Social activity stimulates innovating. More people, more ideas - that's for sure - but be skeptical on idea quality. People tend to get excited on fancy ideas which seem brilliant and are easy to understand. This leads to endless discussions bringing in more benefits and improvements and taking time from everything else. The fun ends when somebody finally discovers that the idea is either old and patented or impossible to implement due to missing pieces of crucial technology or ridiculous expenses.

Ideas immediately accepted by the crowd hardly ever lead to innovations. Best innovations are unexpected combinations of elements and therefore hard to accept (but so easy to oppose). By the definition, innovations must be profitable and estimating the value of an idea requires understanding both the business and the expenses. Ordinary people simply have no competence to judge which ideas could be innovations.

For these reasons, hasty and narrow-minded arguments thrown by the crowd kill numerous new-born ideas before they even got a change. Another scenario is that nobody feeds the idea with positive comments and it starves to death. Those weak voices of mind probably are the TRUE innovations hunted for but will not survive from the attack of public opinion without careful protection.

Innovation process needs a strong visionary leader with wide-enough knowledge and been-there-done-that experience. The leader must also be surrounded by a network of experts ready to give the final judgment on whether something is possible or not.

Improve innovating efficiency by inviting Agience to your next innovation workshop.