The power of ideas as a starting point

Learning ideas are useful to a point. To make a general idea useful, some key obstacles need to be overcome:

• We need to notice the idea in other contexts. Research found that people tend not to apply patterns they learn to different domains unless prompted.
• We need to change the idea to suit our current purposes.
• Knowing about an idea is not the same as using it.

Ideas help, but it is just the start. Easy ideas in a field may be the only visible tip of deeper knowledge.