Clearing out my closet (of ideas)

My blogging over the last couple of years has pretty much stalled completely, save for the odd film review or political post. This is partly due to spending more time on social media (especially Facebook) and using that as a conduit for my random thoughts, shares and ideas – but also due to the sense, like much of society, that we are becoming increasingly busy. I just don’t seem to make time for writing thoughtful posts or articles any more.

This post is a statement of intent, that I want to get back into blogging more often. I think that it’s a really useful thing for keeping my creative muscles flexed and for encouraging me to write more. So I had an idea to start the ball rolling again: Why not publish various ideas and tidbits I’ve jotted down in notes and text files over the last few years, regardless of how finished/polished they are, just as a way to get them out there?

I’ve had various ideas for apps that could be built, visualisations to create, interesting topics to research, stories to write, that have done nothing but languish on my hard drive. I figure if they are going to come to rest anywhere, it should at least be in the public domain, where there is the slightest chance that one of them gets discovered and leads somebody else (maybe even a future me) to do something cool.

Am I worried about other people stealing my ideas? Not any more. I’ve finally shaken off the old “hold onto your ideas tightly” mindset that years at IBM instilled in me. As the old adage goes, “execution is everything”, and that’s what it boils down to – if one of my ideas inspires someone else, and they can execute it, then great, my idea will have lead to something real. It’s not like I was doing anything with them. If something gets built that is related to one of my ideas, but not as I imagined, well then that’s something different anyway, so nothing lost.

The other nice thing about publishing ideas is that it serves as prior art to prevent anyone else from copyrighting or patenting the idea for themselves. In this way, if there is anything of value amongst my meandering ideas, then it is freely available for the public, and cannot be held onto and claimed as original by some greedy corporation, in the interests of profit.

So all of this to say, watch out for new posts in the “Ideas & Innovation” section of the blog over coming months. I am sure the quality will be mixed, but hopefully you might find something of interest in there. I hope to go for little and often rather than infrequent, highly polished finished products – so forgive me if some of the following posts are a little rough around the edges… Happy reading!