Idea Generation & The Idea Sprint
The idea was not invented. It was recombined.
The business case
The Glue That Failed — Spencer Silver & Art Fry · 3M, United States · 1968–1980. In 1968 Spencer Silver, a research scientist at 3M, was trying to develop a stronger adhesive for aerospace use. He produced the opposite: a glue that stuck lightly and peeled off cleanly without damage.
Why it matters
The idea was not invented. It was recombined. Nobody sat down to invent the Post-it Note. An existing material with no purpose met an existing problem with no solution, and the connection took six years to make. This is how most commercial ideas actually arrive: not from originality, but from recombination — putting two known things together that nobody had joined before. It also shows that a good idea explained badly still fails. Press'n Peel and Post-it were the same product; only the method of demonstration changed.
What you will be able to do afterwards
- How to move from a validated problem to many possible solutions
- SCAMPER and Brainwriting — two structured ideation techniques
- The 20-Idea Dump: why volume beats quality early
32 screens, audio-narrated, with a quiz at the end.