It doesn’t matter if you run a blog or run a business, there will come a moment in time when you’re really stuck for fresh ideas. Fresh ideas can lead to new business opportunities, so brainstorming should be a process you adopt frequently if you want to stay ahead of your competition. I’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks that I use when I’m innovating, and each apply if you’re trying to come up with new products, services or blog posts. Spotting solutions and opportunities is just a form of mental exercise. The more you do it, the better you’ll get!
1. Be really grumpy! Keep track of the things that annoy you. This is a great place to start, as you know the problem intimately as well as being the first customer for any solution.
2. Listen to your clients, customers and readers. Complaints are a great source of insight as it’s a very quick way to find something that needs a solution. So identify the common problems that your customers are experiencing and consider possible solutions to their troubles.
3. Think like a child. Children have a fantastically simplistic and candid view of the world, something we lose as we become adults. Employ a strong sense of curiosity and simplicity when looking for solutions. So many things in this world happen due to convention or habit, so thinking like a child helps to break this pattern.
4. Talk to friends and family. Find out what annoys your friends and family. What do they moan about? What problems do they encounter? Do they say stuff like “if only there was a service/product that did XYZ”?
5. Watch and listen to the news. Keeping up with current affairs will help you to keep up-to-date with new legislation and new regulations. Any new constraint usually means that some kind of process needs to change. Where there’s change, there’s usually an opportunity.
6. Learn from your mistakes. When you do something wrong, do you work out how and why you made that mistake? What could have limited the impact of your mistakes? Is there something, that if it existed, would have stopped you from making that mistake?
7. Do volunteer work. Mixing with people from an entirely different background will help you to think from a different perspective. You can make new friends and get ideas for things you don’t usually think about. As a bonus, you help someone too!
8. Bounce ideas with a friend or business partner. If there’s someone who you work well with, spend time brainstorming ideas together. Two different minds can often lead to great ideas, since you’ll find you feed off each others thoughts.
9. Analyse your products/services. Look at your current offerings and identify the best and worst features. See if you can add any features to your existing offerings. Also consider different markets who would be interested in what you offer. You can do the same for a competitors products and services too.
10. Focus on the problem, not existing solutions. Rather than thinking about existing solutions, go back to the original problem. Given a blank canvas, how would you solve the problem? e.g. rather than re-invent the toilet, come up with alternative ways to dispose of human waste cheaply, conveniently and hygienically.
11. Go people-watching. Unleash your inner spy! Spend time watching people go about their everyday lives. What are they doing? How do they do it? Can you spot any obvious problems?
12. Distract yourself. Have a change of scene. Do something that you love doing that has nothing to do with your business or blog. Get lost in what you’re doing. Often we come up with solutions when we’re not even thinking about the problem in the first place.
13. Get feedback. Make the effort to find out what your colleagues, customers and readers think about what you do. Ask what you could do to improve. Listen to their feedback, good or bad. You’ll gain a great deal of insight when you ask people to tell you what they think your strengths are.
14. Refactor, reorganise and rethink. Consider services, products or concepts that are too basic or too complex. Sometimes just adjusting an existing solution will yield more ideas.
15. Critique everything. Question everything, and ask yourself “why?”! Intelligently analyse your environment and think of improvements. See what lessons you can learn about the good and bad things in your environment.
16. Read lots. Any kind of reading material can give you ideas. Find a range of materials that you enjoy reading (there’s no point reading something you hate!). Ideas can come from fiction, magazine articles, scientific journals, anything really!
17. Network, in real life and online. Listen to people who have similar interests to you and find out what they love or hate. What are the common or repetitive problems they would love solved? This is also a great way to find someone to brainstorm with.
18. Regularly read forums related to your interests. Forums often have threads dedicated to frequently asked questions (FAQs). You can borrow ideas from these FAQs as well as be on the look out for questions that pop up on the forums on a regular basis.
19. Look for gaps. Identify gaps in products, services or articles that exist between you and your competitors. Then consider what you can offer to address that gap.
20. Keep a notebook handy at all times. Inspiration can hit you at any time, and you can forget it just as quickly. Keeping a record of this inspiration is vital. Make sure you revisit entries in your notebook on a regular basis too! You might be able to elaborate on ideas you had in the past.
So there you go, 20 tips to help you identify opportunities. There’s a common theme among these tips, namely to analyse problems in as much detail as you can. When you get ideas, consider all ideas, regardless of how stupid they might seem. Then weigh up the pros and cons of those ideas as solutions.
I am a blogger on PowerPoint tips and tracks. Sometimes I feel confused to get up with something fresh and fun. I find these 20 tips very enlightening for me to make a break.
Thank you!
This is a great list. But is it “Be Real Grumpy” or “What makes you real grumpy”? Gets to the same end, I suppose. Thanks for the thought provoking column.
— Dan
You metioned some great points but two I’d have to agree with the most are listening to your customers and readers, and focusing on the problem, and not the solution. Listening to your readers tells you what you need to improve and will inspire new ideas. It is better to focus on the problems as that is a way of also attracting the reader.
You should also include mind mapping.
It helps you so when you have an idea, you can build on it, improve and refine it.
It’s very useful in my blog, where I and others post stories.
Be Really Grumpy has always worked for me. If you can’t stop being so damned optimistic, try staying up most of the night, then hit your blog on about 3 hours of sleep. Works every time.
In addition to the “learn from your mistakes” advice, I’d also add “turn your mistakes into blog posts.”
I like to watch people!
I get a lot of inspiration when I am in the train, the ideas just flow in!
That is why I always carry paper and pen!
Love this list!
