Expanding ideas through BIAS
A couple of months ago, I wrote about the WIBNI ideation technique. As I mentioned, it is by far one of the easiest techniques to implement. I am continually amazed as to how effective it is when it comes to generating ideas. Last week, a classmate of mine asked me how I came up ideas. The answer is, I am just a curious person, always have been and (hopefully) always will be. I have found that questioning everything around you is a great way to generate ideas. That is why I have greatly adopted the WIBNI technique ever since learning about it last summer.
Idea creation includes more than just questioning things however, it usually involves expanding on initial ideas that you may have. While you can recursively use the WIBNI technique to expand on an idea, I prefer to use BIAS to accomplish this. BIAS is - Borrow, Invent, Acquire, Steal. It is more of an ideation framework rather than an actual technique. The words that make up this acronym are to be taken literally - basically do either of these activities to expand either part or most of your idea.
Let’s see how using BIAS can help expand on an idea. One thing that I really hate doing is laundry - even though I am lucky enough to have a washer/dryer in my home. Using WIBNI, I came up with the question - Would It Be Nice If I did not have to do my own laundry? Answering that question led to the idea of a laundry service. Simple right? I was able to expand this idea by borrowing from the Peapod model.
Peapod is an online grocery shopping and delivery service. This company has solved another pain of mine - Grocery shopping.
Borrowing a page from Peapod, I expanded the laundry service idea to include at-home pickup and delivery as a way of differentiating from the close competitors. That is, the customer will arrange a pickup date and time, the laundry service truck will arrive within that timeframe, pick up the customers laundry, and take to it the regional laundry warehouse to washing. A similar process will be followed after the customer’s clothes are washed.
Borrowing, Inventing, Acquiring, or Stealing can be viable ways to recycle current ideas that expand on yours. These activities are simple and straightforward. You have probably already incorporated them into your ideation - If you haven’t well then it is surely time to start.
