Doesn't it happens sometimes that you come up with your potent ideas as to lingering problems around us? As students, we might say that my classroom chairs aren't much comfortable and they shouldn't be the way they are, don't we? Some of us might even go a step ahead to actually draft an idea in mind comprising of the shape of chairs. But then what? You are in the dilemma. What to do with that idea? How can it be put into place? Well, Idea Entrepreneur is the term that needs to be shed with light here.
John Butman, author of Breaking Out: How to Build Influence in a World of Competing Ideas defines an "Idea Entrepreneur" as a person who builds a coordinated effort around a deeply-felt idea as a means to achieve influence and affecting how people think and behave. The exercise thus makes changes in an organization or ecosystem around us. Well, first, let's look at a few innovative ideas by young students to keep our hopes high. These mindblowing ideas surfaced at the IGNITE competition held by the National Innovation Foundation. A group of three class 10 young boys hailing from Tamil Nadu once went to an orphanage to celebrate one of their friend’s birthday. At that place, they were moved by the plight of the lower limb physically challenged. Brainstorming together, they came up with the idea to have a modified wheelchair that can be folded and converted into a crutch so that it is easy to take on stairs as well use on a flat surface. Isn't the idea very simple, yet unique?
Let's look at one more idea. Phamnya Konyak, a class 9 girl from Nagaland came up with the idea of an electronic purse with a paired watch. She thought about the idea after hearing many stories of theft and when one of her own friends lost his purse to pickpockets. The password-protected purse and an electronically paired watch would alert if the user gets away from these or someone steals the purse. Wow, right. What else would we call these young ambassadors of hope other than the geniuses?
However, while tracing the journey of an Idea Entrepreneur has its own shares of hurdles, implementing those ideas can be even more overwhelming. For the moment, let's rewind ourselves to learning about generating ideas and nurturing them. One's ideas need to pass a few tests if it aims to excel in the market and achieve popularity in terms of usage and recognition.
According to the D-school's An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE, empathy is the centerpiece of a human-centered design process. Exercising the principle of empathy lets us one step closer in our way of understanding people in the context of our ideas. As the guide reads, "it is your effort to understand the way they do things and why, their physical and emotional needs, how they think about the world, and what is meaningful to them.”
Equally important is defining our ideas. An idea belied with empathy helps setting realistic goals and achievable targets. Besides, a clear blend of narrowly-focused problems statement and workable problem solution brings in the required in-depth understanding of the overall process.
Undoubtedly, the exercise of putting together one's ideas is a difficult and challenging one. The process might even get clumsy sometimes coloring our perspectives in a way that bars us from getting a clear and transparent picture. Thus, it's important to learn the strategic process that might help one in shaping a rough idea and implementing the same in the best possible way to generate good results, enough public support, and help achieve the listed goals and targets.
Hoping to assist students with the exercise of generating ideas and implementing them, MakeShift organized an Ideation Workshop a month back. The workshop held in Online mode helped students to identify the problems that surround us, come up with innovative and world-changing ideas, and gave them a step-by-step guide to turning their ideas into reality.
Interesting, right?
Udisha Srivastav is currently working as a Content Manager with MakeShift.