Duncan,
Its a lot more complicated than just sharing ideas. I have many ideas that are viable, no, not pie in the sky, things that can be made fairly easily and turned into viable products / industries. I certainly don't have enough time to make them happen but once they are in the public domain other people certainly will. Some are fairly obvious, given a bit of lateral thinking.
How the question are;
1. How do I profit from the ideas?
2. Why do I give away ideas to people who are unable to think laterally themselves?
3. Why should I, they are of my own creation therefore they belong to me?
Don't get me wrong, I exchange ideas and techniques with like minded people all the time, the only way to broaden one's knowledge is to teach and learn, but I have a problem with leaches who suck up ideas like vacuum cleaners and give nothing in return. The other problem with such people is that they take your idea or technique, spread it around and destroy your position in the market.
There is another problem to consider and that is money which one needs to develop ideas; Hiring engineers cost a lot of money (as you should know) and they may or may not develop the idea properly. Another angle is to give each engineer enough information to develop his little piece, but that creates huge problems when the product is intergrated.
Could the answer lie in building a company large enough so that it is able to have contracted engineers?
Does the answer lie in having the expertese in-house?
Does the answer lie in learning to do everyting yourself...time is the problem.
You are into electronics, I can think of numerous electronic products that are viable and can be developed by a skilled person very quickly;
1. A product using a microprocessor a 3 axis accelerometer and some light (led or EL) - a real sideways novelty application.
2. A slightly off the wall CNC milling machine (mostly mechanical design though)
3. Building 5 or 6 axis milling machines (its a lot easier than you might think)
4. A USB CNC handheld controller (I developed the hardware using a PIC18F4550 ,some buttons and an LCD) and got quite a bit of it to work - UNI-directionally, I am just to doff to get the C++ based PC interface to give me bi-directional comms.
4.1. If you are really bright you could do it via Wi Fi - at least all the USB interfacing nonsense goes away.
4.2. Write an android app to run the CNC via Wi Fi, then all the hardware issues go away. If you know C++ and coding for Android this should be fairly simple. (If you do this properly and you know for which machine there is lots of easy money to be made by selling it via the Android market)
4.3. Wi Fi based controls with a simple plug and play interface i.e. a Wi Fi based controller for a sprinkler system, garage door opener etc.
5. Adapting common communication mechanisms to other products. (You'll be surprised how easily it can be done with a bit of lateral thinking - here is a market that you could putentially turn upside down)
6. Led lighting in untapped markets (there is one market that nobody has ever looked at (as far as I can see) - all it will take is to make a suitable PCB with protection etc - nothing much)
7. For my own use and maybe for others, a PLC driving the laser or CNC that can turn the machine off and sms me when it is done.
8. A talking multimeter - I don't like having to glance back and forth between the probes and the screen.
These are a couple of ideas floating around in my head, If I could code quickly in C++ and Android I would make easy money. I still have many ideas for products made using the laser, CNC and injection moulding but that is for another discussion.
The bottom line, ideas spring from lateral thinking through knowledge of many different topics. If one is really good, one would have enough knowledge to develop the ideas yourself or have the knowledge to put together a business structure to develop the ideas.
So, as a person with 1000's of ideas, some good, some bad, some silly and some brilliant, agree with you from a philosophical point of view, but not from a practical point of view. I will only share ideas when it suits me. If my ideas are never developed or shared then nothing changes in the universe, nothing is created and nothing is destroyed.
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