Theme 5 - reflection post

This week had a different setup compared to the other weeks, instead of having one lecture and one seminar we had two lectures. The two lectures differed quite a bit, the first one was in my opinion the better one, it felt more prepared and had a structure. The second one I think would have been better if was in a different setting, like a seminar. Because it was a very interesting person who held the lecture, but since he did not know that he was about to have this lecture it become pretty messy and confusing at times.

Part one:

Habio Li had the fist lecture and it was about the process and the five steps from getting an idea to selling it.

Step one: How to come up with an idea?

There are many problems that we have to day, what you need to do is to define one problem. It is when you have done that you can move on to find the idea of a solution. Li explained that if you spend 90% of you effort in defining the problem and 10% on solving it you will find a much better solution than you would if you spent your time the opposite.

Step two: How to filter the idea?

If you get more than one good idea, how should you choose the one? One way is to ask you questions like:

-       - Does the solution address the pain point of the problem?

-       - Can I do it, with the knowledge and the existing technology?

Li also talked about finding the billion-dollar idea, you should think of if you can make any money of you idea. I am a bit conflicted to that statement, for me personally I am not doing it the money and I think if you are I could lead that you never will be satisfied. I think that there are many great ideas even though you won´t earn billions of dollars of it. But I am not naïve, money is a important factor so I do agree that it is a important to consider.

Step three: How to validate a good idea?

Proof of concept, you should be able to see how the solution will help with the problem. By doing this being able to see its feasibility.

Step four: Evaluate the idea.

Make a prototype of the idea so that you can let others try it and give their view of it. By doing this you idea can develop into something even better. You can make sure that other people will understand how to use it and understand the purpose of it.

Step five: Marketing, selling the idea.

By now you understand the value of your idea but now you have to make sure that potential investors understand it too. 

Overall I think it gave a good idea of how the workflow can look like and I think Li made a good point with explaining the importance potting effort in understanding the problem first. If you do that the rest of the steps will be easier.

Part two:

During the lecture we talked about prototypes and if it can be seen as a research tool.  And the answer is yes, but it is one part of the method, which also contains research question, design and analysis.

Research method:

"Interviews is a stupid way to gain knowledge I you don´t do anything with it". 

So the importance is to have a good analysis of what you get from the interviews.

In the study of Anders Lundström the process was the imperial data – experimental design together with a small analysis (stat of the art) and interviews.