What Will Happen After the Spark?
If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied. – Alfred Bernhard Nobel
Spark.
The sound of an idea coming to life. Once born, it will seek out other ideas and inspire people to build on it, growing into and morphing into many other shapes and sizes.
The casual insight that someone mentions in the elevator to a colleague is overheard by a fellow passenger who connects the idea with something they read about in an industry journal. A new idea is formed, still embryonic but having more substance, solving a problem that he has been experienced. He posts his new idea on a blog and emails two of his colleagues. The blog post is read by many people, all with different perspectives and circles of people they spend time with.
A research scientist finds in interesting and applies it to a theory she has been working on. A consultant connects the idea with other ideas that are particularly sticky at one of her clients and puts together an innovative solution. A screenwriter sees the post and it sparks another idea which ends up in a scene of sitcom. A concerned parent reads the post and inextricably connects this with the worries they have with one of their kids, putting their mind at ease and changing their way of thinking.
Over time the ideas will grow. The director of the sitcom remembers the scene and incorporates it into a movie which he directs a couple of years later, the actors in the movie talk about it over drinks at a reunion the following summer. The research scientist finds that her theory is invalid, but that the spark has led to other sparks that lead to more research and furthering of the body of knowledge. The consultant finds that the opportunity he thought existed didn’t have a market outside his specific client, but for that client it solved a couple hundred thousand dollar problem.
This is one of the major benefits of social media and the technologies that facilitate the spreading of ideas. While difficult to quantify, difficult to place an ROI against, difficult to incorporate in a controlled sense inside corporations, there is no denying that ideas carry with them value. Even incomplete unformed ideas have value. Their value exponentially increases as they are shared. They cannot be managed in the classic sense, and in many ways only thrive when put into circulation with as broad an audience as possible. Not all ideas will take flight – only a few will. Some will have negative consequences – but not many.
As organizations share more and develop a culture of sharing, the greater the reward of what they receive in terms of what has been shared with them. This is a different mindset from that of controlling of all knowledge within the corporate walls, but a challenge worth taking. It is also the challenge of those people who champion such ideas inside corporations.
Spark. Where will your next idea go?
