The Idea Engine

How to Generate Breakthroughs on Demand

I’m sitting in a dark conference room. The projector is blasting white light onto a screen at the front of the room so bright that it takes a while for my eyes to adjust. A box of donuts sits in the center of the table filling the room with the smells of sugary, fried batter goodness. Dave’s sitting to my left — he’s been around forever, seen it all. Bill, another veteran, is across the table. Up front is Raj, a young guy nervously clicking through some PowerPoint charts he probably spent all night sweating over. His hand shakes a bit, but his voice is confident as he describes his invention. Raj has an insight on how to build a better wireless mesh network by solving a particular problem with how they’re configured. Dave, Bill and I have the job of figuring out if this is a novel and valuable enough idea that the company should get a patent for it. This is my first time as an “expert” ‘in one of these meetings so I’m a bit nervous but hey…it’s not me up there. I get to sit back and be the critic.

Raj presents his idea and it’s pretty good but then something happens that I didn’t expect.

Dave starts chiming in. At first I think he's giving feedback, but then I realize something else is happening. He's not critiquing the idea - he's building on it, expanding it...he’s got ideas for how to make Raj’s idea even better. Bill pipes in with his own thoughts. Raj is a little taken aback by this (as am I) because this isn’t how it was supposed to go…he was expecting a few questions and a yes or no decision. But here are these two guys riffing on the spot practically taking over his idea. Next thing you know the idea is approved — but now Dave and Bill’s names are on the patent too.

Wait, what just happened there? It takes me a few moments, but then it clicks. This wasn't just a review meeting - it was an idea factory. Suddenly I got why Dave and Bill’s names were on so many patents. They had put themselves in a position where new ideas were brought to them and without much “work” they were able to add their own contributions. It felt a bit like stealing to me because the inventor had came in the room with “their” idea and left with “our” idea. But from the company’s perspective I guess it worked out — the ideas were improved and an invention created.

The lessons I learned:

• First, new ideas — like Raj’s — are fertile ground for even more new ideas because the inventor hasn’t had the time to fully bake the idea. Raj had the original insight on the solution but there were rough edges and things he hadn’t yet considered.

• Second, Raj had done the “hard work” of finding a problem worth solving in the first place. One of my main principles for coming up with ideas is finding and precisely defining the right problem — that’s often the hardest part. Dave and Bill didn’t even know this was a problem until Raj had presented it to them. But, once the problem was clearly identified their brains instantly came up with possible solutions.

Being in that patent review board meeting was my first glimpse that there might be more to generating ideas than just waiting for inspiration. If Dave and Bill could systematically build on ideas, maybe there were other systematic methods for coming up with ideas.

The common perception is that great ideas just happen...that they pop into your head while you're in the shower. That they just happen without any work on your part. Maybe that’s the case once in a long while but it’s foolish to leave it to chance….especially when there’s a better way. It’s possible to get a steady stream of ideas…sometimes flowing so quickly that you struggle to write them down fast enough. But you have to make it happen. The good news? There's a reliable way to generate ideas that doesn't depend on random inspiration or waiting for lightning to strike.

That's what this article is about - creating conditions where insights emerge consistently and predictably. Instead of random sparks, reliable streams. In other words, building your own idea engine...

The Idea Engine

I’ve had a front-row seat to see top inventors develop the ideas that are the foundation of billion-dollar tech companies. And I’ve studied creators and innovators who live and breathe this stuff. Each has built a system for generating ideas — some developed it consciously, while others stumbled onto it through trial and error. While each tailors their approach they all share three core elements in their “Idea Engine”:

1. Prep — you need fertile soil if you expect plants to grow.

2. Idea generation — get the ideas flowing.

3. Idea incubation — you gotta do something with them.

Let’s walk through each of these.

Prep

Practice #1: Curate Your Inputs

Everything we pay attention to is raw material for what we make.

- Rick Rubin

The ideas you have are largely a product of your inputs — so curate them carefully.

