So, this is from personal experience, but the more informed and trained I get, the more difficult I find it to come up with ideas. This is within the technology, and specifically development/design, categories.

Okay, let me rephrase this with some more specificity. As my expertise and experience rises I find the following:

1. I shoot down ideas much faster because I more clearly identify hurdles.

2. I come up with ideas that are far smaller in size due to understanding how much execution is required to even build the simplest of products.

3. Because of 1 & 2 I find myself with a shortage of ideas to execute.

What I find most annoying about this is that when I was far more ignorant, I could come up with ideas left and right. Of course, most of them were far to grand in scale, but they were far more exhilarating. But now, I feel as though my mind as setup some permanent set of barriers that block most ideas that pass through my head...

...and I'm not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing?

More often than not, I find myself trying to forget what I know in order to get my mind rolling.

But what about all of those idea books...

I know that a lot of ideation processes say that you should go completely wild and avoid any criticism or barriers. However, I've yet to see a credible, actionable product idea come from that process (other than the myriad of books that preach it). Most of the time, these seem be used in coming up with ideas just for the sake of coming up with ideas.

Let me reiterate that last part - an actual product idea, not some cutesy shit one comes up with in a classroom. One that can be executed by a small team with limited time and resources. For those curious, the typical entrepreneurship class will teach you to do this type of thing and quote Walt Disney a lot.

And okay, scratching your own itch / being in your market...

Anyone else find it odd that the most world changing ideas we're "scratch your own itch" ideas? I mean like cars, computers, etc. The big stuff. It seems like there's this realm of ideas that are completely wildfire and so out there that we don't even know we "need" them until we have them. Afterwards, we can't imagine life without them (Air Conditioning, Carpet, Showers).

Again, for the critics, these are just my opinions and experiences.