Power of ideas

In the realm of design, there is a presumption that ideas survive if they work, if they find an appropriate application in the material world. But ideas are in competition for our attention; some succeed, some fail, others pass and fade. Perhaps we expect too much of ideas, particularly as there appears no perfect pragmatic solution to a problem expressed in the idea. Yet at the ideation stage, we do not know precisely what an idea can do, or produce, or what forces it serves. It is then we may find that the power of ideas can only be fully appreciated by experimentation, testing and experience.

Ideation ABC

Design ideation, in appealing to pluralism of form, suggests multiplicity of thinking and doing, within, between or without disciplines, also expressed in terms of Assemblage, Bricolage, or Collage, a kind of creative ABC which questions the commodification of word and image in a neoliberal economic gloabalisation. But when ABC is applied to product innovation, and hence marketisation, ideation is modified, its focus shifting from a critical to technical or developmental perspective.

Predictive ideation?

Most innovations are incremental rather than radical, that is, innovation resulting from improvement to existing designs rather than abrupt change. This may suggest, where innovation is primarily a rational problem-solving process with an emphasis on business viability of the product, that designers be guided by algorithms to optimise innovation. Designers, accordingly, would compile a history of ideas taking as its basic unit of analysis the unit-idea, or the individual concept, then instruct algorithms to search for indirect and non-obvious correlations in the data to help identify and develop innovative ideas. For example, a US website developer has developed an algorithm to analyse and rate pop music providing predictive insights into "number one" record hits. The algorithmic approach to innovation, however, is not new - for example, the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ), or multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO) in a range of industries, and the application of algorithms is now part of everyday life, from internet searches to financial trading to climate modelling. Although computation cannot fully replace activities that require human judgement, personal preference or true decisions, algorithms make more kinds of knowledge codifiable and therefore may help advance innovation processes and reduce dependence on solely empirical or experimental means of generating design data. In this sense, algorithms can function as an ideation tool.