Also, change something external: stand on your head, write or think in the middle of the night by candle, write with marker, do your brainstorming outside in a park…
Wow, I didn’t realize I’ve been using most of the tricks you’ve mentioned. My additional trick, always bring your mobile everywhere (thus the purpose of a mobile phone in the first place). I had lots of ideas just writing up random stuffs on my notepad app.
Grumpy grumpy works great for getting ideas, but the posts don’t always do good traffic wise.
Great tips – the big problem for me is getting organized. Ideas tend to come at the least convenient moments – so I end up with lots of scraps of paper – so the notebook tip is very useful.
Another source of inspiration is blogs like this one – and using Google Reader ensures that I get posts like this automatically (in fact it is how I arrived here!)
If I had any untattooed skin left on me, this post would be on it.
Totally! THANK YOU for the inspiration. I like the people-watching one best.
This is awesome advice, just when I needed help for new topics to blog about. Thanks!
Great tips, I always carry my iPod to take notes. Yesterday I was able to jot a big post in 20 minutes, just because I had something to take it down.
I also keep some half finish posts in my stable, so I can complete them in 10-15 minutes with a personal experience.
Thank you all for the compliments.
@Steve
Even if you’re happy and positive, there will be things that annoy you. My point about being grumpy is more about taking note of things that irritate you but still need fixing. The solution is often a novel idea.
Very useful post and advice!
I got one or two new inspirations!
😀
Greetings,
Claus D Jensen
I like #1. It’s important to take note of “problems”…so that solutions can be created.
I have established my own blog and I’m doing some of your good advice. Your Tip # 16 is what I do best. I’ll keep on going. See us all on top. 🙂
That’s perfect. I’m always grumpy! 🙂
Great read. Retweeted!
Kane
One of the best tips on this list is #11–Go People Watching.
And for that I recommend going to the airport.
You get everything from love stories to funerals, reunions to group travelers. You see the inner workings of the employees and the frustrations of customers. Letting your mind imagine what all these people are doing is fodder for your next post!
Sara @ iGoMogul
I definitely like #20, but all great tips for coming up with new ideas!
I always keep a notepad handy because more often than not something comes into my mind at the strangest of times.
It is so satisfying looking back at my notebook when I’m stuck for inspiration and I come across a gem that I had written down 6 months ago but had since completely forgotten about.
I’ve been a freelance web designer for over 2 years now but I have just started blogging very recently and these tips are helpful for both venues.
Thanks!
I must say that business is about solving problems and giving what they want.
Its always good to expose ourselves to more things, so we can see more and have more greater ideas.
I like the first ideal, to be grumpy. But is it OK to be all positive and happy in your writing about the solution to your grumpiness. Seems like most of the best sites remain positive 95% of the time.
Great list Dan! By paying attention to the news and people around us, there is endless “fodder” for us to leverage. My theory is if you got out of bed in the morning,SOMETHING has happened that you can springboard off of. Your list encourages us to open up the flow of creativity. Nice job!
Susan
This post is awesome! These 20 tips are really great for coming up with fresh ideas!
The last one is a good point, we lose a lot of ideas because we have not noted them down somewhere. Another good way to write is to challenge the basic concepts which have been taken for granted by people. Some things like – why it is better to type from a keyboard on the screen than the computer. Sounds absurd, but if it is convincing enough, there would be a lot of people coming in to dis-prove it. That is a lot of fun 🙂
excITingIP.com
Thank you for all the compliments, I’m glad that the article is useful!
@odtaa Searching for badly written articles around your niche… That’s a great tip for coming up with article ideas.
Dan
One tip
Go to one of the free article databases – just google it.
Go to their search form and type in your blog’s niche or something you want to write about.
Press the Go or Search button
And there you are – there’s about twenty per cent good articles and loads of bad ones.
Find a bad article that’s appropriate for your niche and totally rewrite it.
Generally find that when you’ve written your article you’ll find ideas for more.
Then look around for other articles. You should then generate lots of ideas.
A friend I know uses this technique to research topics. He’s actually writing up a full blown business course from looking at free articles.
They’ve given him the structure and ideas – he just totally rewrites into his own style.
Great tips, coming up with new ideas can be a real challenge. I find ideas come when your not looking so hard, so I always make a note in a notebook whenever one jumps into my mind.
great! thanks for this fresh n useful post! it makes me keeping the spirit of blogging…
Good almost exhaustive list. Thanks.
Sometimes, thinking like an UNDERDOG helps.
Also, negating your contemporary ideas also helps, say if you are selling coffee in your restaurant – giving them for free and what impact it has on your business kind of thinking makes your business special.
Again, the article was a good read. :)… happy writing
I think reading is a very important topic. I read tons of blogs in my niche to come up with ideas and topics that I haven’t covered or that I need to cover more of. Great list here.
Hmmm…. nice one .. covers so much of topics .. Like it .. My personal favorite is the spy on people and see what they like when you people watch . I write lot of my post when looking at the people in the mall .. what they eat , what they speak and stuff ..
Regards
Sdueep
This is really insightful, thank you. I especially like the “think like a child” tip 🙂
thanks for those tips…i often have no idea what to do in myblogs n business generally…those simple things may give a different result for my next activity
Extensive list, very use full too.
If you have a fresh idea play with it until–
1) you break it
2) it breaks you
3) you figure it out
4) you discover more interesting idea to play with
i see this 20-big list is something that covers the entire process of being a resourceful person. some of those are also the teachings that i had in my personality development class long time ago. thanks Dan for surfacing these points. it’s always good to be reminded, a human thing.
Those are useful post. Constant research is the key. keep post interesting at all times. This way, you’ll have a lot of followers.