HyperConvergence : the Yellow Box Yellow Ideas
Yellow Ideas
Yellow Ideas : Thinking the impossible !
Y
ellow Ideas are at first sight impossible. They’re powerful visions or dreams, as J.F. Kennedy’s one: “before the end of the decade, an American will walk on the moon” or Gandhi’s one: “India will win its freedom without violence”.
James Dyson and Bertrand Piccard’ dreams are much more pragmatic: inventing a vacuum cleaner without bag for the British designer and creating an airplane that could fly during 24 hours without kerosene, the incredible Solar Impulse Project for the Swiss engineer and balloonist.
These are ideas said to be impossible. Impossible for economical, technical, human or cultural reasons, impossible by lack of time, resources or envy. Impossible,because the task seems to be unrealistic.
But, are “impossible ideas” really “unfeasible”? And what if the real challenge would be to make them feasible, to make them happen? Isn’t creativity the art of making possible what everybody told was impossible?
Human being has an excessive tendency to reject ideas that seem unreachable. How many times have we seen, at the end of a brainstorming session, participants destroying “impossible ideas”, “unrealistic ideas”, “unpractical propositions”. Now, it’s there that are the biggest sources of creativity.
Learning to identify and to accept Yellow Ideas, as other more conventional and usual ideas, is essential in a creative life. There’re moments for Blue Ideas, for Green ideas, for Red Ideas and for White Ideas. There are also moment for incredible, unusual, daring ideas: Yellow Ideas.
- are visionary
- provide a mid or long term scope
- plunge us into the future
- are quite inspiring
- challenge the usual way of thinking, of doing
- neglect the daily details and consider “the big picture”
- bring a little bit - or a lot –of craziness in the established order
- they boost the energy of entrepreneurial people and teams
What are the major risks Yellow Ideas can face?
- Being seen as presumptuous
- Being rejected automatically, without real judgment
- Being placed on “Next week agenda” every week
- Not receiving necessary resources: time, money, people, expertise, etc.
How to manage your Yellow Ideas?
1Manage them as real projects!
2Have a Yellow file with all your Yellow Ideas and Yellow Projects!
3Spend regularly time on them! Put them on your agenda!
4Have a yearly budget for incredible ideas!
5Speak up your Yellow Ideas! Share them with audacious friends and colleagues!
6Realize immediately what is feasible in the unfeasible ideas!
7Look for innovators in the concerned field!
8Act! Stop thinking! Learn by doing, step by step!
9Let time do its work: it’s your ally!
10The Yellow Ideas secret is so simple: let them grow!
