Assume you have a great idea in a field you have no expertise in.<p>Of course, almost all people who are in this situation really don't have a great idea, but for the sake of this thread, let's assume that the idea is indeed great.<p>That is, great in the sense that if people with expertise and a proven track record in the field, and with connections in the industry, and with a lot of hard work, etc, could turn into something valuable.<p>e.g. a dentist having the idea for Tivo years before Tivo was out, or a computer programmer coming up with a design for a better propeller for oil tankers.<p>It seems to me that there is almost nothing you can do in this situation. Breaking into the TV/entertainment business, or the oil tanker business, or similar large industries is close to impossible for outsiders with no expertise in the field.<p>On the other end of the spectrum, I'm always fascinated by how easy it is for people within a field to test even half-baked ideas. A simple example is on the show Survivor, when the host once said that his niece had an idea for a challenge for the players, and the Survivor crew put it together and it was on the next episode. An outsider to the show and/or the industry would likely have to have a huge compelling case and do a lot of hard work before they even listen to his idea for the show.<p>This imbalance (for insiders and outsiders) is large and could be leading us to miss out on some great stuff in various fields.<p>Some questions for you guys:<p>1) Is it as impossible to do anything about ideas in fields you have no expertise in as I think it is?<p>2) Are we as a society losing out on some great or at least useful innovations because as society is currently set up, it doesn't facilitate cross-discipline (outsider) idea dissemination?<p>3) If the answers to the above are 'yes', is there anything that can be done to change this?<p>4) Is my premise wrong? Am I missing something?<p>(I should note that I can see that most ideas coming from people outside a particular field are useless, have been done before, are impractical, etc, but I think there may be a tiny minority that could prove useful in the right hands)
<i>Of course, almost all people who are in this situation really don't have a great idea, but for the sake of this thread, let's assume that the idea is indeed great.</i><p>Why are we assuming that, again? Surely we should start by supposing we <i>think</i> we have a really great idea, and then making our first step figuring out to figure out whether we have an actual great idea or a bad one. And the best way to do that is to talk to someone who is an expert.<p>So while I don't have a solution to the general problem of what if you really <i>do</i> have a great idea, I do have the following advice: if you <i>think</i> you have a great idea, please be humble and skeptical about it. Please be willing to accept that it might actually be a dumb idea because of some detail that you, as a non-expert, know nothing about.<p>Personally I'm sick of reading disproofs of relativity and plans for perpetual motion machines.
If it is something you want to spend time doing, then act on it. Your outsider status can be construed as an advantage in that you are less likely to be constrained by unconscious acceptance of the current dogma of the field.<p>You have less excuses that ever before, and the availability of knowledge and tools is greater than ever before.<p>If you want to design a 3D model -
<a href="http://sketchup.google.com/" rel="nofollow">http://sketchup.google.com/</a><p>If you want to learn more about aeronautics -
<a href="http://videolectures.net/mitworld_young_corn_garvey_haggerty_flight/" rel="nofollow">http://videolectures.net/mitworld_young_corn_garvey_haggerty...</a><p>or, Neuropsychological Associations with Social Versus other Media - <a href="http://videolectures.net/icwsm2010_counts_ybf/" rel="nofollow">http://videolectures.net/icwsm2010_counts_ybf/</a><p>or, whatever -
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCourseWare" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCourseWare</a><p>If it is not something you want to spend time on, but feel it is truly a 'great idea,' then I would advise clarifying the idea and passing it on to someone you think might be interested in acting on it. The ability to locate these people is greater than ever before as well.<p>A google query of inurl:.edu <i>topic of interest</i>, and you are essentially searching across all the university departments in the USA.
Do not confuse ideas about the thing with the thing itself. [1]<p>You can have the idea for the TiVo without ever building a TiVo, just as Babbage had the idea of the digital computer but couldn't find the money or expertise to build one. But you can't watch television with your idea.<p>And it turns out that you can have a very complicated thing -- a dinosaur, say, or a monkey -- without <i>anyone ever</i> having had the <i>idea</i> of a dinosaur or a monkey.<p>The connection between great ideas and great things is often exaggerated. A person with no ideas and an auto parts store is more likely to build a great car than a person with nothing but ideas.<p>---<p>[1] <a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/not-ideas-about-the-thing-but-the-thing-itself/" rel="nofollow">http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/not-ideas-about-the-thing-but...</a>
Most of the comments seem to be missing the point. There's a lack of cross-discipline. If you are bad in field A, and an expert in field B, you may be able to comeup with a revolutionary idea for field B, not because you're one lucky son of a bitch, but because your expertise in area A put you in advantageous/unique perspective. We all saw biologist cooperate with engineers (using nature-invented systems in engineering, prostetic arms, etc), politicians cooperate with doctors (cheap medical solutions for poorer countries), and many more awesome examples. I think we're lacking some kind of platform or incentive to interconnect disciplines. Programmers among us see it everyday — just go to your local DMV, take a spot in the endless waiting line, and notice how much you wish they'd let you write a decent piece of software or build a simple mechanism to make this hell go away. We need to allow people to tinker in unrelated to their own fields. How? I don't know, but I think it's a big deal.
> <i>Assume you have a great idea in a field you have no expertise in.</i><p>Assume flaming monkeys are crawling out of my nose. How often does that ever happen? I couldn't name three real examples off the top of my head.
