Idea

The inspiration for Idea came from the realization that, for me at least, the typical thought is a very long way from deserving to be called an idea. It is more like a seed that might, with sufficient love and care, sprout, become a seedling and perhaps eventually become a plant worthy of a place in the garden. What's needed, I thought, is a place to nuture such thoughts - a place where they will not be forgotten and where they can be given the attention they need to develop - in short, a nursery for ideas.

Thoughts

In this nursery thoughts have these properties:

• name
  A brief, suggestive label

• description
  Depends on the stage of developement - utimately a useful description of the idea with tags and links.

• status

  • inkling
  • notion
  • idea

• state

  • paused - paused for the moment
  • active - where the action occurs

The stages of development parallel the seed-to-plant metaphor:

• inkling
  Following the addage "You never know what you're thinking until you write it down", the first stage involves capturing the thought well enough with a name and description to be able to remember at a glance what you were thinking. The goal here is to avoid losing the thought.

• notion
  The goal at this stage is to have a short document that could be presented to the friend with the comment: "I have this idea, described here in a few lines, that I think is worth remembering and sharing and I would appreciate your reactions." You want useful feedback here and this means that you need to examine the idea from the viewpoint of a friend who will want to know what exactly you have in mind, what makes it interesting and what are the answers to the questions that will have occured to your thoughtful friend while reading. Your job at this stage is to identify these questions and provide, if not answers, at least plausible strategies for getting the answers and all this in a way that minimizes the cost to your friend of giving you the feedback you want. This stage involves tough probing and not every notion will survive it. It should be virtually impossible for your friend to identify an issue that escaped your attention.

• idea
  This stage persists until any issues remaining from notion are resolved and the goal of worth remembering and sharing is attained and well expressed in the combination of name and description. Additionally, useful #tags and [links] can be added to description at this stage to make the idea easy to find and to expose its connections to other ideas. When this is done, the idea is ready to be moved to library.

The Process

To be continued ...