Making ideas happen

Ideas are infinite, endless and full of possibilities. And that’s what excites and drives me all the time. Just the thought that imagination can be converted into something real and useful is a huge high for someone like me who lives, breathes and survives on ideas.

Being a technologist (some might say technoholic), I have been working in the realm of technology ideas for as long as I can remember. It might seem so basic now, but there was a time when using the mobile phone, for anything other than talking, was a huge possibility. And we didn’t know if using the phone for e-mail, would ever become real. And today, we have the iPhone and the iPad, that have come to transform the way we talk, share, read and communicate..

And as we read about cell phones that will be able to transmit sign language, or computers that we can instruct to do various tasks, I am not just delighted, but overwhelmed with the potential of what can be.

A recent example of putting this thought into practice is the work we have done on our Esprit platform. We were discussing the fact that social networks needed to be easily available to different sets/ groups of people for their own private communication, and that if we used a third party platform, we would end up giving a lot of control and security, among other things. Creating something like this from scratch would not be feasible for every organization, but having a simple solution for making it possible would be of immense value. A few folks in the team volunteered to create something new, and in less than 6 months, we had built a closed community platform that was not only a plug-and-play option for non technical users, but also offered all the features and benefits that any popular public social networking site was providing. Furthermore, it also made it possible to drop new apps easily, making the platform more robust, useful and in tune with the times.

Imagine being able to ask your PC about the next televised 20:20 tournament, or asking the machine to format the file in the way that your boss likes it. Artificial Intelligence scientists are already talking about these developments and expecting many more over the next decade.

Which also brings me to the fact that innovation and creativity are not just about big breakthroughs and revolutionary concepts. Not every idea has to transform into a new product or a momentous development. Small ideas can also make a big difference. You can use your simple ideas to change a process, evolve a best practice and improve your personal productivity in the workplace. Something as basic as saving 1 second a day is also an important incremental improvement that can add up to making a huge difference.

Despite all the examples before us, the fact remains that not all ideas become reality. What they do, however, is open our horizons to the potential of ‘what can be.’ And what can be imagined, or conceptualized, can be made to happen, sooner or later. The ideas that ‘click’ and become reality, are the ones whose time has come. The world is ready for them. They come not sooner, or later, but when they are most needed.

Starting a blog was just an idea for me. However, today, I think, it’s an idea whose time has come. Expect to hear more from my end. Who knows, some of my ideas may touch your lives and show you a new possibility.