Ideas Are Made

Last in the list of three categories of metaphors central to ideation is the “constructive” metaphor. It’s not quite as common in conversation as generative or spatial, but in many ways it’s equally important.

We build on other people’s ideas, we plug one idea into another, an idea is fundamental. We work on an idea, we shape it, we tinker with it, we tear it down, we deconstruct it.

I also tend to throw into this category the occasional metaphor which treats ideas as something chemical: we cook up an idea, we throw it into the mix, we refine it, we distill it down.

All of these usages imply that the idea is something that is material and “made”, created consciously or affected directly by human tools and processes.

One reason this category is important is because it’s an accurate representation of how ideas are manipulated at certain stages in an innovation process. Whether the original “source” of an idea is generative or spatial, at some point we grab it and start working with it consciously. At that point, it starts to become a different idea, often more complex, with more components and layers.

So it’s helpful to understand that something different is also happening from a conceptual point of view. In the transition from generative to constructive, for example, the original sense of ownership may become fuzzy or lost. The idea (which at this point is an assembly of different ideas) may seem less original and organic.

In the transition from spatial to constructive, we may lose a clear sense of where the idea is in relationship to similar ideas … it can be harder to see the possible variations in the key dimensions of the idea, and so the original choices become “set in stone”.

Nevertheless, it’s a necessary transition. We need to work on ideas to make them useful. Simple ideas need to get more complex as they move to implementation. Being conscious that we’ve shifted to a constructive metaphor is tremendously useful in managing the process.