Everyday I meet people with ideas both inside the university as faculty and staff to students and general connected community members.
I find all these folks approach ideas differently as well. Faculty ideas are rightly so, typically connected to research, hard funding, theory, validated theory, validated theory with data, academic in origin yet on to something potentially viable for commercialization.
Staff ideas tend to be solutions. Presented with problems, we invent. Solutions are born, then used, then really really used, then other folks want them, market materializes, the potential for commercialization appears obvious, though much of it is niche at glance.
Student ideas are grand, often clones of ideas already in play in the general market. Some are really vast, others tight knit and small.
Community ideas, well range from experienced focused folks, 2nd and 3rd time doers, to 1st time wonders seeking the exact manual not to make any mistakes.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the varied aspects of ideas and I keep coming back to the same beat of the drum that got me into this whole space in the first place- momentum. Its a simple mechanism, all ideas need to move beyond the talkie talk talk and on to something. SPEED is your friend, though for many it scares the heck out of them. Seemingly, and myself included, SPEED is something thats hard to grasp, and even harder to enable. I push myself down the stairs at times to get momentum. I accept that I will likely mess this up and just go. Without this self kicking, I dunno how i would of got to where I am today.
3 tales..
This afternoon I met a student who had a familar ask, I need help with my big idea. Everyone is inventing today. He wanted advice on how to get momentum on his idea. He saw development as something he lacked and so understandably, he tabled the ideas momentum until he could find development. Problem is everyone is looking for developers these days. Single greatest need I see every day is doers and hustlers. I lack both on the startup side of things on campus. Never can find enough doers to make stuff, and never can find enough risk takers to bet on the odds and build a company. This guy appeared to be the hustler but he was in a place many hustlers get stuck in, he was waiting. We talked about his ideas, the first one leveraged the masses, could net traction but to me dies on the fact he’s leveraging property (music) that he didn’t own the rights to. Just being the middle man these days doesn’t obscure you from responsibility. While the idea was technically doable, it wasn’t truly scalable due to the legal snafu’s that would likely trip him and his investors up as they would grow. In the end, the core aspect of the business wasn’t to provide a unique and better experience, it was to move music he didn’t own. It was an idea he could clearly build, but to me, would be failure in time. Build it doesn’t mean you can Scale it, and Scale it doesn’t mean you can Leverage it. SPEED applied to this problem is to quickly assess and move on. My hope is that he does. I did suggest that because you need developers for anything, he should either develop or learn to tell stories and net user engagement first thru prototyping and then get developers. The other issue is that he has no money. A common theme. To get past this, he either has to do a smaller more enabled idea that he can do and snowball to money or he has to give up half of his idea to those that could enable him.
A similar story for a Faculty member with a big idea hits a note and speaks to SPEED. Many ideas especially big ones in healthcare require LEAPING, you need to leap to A narrative that works. That narrative is a story, a website, a pitch, a hustle, a conversation and more. We have a very exciting technology that needs a champion. Asking for a champion is hard. Luring one into the fold while seemingly more work is easier. How do you do that? You make it a big deal. It is a big deal really, patents, cures, smart clinical thinking software, its a good story, the right story- now just get busy and tell it. SPEED in this case makes many people a bit uneasy. We all look for the right story, the right narrative, when in reality, every day without a narrative is 10x worse then a day with a narrative thats not so shiny. This one is tougher. More decision makers at the table. Perceptions, man, perceptions really undo the fabric of modern day hustle. But in the end SPEED again will triumph.
Staff inventors are some of the most enabled people on campus. They don’t come across focused on a paper, or publication, know full well that what they’re working on is likely unpatentable, and many assume that free is the best option to go with. Free is actually a great thing commericalization. Its how you apply free and use free to your advantage that matters. What I love about staff ideas is that they’re done. 75% of them are totally complete and not in vacuum, they’re working, breathing, operating on campus, fulfilling a need, addressing a problem, many built with scale in mind, with free in mind, on free open source thinking. Staff = SPEED to me. Here, on this technology in question, a kiosk system, SPEED is enabled. Momentum is knocking at their door, customers are arriving and we’re a bit surprised.
So when we break this down, the student idea had the most grand premise, but was purely concept, could be nuritured no doubt but many hurdles. SPEED required? Lots.
The faculty idea had best protection, best value to big impact. SPEED required, mid-high. While the research spawned the idea, and was taken to code and processed with patent protection, the narrative and lead to take to market was standing in the way of momentum. More SPEED needed. More risk needed, larger gamble required. But good indicators that with narrative, SPEED likely to be enabled.
The staff idea had most SPEED enabled. Momentum was there. Most validated idea of the three. But value is mixed. SPEED’s role is now to leverage momentum, package it and in some way convince inventors they’re on to something bigger. Its a bit of reverse than the faculty idea that would love the staff’s idea momentum.
So keep thinking SPEED people, figure out what you can do today to move that big idea to the next gate and DO IT.