The Tangled Web of Imagineering

Overview

As you work your way toward being an Imagineer, it will be helpful to begin to understand how Imagineering works.  For obvious reasons Imagineering is somewhat more complicated and somewhat less predictable than standard engineering.  These characteristics show up quite well in what I call the Tangled Web of Imagineering.

How Does a New Idea Come Into Being?

One thing is for sure.  What goes on in the world of real invention is significantly different from the highly over-simplified “lightbulb” explanations that we often get in everyday discussions of the invention process.  Let’s take a look at the possibilities.  Click on the number boxes down below.

Consider the Implications of the Tangled Web – No. 5

That Tangled Web shows a lot about how Imagineering really works.  There are the people and ideas that have come before you.  The prior ideas and innovators always contribute a lot to the current innovation.  Then there are your current team members.  And there are almost always current competitors as well.  It is not unusual to have competitors within your team as well as outside.  You may converse with competitors.  You may try to steal ideas from competitors and they may try to steal ideas from you.

You are working on an innovation which almost always has many unknown factors.  That causes the connections and conversations to go in many different directions.  Some of persons involved in the interactions are not involved in the innovation process but are simply decision makers.  And some of the interactions may even be accidental.  All of this tends to produce a very tangled web of innovation, and the better you understand this web the more likely you are to be successful.