Editor’s Note: Jason Payne is a former Wall Street research analyst who recently founded the Groundwar Group – a management consulting firm providing premier corporate advisory services, leadership training solutions, and investment analysis capabilities for business leaders and investors around the world.
Mr. Payne pens this ongoing “Diary of a Startling Startup” series to help our entire Mogul community learn from his new venture’s tech-related successes and failures.
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From Jason Payne, Management Consultant & Leadership Coach …
I’ll never forget what I learned about “idea incubation” during my first day on the job at a trading desk in my former employer’s investment bank. Specifically, the director of trading operations taught me that our business involved curating high-quality investment ideas “in the same way Apple curates high-quality consumer electronics”.
But it never occurred to me how relevant this revolutionary concept would continue to be throughout the remainder of my professional pursuits, both on and off Wall Street – including my career as a real estate investor and business owner.
With that in mind, I want to explain a very simple (yet powerful) solution for “the idea incubation problem”, which uses basic computing technology to bridge the gap between good ideas and transformational progress for your business and/or investing career.
What is the Idea Incubation Problem?
Simply put, idea incubation is the intentional effort of nurturing your good ideas until they blossom into fruitful and applicable solutions, for whatever challenges or opportunities your business may be facing.
In today’s digital age, there is no shortage of good ideas floating around out there in the informational “cloud”. Some of these ideas come from our own digital footprints (personal emails, digital journals, online diaries, personal blogs, etc.), but many of these good ideas come from the minds of older/wiser authors, professors, advisors and gurus – from whom we all have much to learn.
But regardless of where we find our good ideas, most of them originate in a very raw form – not quite ready for “prime time” application in our own unique businesses or investment portfolios. Indeed, most raw ideas need time to grow, perhaps in order to develop vital strength and endurance through strategic wrestling matches with other good ideas.
I call this growth process the “air war”. It’s all about informational evolution – a classic exercise in Darwinian natural selection. But this evolution of ideas is based in the information age’s digital cloud, rather than on Darwin's Isle of Galapagos or inside a biology lab.
It's survival of the fittest – online.
Only the strong survive – on your computer.
You get the idea. (Pun intended.)
But often our best ideas will disappear as quickly as they arrive, right? Without being properly nurtured and strengthened through intentional cross-pollination with other good ideas, even your best digital brainstorming sessions are likely to bear little fruit in the real world of cash flows and profit maximization.
In other words, your informational “air war” is not easily translated into a transformational “ground war”, as I like to say.
And therein lies the need for intentional idea incubation.
How can you curate your good ideas in a way that allows them to receive the tender love and care they require, so they can grow into strong and practical solutions for your business?
How can you – an intelligent investor – harness the power of your own proprietary brainwork (and the widely-accessible brainwork of others), in order to prevent your best mental “seeds” from falling by the wayside and dying in infancy?
Try Jason’s Simple (Yet Powerful) Solution for Idea Incubation
Over the years, I have discovered it is possible – and highly recommended – to incubate your best business ideas, using nothing more than the following three ingredients, which are available (for free) on almost every personal computer or laptop:
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Digital Folders. If you have not already done so, then you will need to create a collection of proprietary folders (in which to save your business' various digital assets).
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Digital Word Processing Documents. Once the aforementioned folders are created on your computer and populated with your business’ various digital files, you will also need to create a collection of simple word processing documents (in which to archive your good ideas).
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Digital Shortcuts. Thirdly, you will need to create a collection of digital “shortcuts”, pointing to each aforementioned word processing file – and then save these shortcuts within their own central and easy-to-access folder.
Allow me to explain in greater detail …
For starters, you will want to save all your business’ digital assets within a system of appropriately-titled folders, located on your computer’s hard drive. (Or, if you are like me, you may opt to maintain this system of folders on a web-based drive, such as DropBox or Google Drive.)
It doesn’t matter what names you assign to these folders, as long as the folders’ names make sense for you and your business.
For example, a real estate investor will probably want to include one folder titled “Properties” or “Real Estate”, in which he can include sub-folders for all the digital files related to each individual property within his portfolio.
(Personally, my own system includes one such folder titled “Properties”, which includes a sub-folder for all files related to my homes at ### Hilton Street and ### Leatherwood Avenue. I also use another folder titled “Administration”, which includes numerous sub-folders, such as “Communications”, “Marketing”, “Finance”, etc.)
IMPORTANT STEP #1: Once you have organized all your business’ digital files into their appropriately-titled folders, you should save a blank word processing document titled “Good Ideas” inside each folder. This file is where you can quickly store any good ideas related to each of the individual components of your own unique business.
