I’ve been in the business world for some time and am rarely surprised by Corporate-speak but occasionally something crosses the display that catches my attention.  Today’s word is “Ideation” which I ran across while reading this Forbes article.

According to Dictionary.com, this word is originally from around 1820 and means:

the process of forming ideas or images
The formation of ideas or mental images.

I would have thought both concepts were covered adequately by the common term “creativity” but perhaps there is some specificity in the term that I am not seeing.

Wikipedia has a more elaborate explanation :

Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract. Ideation is all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation, to development, to actualization.As such, it is an essential part of the design process, both in education and practice.

Nevertheless, expect to see this term more often now that it has been re-introduced to the CIOnosphere (my term for the media and community whose primary market is CIOs, VPs and Executive VPs of IT).

To use this word in a sentence : “SharePoint is an ideal tool to support and promote ideation in a company, even across business boundaries” – at least, I hope that’s right.