6 ideas
The best solution to a problem is usually the obvious one, but it is hard to recognize precisely because its simplicity makes people overlook it in favor of complicated, clever schemes. The obvious thing hides in plain sight, so spotting it requires deliberate effort rather than ingenuity.
Before acting, run a proposed idea through five checks: Is it simple? Does common sense say it will work? Can you state it in writing for your client or boss? Does experience or human nature confirm it? And after the fact, did people call it obvious? A genuinely obvious solution survives all five tests.
Hired to advertise a soap, Adams discovered the product itself was inferior and refused to advertise it until the company improved the soap to match its claims. By fixing the obvious underlying defect first, the eventual campaign succeeded where clever ad copy alone would have failed.
Truly obvious ideas are frequently dismissed as foolish or naive when first proposed, because people equate value with complexity. The person who insists on the plain, direct course must endure being thought slow or simple-minded before the result vindicates them.
Step outside expert assumptions and view the product or situation from the ordinary person's vantage point, where the real, plainly-felt need becomes visible. What is obvious to the user is often invisible to the specialist buried in industry conventions.
Finding the obvious is not a gift of casual insight but the product of sustained, focused thinking on a single problem until its essential simplicity emerges. Most people fail to see the obvious because they refuse to think hard enough to strip a problem down to its core.