# Ideaflow by Jeremy Utley & Perry Klebahn - Blinkist

What’s in it for me? A new approach to corporate creativity.

Have you ever found yourself watching the clock in a pointless brainstorming session?

Do you, or your business, keep turning out the same tired product offerings?

Are you sick of coming up with great ideas, only for your manager to choose the “safe” option?

Do you think creativity is purely the responsibility of the design team?

If you answered “yes” to any of those, then you’re in the right place!

Anyone can be creative. Any business can create game-changing innovations. But traditional corporate approaches to creativity and ideation are holding everyone back. 

In this Blink to Jeremy Utley’s Ideaflow, you’ll learn how to implement the ideaflow metric to drastically boost innovation and unleash your radical creative potential in the workplace.

The most important business metric you’ve never heard of

In April 2002, the beloved outdoor clothing brand Patagonia was in trouble. They were going through samples for their Spring line, but the drab gray, brown, and black fleeces on the racks were, well, underwhelming. It had been their strategy to “focus on the winners” – the practical, workhorse pieces beloved by their repeat customers. But by focusing on their tried-and-tested aesthetic, they’d stifled creativity, and their Spring offering was undeniably stale. How had this happened? Well, there was one key metric that the Patagonia team had neglected to monitor: ideaflow. 

The concept of ideaflow is simple. It’s basically a metric by which you can quantify creativity. That’s right – contrary to what you might think, creativity isn’t magic dust; it can be measured and optimized. It’s also a learnable skill, not an innate talent. It’s the art of solving problems by generating original ideas. 

The number of ideas you can generate in response to a problem – your ideaflow – is the best metric for measuring your creativity. It’s also the most useful metric you can use to predict your organization's potential for innovation, and success. 

Ideaflow should be a key performance indicator for every department, not just creative teams. Focusing on bottom-line metrics like new products shipped can only tell you there’s a creativity problem long after your creativity problem should have been addressed – as the team at Patagonia learned.

So, why aren’t you hearing about ideaflow at every all-hands meeting and in every business profile you read? Put simply, prioritizing ideaflow can feel scary. Organizations with high ideaflow don't look like conventional businesses. Creativity requires flexibility – people may need to move around or take breaks from constant communication. Innovation comes from both independent thinking and collaboration. Trying new ideas inevitably leads to some mistakes. This unstructured approach can seem messy or unproductive to traditional corporate culture.

But mindless productivity sometimes gives way to bursts of creativity. Rather than avoiding missteps, companies should view failures as learning opportunities on the path to innovation. Structure and perfectionism may need to be sacrificed for playfulness and originality. By embracing ideaflow over tradition, organizations can build the creativity required to solve problems and drive growth in today's complex business environment.

Use simple techniques to boost your ideaflow

What do creativity and innovation in business look like to you? Is it filing a new patent? Launching a new product? Creating a viral marketing campaign that brings in tons of clicks?

Nope. Patents, products, and campaigns are the result of creativity. If you’re focused solely on the results, you’re looking at the concept through the wrong end of the telescope. Creativity is a process. And if that process isn’t up and running, then you’re going to have a tough time coming up with a brilliant new idea when your back’s against the wall. 

So, how do you fold the process of creativity into your life, and into your workplace? Here are some tips.

Start by flipping the traditional focus on quality over quantity. Instead, try setting an idea quota – aim to generate a high volume of ideas, even if some seem lackluster at first. This aligns with the seed, sleep, solve technique:

First, plant a mental seed by defining a specific problem to solve. Having a clear goal stimulates more ideas than a blank slate.

Next, sleep on it. Review the problem before bed so your subconscious can make connections overnight. Though you won't wake up with a complete solution, fresh perspectives will emerge.

The solve part involves quickly writing down many possible solutions to your problem over breakfast or during your commute. Don't judge initial ideas. Pushing past obvious notions often unlocks innovation in those last few ideas. This repetitive idea generation develops the high ideaflow that drives business success. 

It’s worth repeating: refrain from judging or evaluating ideas until the generation phase is complete. Diving into critique mode too early can prematurely eliminate ideas that may prove valuable on further inspection. It also switches the mind from creative to analytical thinking, which limits the imagination.

Next, obsessively document every idea – any thought not captured is lost. Use paper over digital tools to avoid interruptions.

Then, schedule in time to review all the ideas you’ve captured with fresh eyes and distance. See which ones still pique curiosity days later. Transfer the most promising ideas to permanent records.

Finally, seek out varied experiences – reading, hobbies, travel – to spur new perspectives. If possible, build unstructured creative time into your work routine. For example, Google mandates that employees spend 20 percent of their time exploring personal passions to spark innovation.

Boosting creativity requires accepting some inefficiency – in all its messy glory.

Brainstorm better

For decades, conventional business has turned to one tactic when innovative ideas are needed fast: the trusty brainstorming session. But here’s why traditional corporate brainstorming doesn’t work.

Sessions invite too many generalists rather than experts with deep knowledge to offer grounded solutions.

Companies favor safe, convenient ideas over risky innovation. Negativity is banned, stifling debate on flaws and past failures.

Sessions are too short; they rarely allow the time needed to develop fresh, quality ideas.

Not enough ideas get produced – six, or even twelve, ideas are inadequate. High idea volume is key.

To sum all that up, typical corporate brainstorming fosters low-risk, convenient ideas from generalists in a rushed, artificially positive setting that discourages constructive criticism and doesn't allow enough time for quality idea generation. This approach rarely yields the level of innovative thinking required for business success.

So, how can you brainstorm better?

Curate the right mix of people. That means including experts with deep knowledge, not just seniority. Bring in cross-departmental perspectives, but keep the group small – around 3-6 people – for efficiency.

