I recently read up on this interesting concept of saving ideas in a journal or other storage method. Presently, I have been writing my inspirational ideas on a note card and tossing it in a box for review at a later date. (The trouble is there never seems to be that future date to do the review!)
I'm interested in hearing how others store their ideas and if anyone has a systematic method to review them. Charles Cave had some interesting ideas on his blog.
I also am wondering if possibly this is the place to begin when trying to introduce innovation to a business where it is not systematically practiced.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I would say we should definitely discuss such procedures here. Has anyone considered the use of a wiki to share ideas? I don't have much experience with them, but what little I know suggests that they might be a useful tool here.
ReplyDeleteI have used Jotspot, and also started recently using Evernote. Jotspot is nice in that it is web based, Evernote has deeper functionality (it's a client application).
ReplyDeleteI have recently brought a Digital voice recorder Olympus DS-330, and have been recording comments from time to time. Mostly it's schedule related.
ReplyDeleteMost of the time it is on hold but a few days ago I was on a Interstate and I got an idea of how to organize different papers for a possible dissertation topic. Basically, I would skim over different abstracts and organize papers in a private database as technology used, applications, brief procedure, and citation information. For my needs it is quite sufficient as I need to identify what technology I have to use, and then evaluate different procedures.
The biggest advantage is, I can start recording anywhere and anytime. I also wanted to find a way to avoid typing.
I'm not saying that this idea is superior to all others previously mentioned, but I use a Microsoft Access database that is broken down by major subjects of interest to me. Within a subject area, I arrange subtopics alphabetically, with each entry containing a title (sometimes grouped under a common word, such as Innovation), a web link to a web page or source document, and a section on Notes related to that topic. Since the Notes section has unlimited space, I can even copy a whole article, or just pertinent facts.
ReplyDeleteThis database is now about 10 Megs in size, and one of the major topics of interest to me, Distance Education, now has over 8,400 citations.
It is easy to backup this database, because Yahoo email now offers 250 Megs of space, and I just email the database to myself for backup.
Jon Lebkowsky gave a talk at our local chapter of the World Future Society last month entitled "The Future of Affinity: Living Networks with Social Software". A copy of his remarks are here. He is deeply invloved in the issues you are discussing.
ReplyDeleteSince no idea exists in a vacuum, the ability to group things together or show connections seems useful. This sort of seems to be the kind of thing that mind-mapping software is designed to organize.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking at free programs, such as FreeMind
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
as a potential tool to help keep my thoughts/ideas organized, and maybe also make them easier to find later. (Just searching through the 1,200 bookmarks I have in my browser is a real chore sometimes.)
So many blogs and only 10 numbers to rate them. I'll have to give you a 7 because you have good content but lack of quality posts.
ReplyDeleteFree Access To More Information Aboutmedical education