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.