Discussion: Challenges in Creating a New Product

I have found the challenges that we as a team face in creating a new and innovative product to be many. However, I can only mainly speak for myself. One big problem I have had in creating a new product is, I can’t just take two random items in a room and try to put them together to come up with something creative. The creative juices just will not flow for me using this process. It seemed to me, most of my product ideas would come when I would try to think of something to no avail, and then forget about the project. Low and behold, minutes, hours, and even a day later, when my mind is occupied with something else, I get a product idea! This is fine and dandy, however, as I learned the hard way by getting too excited, it may be a great idea, but someone else thought of it first. This is where the research of the “maybe” new and innovated product idea comes in. Mainly, I would use different internet search engines, using different key words and different word combinations of my idea, to see if the product is out there in the world. It is hard to believe at first, but most of what I thought would be a new and innovated product idea, is already a product being sold in the world. The kicker to this is that I never heard of this product before, never seen it, never even saw an advertisement for it. So this brings me back to square-one, of finding a new and innovated product.