Walk the idea

"We talked to each other, exchanged ideas,” says Erdal Arıkan, the information scientist whose research provided a theoretical breakthrough in 5G technology. “This is the best mode of collaboration for me. I remain independent, and they do whatever they want". At first he presented his idea to US technology firms to see if they had interest in implementing the idea. “I did prepare some slides and sent them, but none of the US companies were really interested in it,” he says. Arıkan takes the blame for failing to ignite their interest. “I was an academic who did not know how to promote an idea. Perhaps I did not believe in the idea that strongly myself." However, Chinese Huawei saw the commercial opportunity in Arıkan's idea and, with large investments, government support and engineering talent, turned it into the basic 5G technology now being rolled out around the world. Source: https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-data-breakthrough/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

Carry On Ideation

Ideas often come in bunches, like bananas, or like the old joke that you wait ages for one bus, then three come along at once. The reason is that, when waiting for a bus, the bus may run to a timetable but in heavy traffic or disparity in passenger numbers at each stop the timetable is no precise indicator. Indeed it’s this inevitable messiness that disrupts the bus scheduling. Now the scheduling is a linear process and bus operators try to regulate the service accordingly but the reality proves the bus service cannot be run like a clock, that is, delays are mathematically inevitable. And so with ideation. At an abstract level, ideation might be considered a linear process (ideation + artificial intelligence = aideation is working along such lines of inquiry). But designer experience of ideation shows that it is a non-linear, iterative process - unpredictable, even messy and full of surprises and disappointments. And because ideas are propostions, not fully fledged plans it is difficult to tell bad ideas from good ones because the proof is in its realisation, like the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So while ideas fail, this isn't necessarily because most of them began life as bad ideas. Ideation is full of banana skins: You slip, and carry on. And so the crunch is commitment to the idea while seeking and gaining support to make it happen.