There’s a reason they didn’t name it the Space Shuttle “Ideation”

Let’s talk about Discovery.
Discovery is an action. That goose-bumpy spine tingly activity that sparks the creation of the germ that becomes a great idea.
People love talking about the moment they come up with a great idea. That moment of inspiration. But “come up with” and “inspiration” are passive words.
Discovery is an active word. Synapses are firing, adrenaline is flowing.
Discover Dis • cov • er(diss kuvver): be first to learn or find something. (v)
A verb.
The actual moment of “Aha!”
“Idea” is not, sayeth the dictionary, a verb. Only recently has the world begun turning it into a verb. Ideating and Ideation are sexier ways of talking about what Alex Osborn simply and clearly coined “brainstorming” back in the Mad Men days. Now it’s a way to sound smarter and charge more money to facilitate it.
I’m fine with making conjugations of “idea” into different parts of language as long as we all acknowledge that there’s no new ideas without discovery.
Lots of ideas, to be sure, and lots of creativity, but without discovery, forget about fresh thinking. Which is all well and good for people who can get by with warmed over ideas that generate mediocre excitement and flat sales.
But smart cool profitable ideas? How do you get one of those?
Look for part 2, coming early next week.