I’ve consider myself an idea rich person and I like to call these ideas ideavations by combining the words ideas and innovation together. I thought of this word a while back, probably 3 or so years ago, and just recently I noticed that in some Microsoft blogs they use the word ideation. I have since looked it up and it happens to be a real word unlike mine.
Wikipedia defines ideation as “…the process of forming and relating ideas. It is important in creativity, innovation and concept development.”
I love that definition because that is what I’ve often defined ideavation as. So which to use? Since I’ve trained my brain to use ideavations I’ll continue to use that one. I also think it rolls off the tongue better with the letter “v” in there. Maybe I should add the word to Wikipedia?? Why I hadn't heard of the word until now? I have no ideavation.
[Warning: I’m going to rant off a bit and then come back.]
My friend and former boss Eric Holman came up with the word around the same time as me, however he was smart and bought the domain and has since named his company Ideavations, LLC after it. I instead combined innovation with another word to align with my business concept. Anyways, for some weird reason since first meeting Eric we have always had this ability to think along the same lines and usually around the same time. His latest successful project The Local Best was being created when I was thinking along the same lines, except my idea was more of a hobby and just dealt with the web and his is a more business minded approach with an innovative voting concept. Be sure to check it out, especially if you are in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota area.
[Done ranting…]
I constantly keep track of my ideavations with the means of a very sophisticated and technologically superior Windows application called Notepad. It allows me to type up and save my ideas. The aspect that I like best is that it keeps my formatting consistent and is very easy to use. It is also the most reliable program that I’ve ever used.
This notepad list of ideavations is becoming quite lengthy and I find myself in a dilemma. I would love to have each one of these ideavations developed but most of these are quite time consuming for one person to do and to be educated in all areas needed. This leaves me with several options.
- Shout out my ideavations to the public on this blog.
- Find funding to create my idevations and hire some talented people.
- Find someone or some company wanting to take on one of my ideavations.
I’m sure everyone would love to hear what I have to offer, but I’m not completely given up yet so option 1 is out. Option 2 at the moment would take more time than what I have to give at the time of writing this, although it is ultimately where I want to end up. Investors like to have a working product so they can invest in a proved product and I don’t have the time or the expertise to create a working product for most of my ideavations. This leaves me with option 3, which I’m going to try to do. I'll blog about my progress.
I would like to hear what would you do, so leave a comment below.