This is difficult because when you're looking in from the outside you can't see the pain and problems due to all the complexity and context blindness. The easi

This is difficult because when you're looking in from the outside you can't see the pain and problems due to all the complexity and context blindness. The easiest way is to look to your own field or industry. This is somewhat difficult if you're a programmer but there are tons of opportunities even for us - just take a look at Light Table over at Kickstarter [1] for a recent example or the multitude of software development tools, libraries, addons and frameworks that put food on the tables of many developers [2]. But what if you don't have a field? In that case you can deep emerge yourself in one. Pick an industry/sector where there is money and volume, lots of resource slack, where society's Big Huge Problems are solved, etc. How to feel the pain? Start by reading periodicals and other publications. These tend to constantly write about current problems and future challenges/opportunities in a plain and easy to understand language. Nothing beats going straight to the source so you might want to get in touch with practitioners and associations and pick their brains, follow them around at work, etc. It's important to reflect on the things you see, put them in a larger context, ask yourself how parts of a business could be improved (for a lightweight aid, use the business model canvas [3]). Asking professionals what their problems are, however, is a problematic approach because practitioners often don't know what they know, what they don't know or the root cause of problems [4] [5]. Casual conversations can still give you valuable information and guidance. At the very least it contributes to giving you a better understanding of the context you're emerging yourself in. Research papers can be useful because they are often problem-solution oriented, and even dedicate a section to Future Work. The research data can also be useful to build a convincing argumentation for any future solutions. The most exiting ideas tend to grow at the boundaries between different disciplines and where science meets art/entertainment, so any opportunity where you get to see your industry in a new or alien light should be cherished. Colleges and other educational institutions tend to be the place where practice and theory collide, resulting in all kinds of wonderful ideas. Often these educational institutions have good relationships with commercial and industrial life and can tell you the pains of the industry. Basically the more effort you invest in emerging yourself in a industry or specific sector and the closer you are to the knowledge, the greater your chances are to find the systemic problems on which you can build multi billion dollar businesses. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_open_source_applications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_open_source_applicat... [3] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality