[josh_nyc]

I am in a heavy brainstorming phase as of late, thinking and mulling over various "idea areas" that pertain to my domain, software I would use, etc. Not really a set process though...

But much to my delight a few days ago, I was with a friend and we were talking about a service we both use, and some of the utility it lacks. I said "Oh man, I wish somebody would make that! Why has nobody done that?" He then asked, "Why don't you make that? You told me you were trying to think of a good project."

Duh. So, like many things, sometimes the ideas come to you when you aren't mining for them, and the people around you can help point out the obvious.

(The particular idea wasn't that exciting, but it was a real surprise that such an obvious improvement to something I use a lot didn't surface while I purposefully mined for ideas).

[monological]

Yes, so usually you're (generally speaking) talking to a friend about some particular service or you're using some app that everyone else uses and think, 'it's missing this' or 'I could do that better'. The problem with this is that everyone rides the popularity wave, talking about and using the new thing on the block, thinking to themselves, oh, look at me, check out my latest iPhone/twitter/facebook/git/django/rails based app, while other important fields get ignored. It's like a mad gold rush. Everyone sees these things exploding and they all want a piece of the pie, while ignoring other areas which have a massive potential for innovation. The thing is, I'm not going to be hypocritical. I myself am also guilty of falling into this pattern, because it's the path of least resistance, but I try to force myself to think outside the box.

[josh_nyc]

Exactly... I have been mining the ""mundane"" areas for ideas, since I know everyone else is riding the two point oh thing.

It's hard to force out-the-boxedness, though.