# How Innovation Happens — Lesson #11: Chase the Dumbest Idea in the Room
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## Article Content
I've been covering the link between future trends and innovation strategies for 30+ years. I went back through my blog posts, stretching to 2002, to dig out the nuggets of innovation insight I've discovered along the way. This series revisits those stories, tests what still holds up, and turns them into practical lessons for what comes next. "How do you identify a truly great idea? As soon as someone says, 'That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!'" I've come back to this idea repeatedly in my work because the mindset behind innovation usually changes before the results do. What people notice, question, challenge, and act on determines how ready they are for what comes next. Some of the most important innovations begin life sounding ridiculous. Overnight delivery sounded absurd before FedEx. Many technologies we now treat as ordinary were dismissed because they violated the assumptions of their time. That is why ridicule can be a useful signal. Not proof that an idea is good, of course, but evidence that it may be challenging something everyone else has stopped questioning. When a room laughs at an idea, don't automatically kill it. Ask what assumption the idea just offended. Sometimes the laughter tells you more about the room than the idea. So what does that mean in practice? It means challenging the assumption, habit, or hesitation that is keeping you anchored to the present. Here are three places to start. Action Items: Keep a list of ideas your team initially laughs at. For each one, identify the assumption it violates. Give one "ridiculous" idea a small, inexpensive test before dismissing it. Explore the full How Innovation Happens series.

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Source: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/10/how-innovation-happens-lesson-011/