For example, if you are a real estate investor who is familiar with Microsoft Word, your folder for a property located at ### Park Avenue should include a file titled “Good Ideas – ### Park Avenue.doc”. And if you are a business owner with a folder for all your digital marketing assets, this folder should include a file titled “Good Ideas – Digital Marketing.doc”.
Each folder gets its own word processing document for “Good Ideas”.
And although these documents will be blank when you first add them into your system, you will quickly find yourself populating each file with helpful ideas and notes (to yourself) as you frequently access the other important files saved nearby. (After all, many good ideas simply “come to you” while you are working intensely on a specific part of your business.)
It’s kind of like keeping a digital diary. But rather than maintaining all the pages in one single word processing file, you are saving different pages of the diary within the different folders of your business’ digital hierarchy, based on the specific subject material addressed within each important category.
But Don’t Stop There!
But don’t stop there!
Remember that many of your best ideas can only grow and thrive when they are able to wrestle with other (seemingly-unrelated) good ideas. This is the ongoing “air war” of your professional life.
For example, your good idea about marketing might blossom into a stellar idea about tenant retention, but only if the marketing idea is able to rub shoulders with a seemingly unrelated idea regarding your portfolio’s maintenance operations at ### Park Avenue.
You see, good ideas are kind of like the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team: Each individual player can be quite amazing on its own, but the players will frequently embody a beautiful and unexpected synergy when allowed to play together side-by-side.
So in addition to saving a file for “Good Ideas” within each folder and sub-folder of your business’ digital hierarchy, you will also want to assemble a collection of digital shortcuts to each of these files within your own proprietary “Idea Repository”. Then you can use this comprehensive collection of shortcuts to regularly explore all your good business ideas side-by-side.
IMPORTANT STEP #2: Create a digital shortcut to each of your new files for “Good Ideas”, and save all shortcuts within the same easy-to-access “Idea Repository” folder.
That way, you can incubate all your business’ good ideas in two distinct ways, depending on your strategic objectives for any given day:
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On an Individual Topic-by-Topic Basis. As discussed previously, you can archive your good ideas on a topic-by-topic basis, each time you are working with the other related files in any of your business’ individual folders or subfolders. This method provides an easy way for you to “dig deep” into your previous brainstorming sessions, as needed, while you are simultaneously working closely with each folder’s other digital assets.
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On a Comprehensive “Side-by-Side” Basis. With all your digital shortcuts saved in a central “Idea Repository” folder, you can (and should) review your growing collection of good ideas in side-by-side fashion at least once each quarter. Since all your shortcuts are housed within the same “Idea Repository” folder, it will be much easier for you to revisit these previously-saved notes within the context of a comprehensive brainstorming session for your business. This method provides an easy way for you to “cross-pollinate” your good ideas across seemingly unrelated topics, thereby incubating them for maximum resiliency!
Thinking Outside the Box
During recent months, as I have juggled the various responsibilities of my growing professional portfolio, I have been very grateful for my own personal collection of “Good Idea” files – and their related shortcuts – within the system of folders I am using for both Real Estate Mogul’s instructional blogs and Groundwar Group’s consulting business.
In fact, today’s lesson for Real Estate Mogul was recently birthed from a cross-pollination of notes within my Word documents titled “Good Ideas – Web & Tech.doc” and “Good Ideas – Real Estate Mogul.doc”. I would not have been inspired to provide this particular lesson for my friends at Mogul if I had not been simultaneously reviewing both of these word processing files during my recent side-by-side analysis of Groundwar Group’s ever-growing Idea Repository.
In a small way, this helpful exercise in digital idea incubation has allowed me to translate a portion of my own informational “air war” into a transformational “ground war” solution for today’s Mogul lesson.
And I hope this approach can yield similarly profitable results for you and your own professional pursuits!
Create Folders – Create a system of appropriately-titled folders in which to house all digital assets for your business.
Create & Populate “Good Idea” Files – Save a blank file for “Good Ideas” within each of your business’ folders (and sub-folders). Use these files to record any good ideas which occur to you “on the fly”, as you work on the various aspects of your business.
House All “Good Idea” Shortcuts in a Central “Idea Repository” – Create a shortcut to each of your “Good Idea” files, and save all shortcuts within a central and easy-to-access “Idea Repository” folder.
Cross-Pollinate & Incubate Your Good Ideas – Revisit your “Idea Repository” folder at least once per quarter, for a side-by-side exploration of all your good business ideas. Allow cross-pollination of ideas to aid in their ongoing incubation, so they may eventually grow into transformative solutions for your business’ “ground war”.