What Is a Big Idea?

CITO Research is focused on serving the needs of CIOs and CTOs, which we collectively call CITOs, through a practice of Agile Journalism. As we explain in various places on the site, the focus of our efforts is to create Problem Statements, which then are presented to our audience of CITOs, who in turn express their interest in pursuing certain Problem Statements. We attempt to find funding to pursue those Problem Statements.

In doing this work, we often find themes in a group of Problem Statements that represent a larger concept or a larger area of concern, and we call these larger areas of concern Big Ideas. We were tempted to call this category of content “Book Ideas,” but we chose Big Ideas instead, because we wanted not to limit ourselves to book-appropriate research, when an area might have broader implications. We also wanted to distinguish Big Ideas from a single Problem Statement that may be of narrower concern.

Big Ideas are, in essence, a collection of themes that we think are worthy of our enduring interest, and perhaps some day may be turned into book-length content.

Big Ideas are very similar to Problem Statements. They are, in essence, a container for Story Ideas and Problem Statements. The major difference between a Big Idea and a Problem Statement, is that you will see more many Problem Statements collected underneath a Big Idea.

It’s possible to have one Problem Statement be related to another, but most of the related content for Problem Statements will be Stories, not other Problem Statements. For Big Ideas, the related content will mostly be other Big Ideas, although Stories that have the right perspective will also be included.

If you’d like to suggest a Big Idea that is worthy of concern, please feel free to do so, using our mechanism for telling us about a Problem Statement, and simply indicate when you tell us that you think it’s a Big Idea. We look forward to hearing your Big Ideas and hearing what you have to say about ours.

Where Do Big Ideas Come From?

Big Ideas come from a variety of places. Sometimes we’ve been doing research for a while before we started the site, and we have a Big Idea that we’ve been working on for many years, such as the book Education of a CTO. Alternately, Big Ideas are suggested to us by companies that work with Evolved Media, such as Operational Intelligence, and those Big Ideas are sponsored. Sometimes Big Ideas come from Problem Statements that we find are very interesting and worthy of a larger perspective.