Why do great ideas fail? Why does a seemingly great innovation die in the starting gate? The answer is often assumptions. Assumptions kill innovation.

Don’t get me wrong. You need to make assumptions during the innovation process otherwise everything will take twice as long. However, be careful about hidden assumptions; the ones you make but do not recognize.

A hidden assumption quickly becomes an accepted truth based upon perceived reality. It is then allowed to linger and then just as the innovation is about to become the next big thing, that hidden assumption rears its ugly head and the innovation dies.

Learn more about assumptions and some of the most famous assumptions ever made.

I wrote in a previous post how you can identify problems through context. Today I am going to touch on 10 keys for moving from a problem to an innovative solution.

Many of these ideas were informed by Anton E. Lawson’s book, The Neurological Basis of Learning, Development and Discovery: Implications for Science and Mathematics Instruction.

Key Number 1: Do the hard work. There are many tools and tricks that will help you at this stage, and I will be posting in the future about those, but the key here is to work hard. The following 9 keys are all linked to this first and most important one.

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It will be too once the current cultural paradigm shift is complete. This is the paradigm shift from physical presence to digital or conceptual substance. It is the shift that means we used to own a physical CD but now we own the song be it on a CD or on an ipod.

Because of this change, innovation can be green. We don’t need stuff anymore; we are looking for experience. As a result we can have less stuff and more experience. In such a world innovation doesn’t have to lead to more physical things and therefore more waste.

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Innovation must start with context! If you begin the innovation process trying to come up with ideas you quickly end up processing ideas which lead nowhere. However if you begin with context the innovation process takes flows naturally. Let me explain how this works.

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Where does you start when you trying to come up with an idea that will change the world? Well there are two camps on this issue. In one camp people feel you need to start with a blank page. In the other camp people feel you need to go out and find some inspiration. Let’s look at each camp a little closer.

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