Bringing Ideas To Life

As reader’s of this blog know I’m in the most embryonic stages of writing a book, or two, so I’ve been considering the process.  This has got me thinking about ideas in general and how much effort it takes to realise them.  I have many ideas that I’ve been working to make real for as long as a decade, whilst progress has been made on them, they’re still not fully realised. 

If you are an idea person I think you just have to accept that many of your ideas will never become products or services, often your ‘best’ ones.  You have to be determined, patient and cunning to bring them to life.  This has really been bought home to me as I’ve been reading a lot of books about start-ups and breakthrough products.  Their paths have never been easy, never direct and often involved many changes in direction, failure and lots and lots of luck.

This quote from Steve Jobs in 1995 sums it up nicely:

There’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make.

Of course when Steve made that quote he had hundreds of millions in the bank, so he had some advantages!

The photo today is of my Brompton bike, I have many ideas while out cycling, but I chose this photo because the Brompton is a perfect example of an idea that took a lot of determination to turn into a product and then has been refined over many ideas of ‘craftsmanship’.