Stupid idea...or is it?

In this interview with Scott Berkun, Guy Kawasaki posed an interesting question about innovative ideas. He asked simply, "How do you know if you have a seemingly stupid idea according to the “experts” that will succeed or a stupid idea that is truly stupid?"

Berkun started his answer with "We can't know" and then qualified with a fairly lengthy statement. But I guess that's the real point, when do we ever really know which ideas are good one and which ideas are bad?

I suspect the trick is to develop every idea far enough that you can see the major potential and the major challenges and also to look at that idea with a combination of others that may well produce something really remarkable. At that point decisions can be made about the next steps (if any).

A little research shows that as innovators we have a very hit and miss track record of spotting that special idea. Rank Xerox for example were the first people to come up with the idea of a graphical user interface and a mouse for a computer, yet they didn't spot the potential for it commercially. DEC were a huge provider of Mainframe and Mini computers, yet they couldn't see the obvious potential for personal computers in the home. In fact, in 1977, Ken Olson said "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home". Here are some fun statistics, according to the US Census Bureau, 62% of US households have a personal computer. 18% have two or more. How silly does he feel now?

Is there any way to improve that track record? I believe so...and it seems like the folks over at Google are doing pretty well on that front. They do, however, spend huge amounts of money on R+D and they promote innovation internally and give their creative professionals the opportunity to develop their own ideas without question for 20% of their working week. Business Week wrote this Article about their creative process.

Guy Kawasaki was on the original development team for the Apple Macintosh and now owns his own venture capital firm. He writes an interesting blog called How to Change the World. Scott Burken was on the original development team for Microsofts Internet Explorer and has authored two books The Art of Project Management and The Myths of Innovation.

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