It is always a bit shocking when at an innovation conference, invited as a speaker, I say directly that all the ideas that come to us all (more or less frequently depending on each one) are lousy ideas. What” all our ideas - spontaneous in particular - Are ideas that have very little value ”.
The reality is that just because we have ideas doesn't mean we can boast of being “creative” people. It doesn't even have anything to do with it: Just because you have 15 ideas per second doesn't mean you're more creative or creative than someone who only has one every 6 months ... but who will go through with its development and its material realization.
Because that is the real subject of innovation: its transformation into reality. Business reality, artistic reality, scientific reality, whatever, but to transform this idea into something concrete, that is, to submit it to the judgment of the real world. As long as it remains a dream, an abstraction in the shadows of your cortex, it is easy to idealize, to magnify, to flatter it. And usually, reality then reminds you how hard it can be for your dreams.
In the video it looks like this:
Your ideas are lousy (for now)
In an article widely shared on social networks, the author and speaker Anadi Sahoo tells the following anecdote: during a training session, the speaker asks the participants a question:” How many of you agree that to possess knowledge is to possess power? ”. Obviously, everyone seems to agree. Intervener's response:” fake. Knowledge is not power. Only applied knowledge is real power ”. Sahoo's conclusion: pWhatever we learn, theoretical knowledge is useless when it is not validated (or invalidated) by the confrontation with the field. That is the whole meaning of the experience.
When it comes to creativity and innovation, it's exactly the same way: an idea, no matter how good, is worthless a prima facie. At least not until you leave your brain to rub shoulders with the ground. It is also the meaning of ” Ideas Are Shit, Execution is the Game ” [ideas are worthless. All that matters is the passage to action] enunciated by the very media (across the Atlantic) serial entrepreneur and Silicon Valley guru Gary V (a.k.a. Gary Vaynerchuk).
However, it still happens that the power of attraction of an idea is such that we sometimes forget its reality. The history of industrial flops is full of examples of this type (Google Glass, Bic perfumes, etc.) where the end consumer is completely absent from the discussions, the “ideators” being blinded by the light of their idea like butterflies on a lantern. The same is true in the media world — a sector in which I speak a lot as an innovation speaker — where thinking about the interests of the reader and the evolution of uses has long been absent from editorial meetings, in favor of promoting topics for advertisers. But with the strong return of the subscription model in the face of the siphoning of advertising revenue by social networks, a change has been initiated: now it's reader first (= reality). The New York Times has understood this since 2017 already.
Field experience, an undervalued asset in terms of innovation? In his work,Developmental psychologist Mathieu Cassotti, with whom I had the pleasure of speaking at an innovation conference, shows nothing less. By looking at the “innovative” solutions proposed to a problem, his research team discovered that children were no better innovators than “senior” engineers, on the contrary. A result that breaks a preconceived idea, however attractive, according to which outsiders, with new and fresh thinking (=children), would be better suppliers of brilliant ideas.. According to Cassotti, this is certainly the case in terms of “out of the box” thinking, i.e. the variety of solutions proposed, but unfortunately these new ideas are often ineffective... unlike those of engineers who have the merit — if not very “innovative” — of working!
The next step? Sharing. This knowledge reinforced by experience is still not much if it is not shared. Who shares, receives, and therefore can improve their experience even more thanks to that of others, thanks to the feedback of others, and above all do it much faster than by experimenting by yourself. For Sahoo, this is the real power: that of education and the transmission of knowledge.
Alexis Botaya, creativity and innovation speaker
- My creativity podcast on Majelan
- My Challenge Create to Innovate on WelcomeOriginals