Lin-Manuel Miranda got the idea for Hamilton while reading Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. He wasn't looking for musical inspiration - he was just following his curiosity about American history. But because he had immersed himself in both hip-hop culture and theatre, he saw something no one else had: Hamilton’s immigrant story was basically a hip-hop narrative.

George Lucas was more intentional with his curation. He was studying Joseph Campbell's work on mythology and Akira Kurosawa's samurai films while developing Star Wars. The Hero’s Journey structure and visual style that made Star Wars so revolutionary were directly influenced by those works.

When he was at Apple Jony Ive would have his design team spend weeks studying the history of everyday objects — doors, chairs, watches. They were building their taste in what makes objects timeless.

Sometimes, it's about putting yourself in the right places. Steve Jobs visited Xerox PARC where he saw their work on graphical interfaces and mouse-driven computing. Xerox hadn’t grasped the value of what they had created - but Steve did.

Each of these examples show the value of curating what you see, read and hear. This was a practice for each of them…not some random activity. Fortune favours the prepared mind. And you prepare that mind by feeding it high quality interesting inputs.

And…it can't just be the same old stuff all the time. Or just the stuff that the X or YouTube algorithm wants to show you. You’ve got to mix it up, bump into new things and let your curiosity be your guide. I know this isn’t easy. We’re all focused on "getting things done”. I am too. I find it hard to know when to “lock in” and when to give myself permission to wander. But the top innovators make the time and put in the effort to find the good stuff that plants the seeds of inspiration.

So, what about you? What books are you reading? Who do you follow? Are you getting that steady drip of insights that makes your brain spark?

Once you've got good inputs flowing, you need a system to capture what comes out. Let's build that next...

Idea Generation

Practice #2: Collect Everything

First up, the obvious but crucial step: collect every idea and write it down. Don't hold them in your head — that's the unforced error. As David Allen says, "Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them."

Where you hold them doesn’t matter…whatever you have on you. No fancy system needed. Your Notes app works fine. Napkins work too (though maybe transfer those somewhere else before laundry day...learned that one the hard way).

Practice #3: Generation

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

- Stephen King

This is the most important part — you must have an idea generation practice.

Notice the word: “practice”. Like shooting free throws or playing scales. You don’t just do it when you feel inspired. You do it every day.

To be specific: every day, write down 10 ideas. They can be good ideas, bad ideas, ideas about different things, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you force yourself to come up with 10 ideas — even on the days when you’ve got nothing.

Now you're thinking 'Ten ideas? Every day? Are you insane?' Look, I get it. Some days your brain feels more like a rusty faucet than an idea fountain. But here's the thing - it’s when you do this practice consistently that the magic happens. After a few weeks your brain starts to catch on to what you want. It realizes “I better up my game — we need 10 ideas for tomorrow” and it starts spotting them everywhere. You’ve primed your brain…turned it into an idea spotting machine. Your brain gets rewired from 'waiting for ideas' to 'hunting for ideas’. Getting ten ideas starts to become easy.

While you’re going to get a lot of ideas naturally, I’ve got some powerful strategies later in the article that will help you get that tap flowing.

Practice #4: Define a Target

Remember when I mentioned "priming" your brain? It's time to level that up.

With the idea generation practice you'll start coming up with tonnes of ideas. But we don't want just random ideas - we want ideas aimed at specific targets. Here's what you're going to do (yeah, another practice but stick with me): give your subconscious clear marching orders. Frame exactly what you're looking for: "give me ideas for articles that would help developers write cleaner code“ or “give me app ideas that solve real problems for authors”. The clearer the target, the sharper the ideas.

Get that request into your head - say it out loud a few times, write it down, whatever works for you. Then? Let it go. Get on with your day. Let the subconscious do its thing. Your brain's like one of those slow cookers - set it and forget it. Come back later and somehow the magic happens.

Okay…so you’ve got your idea engine revving and generating tonnes of ideas now. But now you’ve got a new problem: too many ideas. This is where incubation comes in.

