Looking to give your practice a boost? Here are 10 elements to start an "idea factory"

8. More than me

Though the lone thinker can create something new, teams develop the idea’s energy and dynamics.

9. Evolution

Ideas change and are flexible. They morph, change form and evolve.

10. Simplicity

Simplicity, properly applied, makes an idea deep, elegant and beautiful. Put another way, said Harvill, you have to “practice thoughtful reduction.”

Citing examples of those who have successfully applied his “Idea Factory” concepts, Harvill invoked the names of giants in the history and innovation and invention, starting with the ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Other notables on Harvill’s list made their mark when they could capitalize on their ideas and discoveries — periods in history when their world was to receptive to them. Among the historical figures who benefited from good timing: Caroline Herschel, who discovered several comets, including one that bears her name (35P/Herschel-Rogollet); Elijah, McCoy, a Canadian-American inventor and engineer who secured 57 U.S. patents, most to do with lubrication of steam engines; and the inventor/businessman Thomas Edison, whom Harvill described as an excellent “team-builder” for ideas, including most famously those contributing to the development of the incandescent light bulb.

One who suffered from bad timing — but whose theories proved revolutionary — was the astronomer and physicist Galileo. Harvill said Galileo’s championing of heliocentrism — the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun — was condemned during the inquisition of 1616 and got him arrested.

Emblematic of businesses that have successfully applied Harvill’s concepts, and that are now huge profitable as a result, are HBO, which critics have lauded for its original programming; and 3M Company, which now boasts $20 billion in sales, 50,000 products and nearly 23,000 patents.

Helping to fuel the company’s output of new products, said Harvill, is a decision by management to allow employees to use 15 percent of their work time to experiment with new ideas and concepts, a guideline that was initially limited to a test group within the company.

“This proved hugely successful and so the 15 percent guideline was subsequently extended to all employees,” said Harvill. “Now everyone as the company is free to devote a portion of their work time to thinking, dreaming and collaborating with others on new ideas.”

Without or without company encouragement, he added, you’re free to develop your factory of ideas. But the key is to capture them at the moment of conception — and doing so the old-fashioned way: with pen or pencil and a paper journal.

The electronic variety, he insisted, isn’t as effective because the neural connections through which our brains develop and cultivate ideas are better attuned to traditional print media. 

See more of our coverage of the 2015 Life Insurance Conference:

Barometer survey points to growing impact of Internet in life insurance sales

Prudential exec issues 6 point call for industry transformation at insurance forum

See also:

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The secret sauce of successful firms

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