For the past two weeks, our main focus in lectures and seminars has been ideas. Now, when I was first introduced into ideas and what they were I thought to myself ‘this something I’ve known since primary school so why are they making so much of a fuss?’ The point was to know the key difference between an idea and an outcome. Sound simple enough? Wrong. It is so easy to mistake something as an idea when it is actually, in fact, and outcome. We see outcomes, we don’t see the ideas that came before them. If you can imagine or visualise your ‘idea’, chances are it’s probably an outcome.
This soon became apparent how easy it was to mistake an outcome for an idea. In our recent group project (blog post soon to come all about it) the main focus was to explain the idea process and how we came to that idea. However, our group got so excited by the prospect and jumped right in to how the outcome should look, without really realising that what we were doing was wrong. This usually would be the best way to handle a new project, but for this one, it was more about the idea process than the outcome. This clearly went right over our heads, but luckily, we were caught out a few days before we needed to present our pitch so we had time to quickly turn things around. Our original pitch briefly mentioned our initial ideas (although looking back they were all outcomes as they could clearly be visualised) with a main focus of the outcome and what we were planning on producing. This was the complete opposite of what we were asked to do in the brief. This made us take a step back and really think about where we could steer our project into the right way.
The big idea should be able to be said in a statement. After that, there should be a clear explanation of why you want to do that. The main point our lecturers were trying to make through this project was to ensure we really had a solid understanding of an idea, being able to back it up with supporting evidence when asked why. This will be extremely valuable for later presentations, as well as teaching us the lesson to constantly read the brief to ensure we stay on topic.
Before moving on from the ideas stage we have to ask ourselves:
- Have I pushed past infant and obvious ideas?
- Can I blend different ideas together?
- Is it truly a unique idea?
- Have I tested my idea on my consumer?
- Can I say it in a sentence? (the big idea)
These questions give us a basis of when we have exhausted our ideas to a point where we’re happy, allowing us to move onto the outcome stage. It is essential to believe in your idea and have full understanding of it, leading to a successful outcome.
The key points I have taken from this week are good ideas come from good research, and interesting outcomes stem from unique ideas. Without key information backing up your ideas, you won’t reach an effective outcome because you won’t know why or how you’ve got there. It is essential to be able to answer your own questions with ease, otherwise you will not be able to present a pitch confidently, not knowing why you’ve made a certain point. Thorough research will lead to a unique big idea, followed by a confidently spoken presentation, and essentially being able to communicate well, which is pretty important when the course name has the word ‘communication’ in it!
Omg i love this so much, i don't think i've ever had an idea in my life clearly after reading this