Incubation

Practice #5: Put the Ideas Through an Idea Incubation Funnel

This is where a lot of people mess up…they just let the ideas sit in their notes app. They don’t do anything with them. Besides the obvious point that it makes no sense to come up with ideas if you’re not going to do anything with them your brain also figures out that this is pointless and starts resisting. That idea flow slows to a trickle.

Okay, so we have to do something with our ideas. But what?

Let me give you two approaches. First, the simple way (and sometimes simple is best): Once a week, scroll through your ideas. Pull out the best ones - either do something with them right away or put them in a system somewhere you'll actually see them. Only let the best ideas survive. Archive the rest. Clean slate. Done. Simple enough you might actually do it.

Want something more advanced? I have something I call the “Idea Incubation Funnel”. This is something I learned when I was working in an advanced wireless technology group that was tasked with systematically coming up with new technologies (the fancy 4G/5G wireless processing your phone does).

Here’s how it works: There’s a funnel. Lots of ideas go in the top, but only the best ones come out the bottom. Those ones that come out the bottom have been worked on for a while in the background — incubated.

The whole thing is based on two principles. First, it takes time and effort to “develop” an idea to see if it’s any good — for real good, not just first impressions good. Second, ideas need to earn their attention — kind of like a hunger games for ideas. At the top of the funnel, each idea gets a quick look - just enough to flesh it out a bit and see what it’s about. Then comes the filtering. The strongest survive and the weakest get cut.

Those ones that survive get a few more resources poured into them. Working them, advancing them, getting an even better sense if there’s something there. Another round of filtering. Only the ideas showing real promise move forward. It makes sense, right? Ideas need to be developed to see what they’ve got but we’re limited in time and resources so we have to be selective about it.

Here's how I run my personal version: Every idea gets 2 minutes - just enough to figure out what it really is. Then the first filtering. The survivors get 10 more minutes - maybe some quick research, a rough draft, or some sketches. Another round of filtering. The best three or so of those get a solid 30 minutes of development time each week. And then the best, most promising idea gets a half day of time to make some good progress on it.

There’s three big wins that come from this approach. First, it bridges the idea to the execution. When an idea is something that’s ready to be fully committed to you’ve already got some momentum. Second, it trains your brain to get better at recognizing what makes a good idea. And finally, it helps me avoid ‘shiny object syndrome’. I have a tendency to want to go all in on some new unproven thing…I’ve got plenty of half-finished projects to prove it. This system satisfies that itch to play with the shiny objects without getting derailed from my most important projects.

Of course, this second approach is way more complex and so it’s more difficult to maintain…but there’s wins to be had if you can make it work.

So now you've got the Idea Engine blueprint with the daily idea practice of coming up with 10 ideas at the heart of it all. That's your starting point, and it's a powerful one. Get that going and you're already way ahead of most people.

But sometimes you need ideas on demand. You need some heavy hitter strategies that will get ideas flowing when you need them most….I’ve got those coming in a follow-up post so keep an eye out for that.

It All Starts With Great Ideas

Ideas come to those who are in the habit of looking for them.

- James Webb Young

Ideas are powerful. But let's be real - they aren't everything. You need execution. You need the judgment to know which ideas are worth pursuing. But it all starts with great ideas. And you get great ideas by having lots of ideas. And you get lots of ideas by building an Idea Engine.

That's what I've laid out here: a system for generating ideas consistently and reliably. Not random inspiration, not waiting for lightning to strike. No, instead a real engine you can build and operate. It's both a practice - something you do every day - and a skill that gets sharper with use.

Remember that story I opened with? The one about Dave and Bill in that patent review meeting? That was a moment that crystallized this realization that ideas aren't some mystical thing that just happen to you - you can make them happen. Not by chance, but by system.

Now you've got the same playbook - the prep work, the daily practice and the incubation system to make ideas happen when you need them.

The rest? That's up to you. Start your engine with 10 ideas today. Keep it running tomorrow. And the day after. Because somewhere in that steady stream of ideas, there's gold waiting to be discovered. Let's get that engine running.