Since the best idea without the knowledge or ability to execute is worth $20 at most (<a href="http://sivers.org/multiply" rel="nofollow">http://sivers.org/multiply</a>) I think your best bet would be to try and give your idea to someone who can execute on it and if your lucky get a point or two in their company or a role as an advisor.
If your idea is really good and truly concrete, you can just make it. If a dentist had an actionable idea for a DVR and the drive to make it happen, he could have made it.<p>If you can't make the idea a reality, then you didn't have an actionable idea to begin with. I don't believe you can possibly have a novel idea that a skilled worker could implement as-is but not have the know-how to do so yourself or hire someone to do it for you.<p>If you won't put in the effort to make it happen, then it doesn't make any difference whether you were in the field or not.
This is a well known problem. How do you filter through the tons of junk to find the golden nuggets? Experts are bandwidth constrained and can't look at everything. So if you have a great idea/ product you must market it through your social graph until someone who believes in you recommends to an expert who values their opinion that they should look at the idea.<p>The only way around this is to implement the idea/product yourself or be famous.
People often think their idea is great or very unique. What makes an idea great is not that you think its great, but that it has transformed from just merely an idea in your brain or skecth-pad to an action and the end result has met your expectation for it to be considered a great idea. Then we can safely say your idea is great.<p>At this moment, your idea is just an idea. Its not great. Yet.
People are treating cancer fairly effectively with antiangiogenic drugs, which restrict the tumors' blood supply.<p>Tumors generally have a poor blood supply in the first place. A while back I read about some researchers who were using some kind of microbe that attacked cells with poor blood supplies, as a way of attacking tumors.<p>I had just read about antiangiogenic therapy, which I think was fairly new at the time. So I thought, hey, combine the two! Use the drugs to restrict the tumor's blood supply even more, and then apply the microbe!<p>So I tracked down the email address of one of the microbe researchers, and sent him my idea, prefaced by saying that I was an amateur and was probably wasting his time.<p>Unfortunately he did not send back "OMG you just cured cancer!!" But he did send a pleasant response saying that some of the best ideas in science come from people outside the field.
My advice would be to find someone who is experienced in that field. I don't mean cold-call the leading expert.<p>I mean dial up a buddy in a related field. Talk with them about your idea. They can help you understand the things you might be overlooking or introduce you to someone closer to that topic.
This is a great question. I think you're right that we need some new social institutions to make it easier for outsiders to propose ideas for other industries.<p>For the time being i make sure to write down my ideas for other industries.
Even if the idea is great, for the sake of argument, it doesnt count for as much as you seem to think it should. There are several products that I thought of before they were released, but I didn't see them as good enough to throw my life at. It's safe to assume that for <i>any</i> good idea that takes lots of initiative to get off the ground, it was already thought up by dozens of people who were either lazy or underestimated its significance. The idea doesn't entitle you to anything just because somebody somewhere might be willing to run with it.
Few grand / silly ideas had:<p>Neuroscience -
Brain scan a person from all religions to show it's the same thing that they are all doing. (massive blood flow reduction in the part of the brain that orientates their positioning)<p>Eco -
Do a tidal power generator crossed with a desalination plant.
Experiment with resonance frequencies of hydrogen and ionosphere for clean power.
Make ultra cheap solar panels and dump them in the desert. (pretty sure some tin foil, a way of converting and some genetic algorithm shaping should get this done)
Patch any ozone holes with spraying of o^3 / something to counter act the cfcs.
Co2 problem (down to 60% of the problem from 90% a few years ago) harvest the co2 out!<p>Physics -
There's always going to be smaller!
One of the strings in string theory is consciousness<p>Society -
Legalise all drugs, prostitution and assisted suicide (stops making so many people into criminals)
No speed limit on motorways at certain times<p>Biology -
Find what plants grow well in all soil / sand conditions. (grow the desert / useless land)
Bacterial recycling / break down of rubbish.<p>TV/entertainment -
Providers release torrents / streams to anywhere with ads before the pirates do it for them.<p>And to answer the ops questions:
1. I think it's possible to influence fields you have no expertise in, as can email scientists / producers.
2. yes
3. More empowerment to people to get involved. One day a year ask people if they have any ideas or suggestions in x field.
the modern web should make this less of a problem though. just imagine sites where folks of a certain profession/industry gather. now somebody outside that profession can go to that site, post their idea, boom, it's seen, and somebody in that industry or with the right skills can act on it. it's not perfect, but it does allow something like you're describing.<p>now if you want to make something where the contributor's idea is "protected", while still being thrown over the wall like that, it would be harder. by protected I mean ensuring the contributor will get credited or paid if the idea turns into something. The standard solutions for that are to start a business and/or file a patent.
Peter Thiel and Alex Karp had absolutely no exp in the field for Palantir, yet they've executed and made it happen: <a href="http://bit.ly/Ja6YZ" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/Ja6YZ</a>
I would suggest pitching your idea to people who are active in that industry but not in a position to execute the idea, he will have a more educated grasp if you can execute your idea on your own.
There is a quote from someone that you might find useful (if anybody on HN knows from who this quote is, please tell)<p>The difference between a visionary idea and a stupid idea is that other people can see the vision