It’s a big world out there with ideas swirling around like crazy.  Just take one trip to a big box store and see the expanding garden hoses and you’ll get what I mean.    Who knew that was a good idea and would sell like hotcakes?!  (That’s not really an endorsement, I’ve never used one, but the commercials are CONVINCING!)  There are lots and lots of Einsteins in the Universe.  The difference is that an inventor stops to make the good idea and tries to figure out how to get it to the public so they can share in the good idea with them! (and tries to make a few bucks in the process…)

When someone finds out we invent for a living, a very popular response is, “Oh, I have an idea for something that everyone will use” or “I come up with ideas for stuff all the time, but I don’t know what to do with it.”  Yep, we all do it.  Something just occurs to you: “I wish that I had a FILL IN THE BLANK to help me FILL IN THE BLANK.”  That’s what makes good ideas.  It just happens that our FILL IN THE BLANK is to help kids and adults BE HAPPY AND HAVE FUN TOGETHER.

Pardon the cliche, but we kinda think ideas are a dime a dozen.  Most aren’t good and few are really, really exceptional.  We have all kinds of ideas all the time and at Gigglicious, but we never hang on just one.  Some inventors do. They come up with one idea and schlep it around to toy companies for years.  That isn’t our business model.  Our logic is that if one didn’t work, we can come up with another one.  We keep the old idea in the arsenal and bring it back out if we see a fit with someone or have something to add on to it.

But, maybe you are curious about HOW we come up with the ideas for toys, games, and novelties?  Inspiration is everywhere and we simply try to stay conscious about keeping an eye out for it.  That’s the secret.  We aren’t geniuses, we just think about toys, games, and mechanisms ALL the time.

Inspiration can be found in a trip to the toy section, surfing the internet, our own kids playing a made up game together, a magazine article, a conversation, a vacation, and even a trip to the home improvement store.  Sometimes we sit down and consciously noodle about a particular niche we want to fill for a specific company.  Often, for the measly cost of a Chinese dinner, our kids will sit and draw and think with us.  (Turns out it’s a small cost because they are good at designing!)

I couldn’t sleep the other night, so to fill the time, I figured I’d start ideating.  I generally start by imagining a that I own a toy store.  What toys would I want to see on the shelves?  That gets my brain running.  I came up with four reasonable ideas and another handful of ideas that seemed revolutionary at the time, but not so magical once the sun came up.  (Everything you think of at 3 am always seems to be a stroke of genius, right?)

Inspiration doesn’t always come when you want it to and mostly does when you aren’t paying close attention.  So, we just work to be conscious of the thoughts in the back of our heads.  No magic formula for coming up with ideas, just patience and putting in the time to think and imagine.

So, we came up with an idea!  What’s next?  Stay tuned for Part II!

If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.  ~Albert Einstein

Ideas are like wandering sons.  They show up when you least expect them.  ~Bern Williams

 

Tags: Annie Wolfinbarger, creativity, ideas, ideate, inspiration, invention