Here are a couple of exercises to force yourself to come up with some new ideas. These methods can be used to give your business an edge, to overcome creative blocks, or just for fun to prove to yourself that you can come up with some great ideas.
Method 1: “Is X meets Y”
Many movie critics use the “Is X meets Y” formula to help them quickly and accurately describe what a movie is about. For example, one reviewer described the movie Open Water as “It’s Jaws meet Blair Witch.” Now anyone can guess that the movie involves sharks (or other water-dwelling monsters) and is a realistically shot horror film.
You can also use this formula to create new products, which the potential market can easily understand.
Choose 2 products from your industry (or choose 2 randomly), with different features and audiences. Combine the two and consider the result. This is your new product. Do this multiple times to create 5 different new products, and then rate them to see which one to choose. For example, “It’s Pop Tarts meets AllBran” might give you the idea of making a healthy toasty breakfast snack, or mini-Poptarts that are poured into a bowl and eaten like cereal.
Interestingly, this method works great with new movie script ideas.
Method 2: “Redesign This”
This method allows you to develop a product very quickly.
Take an existing everyday item and make it better. Write the main essential features of the article, not more than the essential ones. Next, write down all the additional features that you would personally like to see in the perfect version of this article. Then outline some ideas that have all the characteristics you have thought of.
If we consider a Kettle, what essential features does it need? The ability to heat liquid, be safe, easy to pour, easy to fill.
If we think about it this way, we could design a kettle that can have variable settings for different liquids: one to boil water, one to heat baby’s milk, one to make hot chocolate (although it would have to be easy to clean!). Or we could make a more traditional style kettle, but with an extra wide spout to allow it to be filled without having to remove the lid.
These new ideas appear only when we reduce an element to its absolutely essential elements and start again from scratch.
Is your business as focused as it could be, or are you providing unwanted features? Could you introduce some new redesigned products to complement the existing ones?
It’s very satisfying to improve an old classic.
