king of ideas

Ideational Implications: Investing in Intangibles

One of the problems facing product-based businesses today is the constant pursuit to stay at the fore-front of uniqueness: to keep a steady flow of idea creation between consumers, product managers, and R&D in order to create originality of brand and product. This ideational process is driven by the ongoing need to cement brand presence in one’s chosen market as something more than just a generic re-packaging of a competing product.

In his book, Ideation: The Birth and Death of Ideas, Douglas Graham defines ideas as “intangible assets” and outlines their principal value for businesses: “They are non-depleting. That is, no matter how much you consume them, they are still available for use.”

The Dangers of Over-Enthusiastic Ideational Growth

The problem with ideas is that they are, as Graham puts it, intangible. Without creating anything from them, or implementing any studies based on them, they are difficult to measure in terms of asset vs. liability. Many start-ups fail because they’ll have a boat-load of project ideas that diverge from their primary ideational focus. Vinitius Vacanti cleverly refers to these ideas as “the Sirens of the start-up journey. If you listen to their call, your start-up journey will cease to make progress.”

Adhering to an ideational process that aligns with a business’ pre-established impetus is a challenge, even to a company with a good R&D team. For this reason it helps to have a tool that not only brings in feedback from a variety of external and internal resources, but also has a whole module exclusively for idea management.

OneDesk’s Ideas application features polling, social media engagement, and comprehensive prioritizing: Keep relevancy within your ideational process and ensure your best non-depleting asset never runs dry.

Register for your free OneDesk account today.

Related links:

Ideation: The Birth and Death of Ideas by Douglas Graham
How new ideas Almost Killed Our Startup by Vinitius Vacanti

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