Mindset for coming up with innovative ideas:
1) Evolutionary Products Keep your eyes open for "Almost" products. Those things that catch your eye, but are missing something. "hey! that's cool.. but it doesn't <X>". "I'd have to own one of these, if only the <X> wasn't meh". Fill in the X.
example: iPod. Starting from the old CD player Walkman.. "That's cool - but you can't jog with it, the CD's skip - and it's too bulky" How to fix it? use flash memory or small laptop hard drives. Profit Hard.
2) It Just Works Take a normally fragile, damage prone, or unreliable product - and make it reliable and "user proof". Products that 'just work' tend to stick around for a loooooooong time, and become classic reference points for all subsequent items in their field.
Boeing 747. m1911 pistol. FN-FAL rifle. Jeep CJ-7. Your basic claw hammer. The A-10 aircraft. The Mi-24 Hind.
Not everything has to be multifunctional - sometimes doing one thing really really well is enough
3) I didn't know I needed it until now Find something that people get worked up over, embarrassed, or generally waste time with fruitless worry about. Solve the unsolvable. Ex: Fake Boobs, diet pills, teeth whitener, braces for teeth, fake tans, Viagra... vanity shit.
Free ideas: Melamine testing kit for foods, dummy proof home paint lead testing kit, non-flouridated toothpaste for small children(exists already?)
4) Peanut Butter & Chocolate Find concepts from disparate fields, and use them together. The M-16 rifle was designed by an engineer that noticed the cool 'new' aluminum alloys being used in aerospace - and applied that alloy to reduce the weight of a new rifle design. Hell, reading the history of the M-16 is a master class in the Do's and Do Not's of Design Engineering and Product Development.
