Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive. Napoleon Hill
There are many free places you can go to spark your imagination and get your creative juices flowing. Here are a few suggestions.
Let’s start with the customer.
How do we find out what people are interested in? What are they talking about? And what problems do they need more information on?
1. Hang out in forums and chat rooms.
Look for forums that are very active with a high volume of traffic and a large membership. In the popular forums a lot of activity takes place each day. People with the same interests visit forums, to share their problems, look for advise and try to help each other.
Discussion forums are an excellent place to get knowledge on a particular topic. You can become an avid reader and learn a tremendous amount of information.
Forums are often divided within by topics and sub-topics. This makes it easier for users to find information on a particular subject and post their questions in the most relevant group. Take your time and browse through the different topics.
At this point you’re not interested in becoming a member. You’re there to gather information for your product. If you do join a forum, take the time to read their rules.
You’re going to lurk in the shadows and read the posts. You want to find a post where someone has expressed a problem. Also look and see if anyone has responded to this problem with help. Research the forum posts and see if the problem has already been answered. Determine if the person seeking help has received good information and advice.
In any forum you’ll find people that have a problem and genuinely want help. There are also people that whine and are negative about everything. These people aren’t really looking for help and should be avoided. You’ll soon see some excellent examples.
Once you are able to identify problems from the members and can supply a solution… you have the start for creating a product. So jot your ideas down in your notebook.
“Ideas won’t keep; something must be done about them”.
Alfred North Whitehead
2. Remember you are going on a quest to spark your imagination and get your creative juices flowing. Take a look at Google Zeitgeist where you can see what the top searchers were for the past year. There is a Who Is, What Is and How To category in the Top Ten Searches listing. This I found interesting and helpful. The number one top searches in each of the categories with the largest volume for last year is Who Is God?, What Is Love? and How To Kiss.
3. Questions and Answer sites are great for finding out what people are thinking. And they may not be thinking what you think they are thinking.
“You get ideas from other people all the time”.
Jared Harris
To your success,
1FlyingPig
http://www.1FlyingPig.com
