In case you hadn’t heard, at the I Open Lab, we believe in making breakthroughs happen. However a lot of voices out there are using the term “the accidental innovator”…which to many means the lucky person who stumbled upon a new discovery that changes their life and maybe even an entire industry. From the discovery of penicillin to the invention of photography, classic examples exist of ‘accidental’ discoveries and the media has latched onto these tales and pundits have even proclaimed that accidents are the best way to develop new ideas.

Well, why? Is it because “creativity” is this confusing term and many of us don’t believe we have the skills to come up with new ideas? Is it because we feel better when we think that people are just “lucky” when they bump into innovation? One theory we have is that people aren’t taught that they are naturally innovative. EVERYONE can make connections and find new ideas around them. You’ve probably had a lot of these moments, when you see something new, come up with a product idea, or find a novel approach that leaves you thinking “why hasn’t someone thought of this?”

These accidental innovators are the ones who took those ideas and ran with them. While Louis Daguerre initially noticed with surprise when a plate developed into a photograph, it was only through detailed exploration of the phenomenon that he was able to isolate the chemical responsible for the development. He didn’t wait for another innovation or idea. He made breakthroughs happen.

You shouldn’t wait either. What ideas do you have? Now ask yourself, what can you do with them?

Today’s New York Times spotlighted, though inadvertently, one of the keys to strong brainstorming – beg, borrow, and steal ideas at will!  The article explained how more and more atheists are ‘coming out of the closet’ and that they were partially inspired by the behavior of the gay community, another minority group.  This is a classic example of looking at what’s going on with another group and adopting and adapting that behavior to serve your own purposes.  Not only is this a legitimate form of brainstorming, we couldn’t encourage it enough.

Particularly when you’ve hit a mental wall, either at work in your own job, as the head of your own company, or as anyone looking for more insights. Ask yourself how another group would solve this challenge. Or ask yourself how a celebrity would solve the challenge. Imagine Oprah Winfrey was solving the challenge. What would her answers be? What about Bill Gates, or Britney Spears…how would they solve your challenge. They would all come up with new answers, so imagine what they are and use them for yourself.

When brainstorming, the most important thing is to develop a long list of ideas, not a short list of overly thought out ideas.  We don’t want to edit our ideas, in fact we want to build a list of ideas that’s as long as possible, with the aim of uncovering a new insight, a new perspective, or a good old ‘aha’ moment. Stay tuned for more tips on making great lists.

After the last post, we hope you have a long list of fears. No, not because we’re sadistic, but because it’s a great place to start. We live by the idea that any challenge can be overcome, including every fear on your list. But they can’t all be solved at once. One of the keys to brainstorming is knowing what you’re trying to figure out and focusing just on that. When you focus on one challenge at a time, you will optimize your brainpower. If you have a list of fears and try to solve them all at once, it can be overwhelming, and you might not ever find the answers you need.

So let’s start with one. Look at your list, and if you can’t find it, make a new one. What are the fears that come up when thinking about your business or product? Now choose one of those fears to explore. Don’t necessarily choose the first one. Maybe there’s one lower down the list that came up after thinking about your fears.

Now that you’ve chosen a fear, the first thing we can do is help take the fear out of the fear. Remember when you made wishes? Let’s do that again with this first fear. Write the fear on a sheet of paper, and instead of focusing on what is missing or wrong, let’s focus on what you wish was there.

For example, let’s say your fear is, “I don’t have the money for this!!!” (Yours can have more exclamation points depending on how much money you need.) How does this become a wish instead of a fear? Just start the sentence with “I wish”. You wouldn’t say “I wish I don’t have the money for this!!!”, right? So how can we say this?

I wish I had more money
I wish I had investors for this idea
I wish I had a business partner for the idea
I wish the idea would start making more money right away
I wish we had a better profit margin
I wish more people would want to buy this product
I wish more people knew about what I had to offer so they’d throw money at me for my idea
I wish I had more money right now to feel good about launching my business

These are just a few ideas but the list could go on and on and on. And all this is because we took the fear out of a fear and made it into something you can act on. The 8 wishes above might already inspire new ideas for making a breakthrough, but we’re just getting started…next we’re going to explore the wishes. For now, go back to your list of fears and make them “I wish” statements and see what comes up.

If you’re an unsure entrepreneur and would like to talk about ideas, fears, and goals, feel free to contact us by writing paul@iopenlab.com

As an entrepreneur there are a lot of challenges to confront before putting out a shingle, opening up shop, or getting that product developed. We have to write up business plans, develop marketing strategies, and analyze the competition. But there are other challenges that may be tripping you up that have nothing to do with the bottom line.

Being an entrepreneur requires a great amount of courage and for some of us, that is daunting enough to send us back to the drawing board, or maybe even the cubicle. As an entrepreneur you’re making a professional statement about what you offer, but many of us can also start to think we’re offering a personal statement about who we are. After all, if we’re spending so much personal time, energy, and money developing an idea, it is part of us and therefore we may feel like there’s a lot more on the line.

We’re a group of Unsure Entrepreneurs. But if you work through any personal fears and overcome these challenges and can focus on your business separate from yourself, you might just realize like we did that the hardest part about being an entrepreneur is spelling it.

In a previous post we asked you to make wishes. What do you wish you were doing, what do you wish you business was, what do you wish you could do better? Similar to that, let’s take a look at some of these fears you may have. When you think about your business or idea, do any fears come up? We’ve heard some people say they don’t feel qualified to follow through on a product they’ve thought of. Others have said they don’t think they’re the person for the job. And others just say they’re plain scared. Can you relate to any of these? What are some other fears you might have? Make a list of them…sometimes just writing them down can help you see clearly where your head is.

Now keep going…make the list as long as possible. Sometimes fears are hiding deep down and you need a minute to come up with them. Take as long as you need to come up with the list.

With the list in front of you, look at one of the fears and ask yourself why you’re afraid of that. What is causing that fear? We’re now ready to breakthrough those fears.

This week’s Advertising Age includes an article about gender bending your brands. Essentially it means taking a product traditionally geared for one gender and tweaking it to appeal to the other. While the practice has been around for a long time, today there are so many gendered products that it got us thinking about approaches to innovation. Targeting a new audience is powerful…we’ve seen guys turn down Luna bars on hikes even though they knew they were hungry and that Luna bars have pretty much the same ingredients as the more macho Cliff bar.

Targeting a new niche is a smart way to think about innovation, regardless of your category or challenge. Maybe you traditionally target teens, so what would your products look like if they targeted boomers. Or maybe you’re trying to solve a challenge that doesn’t have to do with a target audience. Imagine someone else was trying to solve the challenge…how would they solve it? What if Oprah was solving your challenge? What if Superman was solving your challenge? Try it for yourself, and you might be surprised with what you think of when you get outside of yourself.

So you have something you’d like to do better…you want to change the way your company does business, you want to make more money, you want to perform better at your job, you want to become the richest person in the world, etc. You might be asking, where do I start?

It’s easy.  Start with a wish.  We’ve all made them, from our earliest birthdays to maybe just earlier today.  The key to making any breakthrough is to start with a wish.  Or more than one wish.  If there’s something you’d like to do better, start by writing down your wishes.  And keep writing…we ain’t no genies and there’s no wish limit here.

Stay tuned for more on what to do with these wishes.