Have you ever had a bad idea? I mean a really, really bad idea?

In design, we are always seeking that allusive transformational idea. The one that will change the world as we know it. But, for most of us, bad ideas seem a bit more plausible. Good ideas are ok, but they just don’t move us… But, if an idea is really bad, someone has to do something. It sort of serves as an innovation ice-breaker. 

So in a sense, bad ideas really are the mother of invention.

In both teaching and research, bad ideas are critical to the innovation process. They are often the first step in a chain reaction that will hopefully lead to that miracle break through. The same is often true when we collaborate across disciplinary boundaries. I have often been struck by the fact that what is a huge problem in one discipline is easily solved by another. The problem is that we don’t cross these boundaries often enough to realize that the solutions are out there. 

And to make matters worse… what seems to be a really bad idea for one situation, is probably just the solution to different problem.

So our task in healthcare innovation design is to match solutions with their problems. Fortunately, in design we tend to see the world in the context of a continuum rather than as an absolute. In this regard, when we test our design solutions we are not trying to determine if they are good or bad… we are trying to determine for whom they are good and for whom they are bad.

In healthcare all problems are complex and all problems have many variables and multiple constituent audiences. This complexity often results in systems that work well for one group and not at all for another group. Therefore, the question is how do we meet the needs of multiple constituent groups? The complexity of the problem dictates that their will be a complexity to the solution. But people are complexed. There is hope that when people from completely different disciplines and completely different backgrounds come together… in unlikely combinations… amazing things can happen. 

I know when I came to medical experience design I didn’t know anything about the field of medicine. I couldn’t even look at a needle without feeling faint. But out of unlikely situations innovative can emerge. And for me, my lack of experience became the experience I drew on…

and maybe, just maybe, bad ideas are not so bad after all…