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693 : STEP ONE – SEEKING AND SHAPING OPPORTUNITIES

For Joe Moya and Joe Raia, owners and founders of Joe Designer Inc., a
New York City-based product development and graphic communications
firm whose client list includes Kodak and Warner Media Services, this
initial investigative stage is crucial. Raia claims: ‘It’s really not so much a
sit-down-at-the-library type of thing; it’s just about keeping an open mind
to different elements, things you can use in your design.’

This openness to sources of inspiration, whether past or present, silly
or sublime, is supplemented by analytical activity. As Raia continues:
‘We familiarize ourselves with market trends, the past history of the
product, the past history of the trends of that product. We research by
flipping through magazines. We pin articles, photos, everything up on
the walls and familiarize the whole team with what the history is.’52

We have already seen how Jeff Bezos left his Wall Street job in order to
immerse himself in the dynamics of the emerging internet. There are
many other examples of the power of this immersion technique: Arthur
Hailey lived in the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans to research his best-
selling novel Hotel; naturalist Jane Goodall lived in the African bush for
28 years observing chimpanzees; and Herman Melville read every
account of whaling which he could obtain before he settled down to
create Moby Dick.

whole-brain thinking It is important to recognise that as with so

many aspects of the idea development process, this step of seeking and
shaping the opportunity involves both divergent and convergent
thinking. This step is also highly iterative – a piece of data may provoke
you to investigate a further avenue and this investigation may provoke
further ideas. Your intention should be to create a virtuous circle, where
the more extensive your research, the greater will be your exposure to
new situations, fresh ideas and new possibilities, which in turn allow
you to generate new perspectives on your initial business idea.

The cardinal rule when gathering ideas and information is to pursue
quantity. Search for as much information as you can and then track
down some more. If you feel that you have exhausted your research,
use divergent techniques to generate ideas for other sources of
information which you can investigate.

the cardinal rule when gathering ideas and
information is to pursue quantity