Collect your ideas. Don’t stock them. Do something with your ideas now. Try idea sourcing.

The Copyblogger article by Jon Morrow discusses idea harvesting and why we wait too long for the “right” moment to carry them out. He calls a febrile ideator and idea collector an “idea pack rat”. This is a great article that describes very well the intellectual pleasure of accumulating ideas, of searching for the right form and moment. And how this activity – this activism – can be a trap for your ideas. He is right to say that we have to spread our ideas and fight for their implementation. Because reality will tell us very soon, if an idea is fit to survive. (Though reality and people are not always very reliable for an accurate feedback, but this is another story.)

But, even without spending 10 years of your life trying to implement an idea, you can do something right now with your collected ideas. I call it “idea sourcing”. Get all the informations out of all your ideas, yes, even from the silly ones, the bad ones, the funny ones, etc. What kind of informations? Cultural, social, technological, about your sources and influences, the zeitgeist, etc. (Though this activity can become another trap – information overload -, but this again is another story.) Why do this? With these informations you will be able to create one (!) new idea, the one you were not able to imagine before. Try it out!