I had an interesting (in a good way) conversation with a new potential client, which was the third client this year where it became crystal clear that having ideas was really not the problem, and most great companies are already sitting on the answers to most of their challenges.

The joke was made by one colleague to another that the digital team needed to have t-shirts made that said “yes, we thought of that”. This mirrored a comment from another client at a really well known UK retailer, where she said “If I hear another agency say ‘Oh, I know what you should do’ I will scream; we have all the ideas we need, we just need to get on and do them!”. Another client talked about the fact that they are a creative organisation and ideas are really not their problem
 in fact I also heard this at Comic Relief last year as well.

So if ideas are not the problem, why do so many companies consider a day of brainstorming to be their answer to being more innovative?

And if we all have all the ideas we need, and all our clients already have great ideas, then why are all these clients not kicking Apple’s proverbial on the Top 50 Most Innovative Companies list?

To paraphrase a saying from a hero of mine; Bill Buxton, the challenge is not getting the right idea, but getting the idea right.

Steven Jonson, in Where Good Ideas Come From talks about the Eureka Myth, where a lone genius conceives a stellar idea that goes on to be a huge success. He goes on to talk about half-ideas that are floating around and only make sense when they bump into another half-idea that fits. I do believe this, but when I tried to come up with some tangible examples for a talk I did at MIX09, I really struggled.

The point really is that an idea is only a start point. It inspires a chain of thinking, and building on that start point that eventually results, after much collaboration, development and nurturing into something that can actually be done and will actually work.

Sometimes that entire process takes place in one person’s head, which is what inspires the Eureka Myth, but more often it is a chain of collaboration with others who build on, add to and augment the idea, shaping it into something that will work. In other words, they make the right idea right.

I still insist that there is no such thing as a bad idea, only a bad execution. Even the chocolate teapot has a foundation in genius (who doesn’t love chocolate biscuits in tea?) only nobody has yet worked out how to make it work!

“Don’t be precious about your ideas, just be good at having lots of them”

(Thanks again to Bill Buxton for that one)

His point being not to get hung up on any particular ‘great idea’ just pass it around, and have another one. At some point, one of your ideas will catch in some way and it will happen. You can be quietly smug that you were the spark that started the whole thing, but it’s the team that developed and delivered it that will ultimately take the credit. So don’t get hung up on holding on to and pushing your own ideas, just have lots of them, and focus on helping other peoples’ ideas into fruition and being part of the development of great products no matter where the idea originated.

Most great brands already have the right ideas, they just need help in getting the ideas right.

So, here’s a top tip for any digital agency pitching for a website redesign. When the client asks you to come up with some great ideas for their business, your first question should be “What ideas have you already had?” Your job is then to build on them and make them right in the context of what you’re doing. To be honest, by the time you’re finished with them, they will probably be unrecognisable from where they started. Oh, and if they refuse to answer the question to test out your ingenuity, then you know they’re going to be hard to work with
  a bit like the girlfriend who says “If you don’t know what’s wrong, then I’m not going to tell you”. <sigh>