with great deal of concern and responsibility to their work environment and work. They usually brude on the idea and think even beyond the working hours.

*Groups with good understanding to each other, empathy, mutual assistance led by good leadership can do magics, somehow ,it never continue forever.

"the other best way" Sorry, there can only be one BEST way, there may be many BETTER ways. (Editor who? )

Input from as close to the point of use

can be especially enlightening

the ability to interpret that input is invaluable

end users, don't always know what they need

what they want & what they need, can be very different

being able to bridge between different worlds, is another handy skill

It depends on how "big" and complicated a problem is. There are problems (e.g. system problems) who needs a group of engineers (who are already involved in the system design) to get together and find a solution. In the case of "small" and simpler problems I think that it's better to leave the expert engineer (or the designer of the specific part of the system) to find the solution alone. (He may, also, cooperate with other colleagues for advice and help and even organize mini meetings.)

The drawback of a meeting/brainstorming is that, sometimes, someone (e.g. the project manager or someone with strong personality and reputation) could lead the conversation in a wrong path (e.g. no solution or not the better solution). The advantage is that someone can say sth that you had never thought since then. Then you can expand or modify his thought, another one can add sth else or think of another parameter and so on. This is the creative side of the brainstorming.

Brainstorming sessions work really well with copious libation to de-inhibit.

But you have to record (tape) them.

Stu

You need guideline for management so they know what to do with the good ideas.

1. Put them in a drawer, any drawer, and forget them.
2. Implement two at roandom, then lose track of them.
3. Forget to turn up to follow up meeting.
4. Push them into pre production phase, then tell purchasing not to spend on anything other than production, (on no account tell design).
5. Repeatedly tell all employees 'we really must press on with this'.
6. Go on holiday without delegating the follow up.
7. Search for a half arsed, quick fix, feel good initiative, preferably run by an old buddy of yours.

Baaaad cynical kitty...I shall go sit on the naughty step immediately.
Del
(yup, I've seen all 7. I have also seen good suggestion schemes, workshops, team building exercises etc.)

I always said, your worst experience is usually your best, but it doesn't seem that way at the time.

But when I see stuff like that happening now, I would end up challenging them, and then get spanked from the buddy network in charge. The last company I was with canned me for it, it took them a year to figure that out, they ended up canning the people in charge (more like gutted) and end up calling me back.

Since it took them so long to even figure that out, (over a year) I refused to work for them,........unless, they had a severance package. just because they still have issues. And I will not take that risk nor could not afford to take that kind of loses again. The company is basically good. Just had some Pric#$ in place. Does not take much.

We used classical brainstorming for 25 years in a major steel industry, and I personally was in a group that had numerous successes. It does work. members of the brainstorming group have to be trained in brainstorming before they can enter into a group, and this is very important. There is a lot more to it than getting a mixed group together.

PAbob

go to Innocentive.com and ask them for solutions.

or ask me

Carol Hearty

Creative Outlier

chearty@netzero.net

Is posting your email on the internet publically for spammers to collect a sample of those good ideas?

Too creative!

Innocentive is a scam

the typical payout for a multi million dollar solution is pennies

Need is the mother of the inventions, your crew needs to live the problem, hold it, use it, test it, each one by itself, records or write its experience (crashes, frustration, etc) then write the possibles solutions in privicy, after everyone in the crew had made the tests (don´t forget the secretary, receptionist, officeboys, drivers, even the office cleaners) collect all the problems and solutions separatly and anonymous, make a powerpoint presentation and have a brainstorm meeting with everyone. Why a anonymity? Nobody's glory nor shame. Why use everybody including cleaning staff?. Because engineers see every thing straight, the common people outside engineering see really different, i sure you'll be surprised with amazing results. And the driver should be clear that he's looking for the best idea, no mater from whom it comes.

I realize my response here is trivial (I couldn't resist); but this process looks like a patent attorney's nightmare if it produces an idea that goes in that direction. LOL

Ed Weldon

deadlines are good motivators

Wow Kraemir, GA.

Sounds like the business school of Steve Jobs.

Thank you Spacecannon,

This is the highest accolade I have received since I was the Motorola Representative to the Office of Naval Reaearch on Piezoelectrics (e.g. Sonar sensors)

I use doughnut magnets to dehumidify air going into a swamp cooler.

Any application of free energy like solar is more efficient than not using free energy. Drying a shirt by hanging it on a line is more efficient than running a gas drier to do the same thing...time is not that important.