Maybe as Steven Hawking is intrigued with exploring the beginnings of the universe, so are business analysts with finding the origin and value of ideas; they are the theoretical physicists of enterprise. At THECUBE we are also theoretical physicists, and we are looking at our blackboards, into a microcosm of ideas, and these are our notes.

We’re all quite certain now that the gensis of our universe didn’t really eke itself out over seven days, with one hand smoothing the rough before chucking a couple of humans down onto a little rock called Earth. No. It happened in a split second, an amalgamated explosion of gases that ended up as the building blocks of life, the foundations of matter – all elements and all things were born from this moment.

For the moment, it isn’t really about theology or physics. It’s how it relates to who and what we are now: thinking machines. If our ideas seemingly come from ‘nowhere’, just as the origin and reason for the big bang’s occurence is a puzzle and a half, then both must have a catalyst to provoke them into being. What is that catalyst, and how does one begin the process of creating an idea?

Well, like all things, it is the beginning. Ideas come from observation, and subsequent consideration and meditation on what you have observed. Everything that can be seen and thought about can be improved. Things like current events, issues that seem to have regular slots in the news, what your peer groups are concerned with, the economy – these can all produce ideas. So, the catalyst for all our innovative big bangs, our creative booms, is observation. Simple as that. These ideas go on to fuel enterprise – the stars of the business world.

Enterprise doesn’t have to be hard. In the beginning, it is about two things: observation of a problem and ideas of how best to solve that problem. Think for a moment about summer in the suburbs, if it isn’t raining. It’s a hot day, children are playing carefree in the streets, running around, playing tennis, on their bikes – whatever. All that activity makes for a parched mouth. An entrepreneurial child will have a brainwave: make ice cold lemonade and sell it to all the kids running around with dry mouths. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? For the astute mind, enterprise is merely a natural reaction to its surroundings.

But that reaction requires a little bit of work. It needs trimming, smoothing down, measuring, and generally it needs to be evaluated. This is where you need to brainstorm your reaction. I have illustrated our child’s (let’s call him Charlie) progression as followed:

 How do you solve the problem?
 Make cold lemonade.
 
 Will this product help people?
 Yes; it’ll cool them down and rehydrate them – plus its tasty.

 What makes it relevant?
 The fact that it’s ice cold, and the day is scorching hot

 Are others doing something similar? Can you make it better?
 No – they’re too busy playing. If they do, I sell my lemonade cheaper, make sure it tastes better and is colder than any rivals’ lemonade.

 How will people use it? What is the psychology behind it?
 They’ll drink it. With any luck, they’ll come back for more. The psychology? Making sure that the stand is accessible and visible; child-friendly cups (i.e. no glass); using a fun, twisty straw that will attract attention.

Charlie’s brainstorm, perhaps more of a flowchart, shows the thought process that goes into an enterprise. It is slightly simplified, given that it’s only about selling lemonade on a hot day, but it can be applied to top enterprises. Take for example Facebook – the problem was keeping in touch with people and how to perpetuate correspondence with friends at all times. How was this solved? With an online directory of friends and people you know – it means that essentially (and unless you choose to be) you are never out of the loop. It turns out that this has happened to be an exceedingly popular solution to the problem.

After this initial brainstorming comes the generation of ideas. This is the part where things are tweaked – the point at which a business may call in an industrial engineer to have a look at the mechanics of their ideas, and how they might succeed and how they might fail.

Charlie now needs to highlight his best ideas. One might be to serve lemonade with ice cubes, another to serve it from a thermos flask that will keep it cold. Other ideas might include something as seemingly tenuous as where to place his lemonade stand – the middle of his road, or further down from his house; the further he goes, the further he would have to go to refill his flask or jug of lemonade – but the closer he is to his house may not be the most popular place on the street to play, therefore diminishing his client-base.

There are more variables than you’d think, and Charlie has to sit down and think hard about what he will do. He eliminates the bad moves for his lemonade business and sets to work tweaking the details: signage, price, and all the other fiddly bits.

He comes out of this with THE IDEA. He serves his lemonade further away for lots of customers, but calls in a friend to help him keep his lemonade and ice cube stock replenished, and he serves it in plastic cups with ice cubes, which means that the volume in the cups is decreased and he is selling less product for the same amount of money. The enterprising mind of Charlie pays off. His 25 pence per cup of ice cold lemonade earns him £10, and he gives his friend 40%, as was agreed, leaving him £6 richer. Not much, but it’s only the beginning of summer and his enterprise will get better and better the hotter it gets.

So this is our little big bang. It starts from nowhere and ends up as something somewhere. The path from a) to b) has a lot of forks in it – there are a lot of choices for the budding enterprise, some avenues lead to dead ends, some are a bit bumpy but end up at the right place. These paths represent different trains of thought, variables that can be changed ever so slightly to get to the most fitting location – the best idea.

So now we are getting to know the catalyst for our creative booms perhaps just as well as we know the catalyst that digests a carbohydrate. We have entered the realm of theoretical happenings. Just as Hawking wonders about the nature of the universe, we wonder about those electrons which were cast out from the big bang, which are in our brains, and which now make up the ideas that we wonder so much about.