What's your big idea?

Brand successes are all about ideas and ideas are all about innovation.

Now, ideas surround us everywhere we go, someone has a 'new' idea or a 'great' concept, something they truly believe to be innovative and ingenius; and people share them in coffee-shop type intellectual debates. I think the genius lies not in the idea but its implementation - get up and do something with your last brainwave, start by writing it down because ideas have a great ability to make a sudden arrival and an equally sudden departure from one's memory.

Innovation today also involves a collaborative management culture... companies now appoint idea spotters across the world who peep into urban consumer tribes and their lifestyles and help brands understand how to build relevance. And this is where one needs to listen - not management down, but street up - listen to what the public is saying and then make your product or service more relevant.

Don't create a new product or service; co-create it. Don't provide customization or custom-made products, make customer-made products, empower your consumer to have a say in what they truly want. That's when its relevant, effective, successful, profitable and most importantly memorable (as in our trade it's about the stickiness of our creative ideas).

So, if you have a sharp mind then it might be handy to keep a sharp pencil close by...