ABSTRACT
This chapter presents idea generation into two broad approaches, traditional and modern, to make a discussion of idea generation more systematic. Generating ideas is not trivial. There is a huge literature in the philosophy of science dealing with where and how ideas originate. The chapter discusses traditional sources for new ideas, such as brainstorming. The modern approach is more systematic involving data and statistical, econometric, and machine learning methodologies. The numeric and text data are particularly important for new product development, but at different points in the overall process: text in the ideation stage and numerical data in the pricing and tracking stages. The traditional approach consists of time-honored ways of finding ideas: brainstorming, market research surveys, and focus groups. A legitimate issue with brainstorming is a quantity–quality tradeoff. The objective of brainstorming is to generate ideas – lots of them.
