Well, it’s like baking a cake.

When baking a cake one needs a recipe, ingredients, cooking tools, and an oven. The recipe for good ideas is essential. A recipe in the idea world is defining the goal. Is it to be a product and if so what kind of product?

Since we are making a cake we know off hand the ingredients should include baking soda, sugar, flour, salt, butter, and eggs. If we were creating a product we should need paper, pencils, pens, and colored markers. We then prepare the contents with tools such as a mixer, a spatula, mixing bowls, and a cake pan. In the world of products we need input such as conducting research, reading books, talking to people, experiencing products, and getting an understanding of the desired goal. 

Then using the ingredients in combination of specific tools we prepare them in a particular process. We crack the eggs into a mixing bowl, we discard the shells, and mix in the cake ingredients as necessary. The entire process is about the addition of contents and can be messy. In the product world our contents of information collected are mixed with pen on paper as we sketch the possibilities. The entire process of idea pollination with information is mentally messy as we correlate and potentially see possible interconnections. 

Once the cake mixture is ready we pour the contents into the cake pan, pre-heat the oven, and place the cake pan into the oven. In the creation of the product, the contents of information and drawn sketches are incubated. Incubation is an internal mental process and can be done collectively or independently.

After a duration of time the cake should be removed from the oven, the oven turned off, and the cake allowed to cool for a couple of minutes. The product incubation time will come in its due time. It is true some people, Idea Chefs, have faster incubation engines than others.

Once the cake has cooled we add the icing to smoothly cover the top while letting excess spill lavishly onto the sides. With products we finesse and refine the generated idea into a viable sketch, design, or prototype. The product idea may need to go back into incubation, as it is an iterative process.

And finally, we eat! We experience the cake through visual beauty and eating. As we may be the baker, it comes down to the opinions of others whom can give praise to the success of the cake. This is similar to the world of product innovation. The generated idea needs to be given a thumbs up from sponsors who will enable customers to purchase and experience the product. 

Good Luck Baking! 

Idea Chef :: Adrian Chernoff