Fast Company has an article by KAIHAN KRIPPENDORFF on 4 steps to breakthrough ideas. These are good rules to use when you want to kick ass on your competitors and build solutions that they have a hard time copying. Here are the 4 four rules.

Step 1: Change the question

Step 2: Find a new metaphor

Step 3: Reuse what you have

Step 4: Perform a quick and dirty test

The article is short, and finishes reiterating the 4 points.

Ask yourself:

1. If you reversed the question you have been asking for the past few weeks, what question would you end up with?

2. What metaphor is your competitor using and what alternative metaphor could you battle them with?

3. What can you reuse from your current (or past) business to create something new?

4. What quick and dirty test can you perform to test the viability of the idea you created through steps 1-3?

There are a few people in the data center industry who use this approach, and these are some of the funnest most interesting people to talk to.

Kaihan has a web site http://www.kaihan.net/index.html and a Book on Outthink the Competition.