Ideas

I built Ideas as a place to keep the raw material of making things, to capture ideas as they come, to turn them into projects, and to publish what comes out of it.

Recording the raw materials of ideas

For me, an idea is rarely a bolt from nowhere. It is usually an enabler you already knew meeting a need you already had (Koestler called that move bisociation, and W. Brian Arthur argues every technology is a version of it.)

I get inspirations from other people's smart creations, which give me the "shape" of the connection between problems and solutions.

An idea is formed when I manage to find a way to connect a set of enablers to a need in a shape that solves the need (often, inspired by other people's inventions and ideas.)

The Ideas app collects all 4 of these things separately:

• a need — a problem worth solving, including the ones nobody has named
• an enabler — a tool, a part, or a fact about how the world works
• an inspiration — something somebody else made, giving you inspirations on the shapes of ideas
• an idea — what happens when the first two meet

"Ultrasonic diffusers create great clouds" sat in my enabler pile for years before it was any use. "I want to bring the Saipan sky home with me" was a need nobody would have called a need. Tempescope is what they made when they met.

Capturing with context

When capturing anything, the app records a little context on your behalf: where you were, what was in your calendar, which device was connected.

This is important for me because it:

• Lets you remember what you were thinking at the time, and prevent you from forgetting what that one-line note you quickly left half a year ago was actually saying.
• Lets you eventually analyze how you create. When are you the most productive? Which situations give you the best needs?

An idea becomes a project becomes a page

When you're ready to start building on your ideas, you can create a project. A project page can describe your development, and allow you to provide timely updates on your state for people to follow. All this can be made public, which automatically gives you a self-updating portfolio.

My own library holds 1,503 captures and 91 projects, the oldest from July 2010.

An Android app for capture, and a Next.js site for everything that wants a keyboard or an address.