Begin with an icebreaker activity to foster psychological safety and collaboration.

Avoid having a verbal free-for-all. Instead, ask everyone to silently capture their initial ideas in writing first. This way, introverts are also included.

Use an innovation sandwich structure – bounce ideas off one another as a group, provide solo reflection time, then convene again as a group to share findings. This group-individual-group rhythm boosts creativity.

Finally, let’s talk numbers: what’s the ideal number of original ideas that should be brainstormed in an ideation session? Whatever number you’re thinking of, it’s probably too low. Ever heard of the Idea Ratio? Design consultant Bob Sutton studied a variety of enterprises to determine how many individual ideas were behind game-changing products. The answer? Around 2,000! 2,000 ideas generally yield 100 prototypes, which yield 5 products, of which 1 is a true success. 

You might not come up with 2,000 – or even 200 – ideas in a single session. But keep that magic number in mind when you’re tempted to wrap things up after generating just a handful of schemes.

Iterate as many ideas as possible

Say you’ve boosted your ideaflow. You’re capturing new concepts as they come to you. You’re brainstorming better. You’ve got hundreds of ideas. But now comes the tricky part: Which of those ideas are you going to take to the next level? In other words, which idea is the right idea?

We’ll answer that question – but before we do, let’s take a quick sidebar to talk about the relative salt levels in the Dead Sea and the nearby Sea of Galilee. Both seas are fed by Israel’s River Jordan. But the Dead Sea has no outlet. The fresh water pumped into it by the River Jordan has nowhere to go. Eventually, it evaporates. As a result, the Dead Sea has a phenomenally high salt content – too high for fish, seaweed, or other marine life to survive. The Sea of Galilee, on the other hand, does have an outflow. Fresh water pumps through it constantly, and it supports a teeming marine ecosystem.

See where this analogy is headed? Flow is essential for life. That goes for the life of your ideas, too. Rather than trying to pick one perfect idea, you should focus on flowing as many ideas as possible to the next stages of the iterative process. Here’s how:

First, it's important to establish an idea pipeline and test as many concepts as possible in the real world. Even if an idea seems far-fetched at first, you can't know if the underlying assumptions are valid until you get real-world feedback.

When initial test results look positive, don't get carried away. You need to take new ideas through multiple iterative stages: test, analyze, refine, retest. It takes time to develop ideas that resonate with consumers.

Rather than testing one idea at a time, create a diverse portfolio with a mix of safe, promising, and bold ideas. This increases your chances of finding winning concepts.

Accept that innovation is an unpredictable process with a high failure rate. So don't try to avoid failures. Instead, focus on lowering the cost of experiments and of designing rapid tests. This allows you to fail fast and often on the path to uncovering great ideas.

The key is to view innovation as a numbers game. The more ideas you can test quickly and cheaply, the more likely you are to find the breakthrough concepts that succeed in the marketplace. Embrace experimentation, don't fear failure, and keep iterating to develop ideas that consumers love.

Design tests that work

Have you ever heard of the Marshmallow Challenge? Designer Tom Wujec presents the challenge at all of his seminars. The challenge is this: You’ve got 20 sticks of spaghetti, some string, a marshmallow, and 18 minutes in which to create the tallest tower possible using these materials. 

The marshmallow is heavier and harder to anchor than most people anticipate, so a sturdy foundation is crucial. The most effective tower-builders, in Wujec’s experience, are kindergartners, who build, on average, 18-inch towers. They don’t come to the challenge with any preconceived ideas, so they’re open to experimentation and iteration – an approach that yields results! The least effective tower-builders? MBA grads, who don’t build in time for experimentation but are focused on finding the most effective solution and executing it. The results are paltry 10-inch structures.

You may be excited to get experimental with all the ideas in your flow – but what happens when the execs at your organization have an MBA mindset? 

When pitching bold ideas for real-world tests, refine your pitch using the retroactive technique. Imagine your idea was already rejected – and consider why that would’ve happened. Anticipate all possible objections, and address them proactively in your actual pitch. This’ll raise your chances of getting stakeholder approval.

Another thing you can do is start with simple, fast, low-cost tests that are easy to approve. If those yield promising data, it builds your case for more extensive follow-up tests. Build momentum through small wins.

To tie into that, avoid over-planning. Rapidly bring ideas into the real-world testing phase to see if they work. Perfectly designed tests aren't needed initially – do quick and dirty experiments to get just enough data to refine your approach.

Cheap, easy first tests can provide huge insights. The founders of Netflix spitballed the idea of a VHS mail service but concluded that video cassettes were too bulky to send in the mail. Then they heard about DVDs, a technology only available in Japan at the time. They didn’t need to run a costly experiment to gauge the viability of mailing CDs – instead, founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph mailed themselves one CD, Patsy Cline’s greatest hits, and concluded that their idea had legs. Their initial test cost less than 20 bucks. All that goes to show that initial experiments don't need big budgets to determine if ideas are viable.

Another tip is to focus on desirability over feasibility. That means first testing to identify what consumers want before refining details. When you see a spike in desirability, you’ll know you're onto something.

Prototype simply – handmade models can do the trick. The key is to quickly get concepts in front of real users.

Finally, have a clear hypothesis, gather data through experiments, and then refine based on results. This rapid test-and-learn loop is crucial.

Over time, as testing proves its ability to generate breakthrough innovations cost-effectively, organizations naturally become more experimental. In short, success builds success.

Final summary

The most effective metric for determining business success is ideaflow. To boost your ideaflow, train your creativity and prioritize creative thinking at your workplace. Optimize your brainstorming tactics, and move as many ideas as possible into the iterative phase. These simple principles allow you to rapidly flow your way to innovative solutions – and lasting success.