What is Storm Surfing? It is the combination of surfing the web and
brainstorming. Just think of all the time that is spent on the Internet
waiting for downloads or pages to load. Storm surfing is using all your
references: books, drawings, the Internet, and whatever source you have.
You use the references to find out about the subjects you are researching.
While the pages load you use the time to sketch or write down you ideas.
You do this to take notes or find the information you needed to design
your you creation.
For example, say you need to find a certain size gear for your invention.
You have a book on gear design that helped you determine what size the
gear had to be. From your web search you found that certain of the shelf
gears are cheaper than something that would have to be specially manufactured.
You notice that your gear is unique in its size. You do that math to try
and find the different gear ratios that will work. But thankfully you
just downloaded a inventory list from a store on the Internet. You scan
through the list and at the bottom is a chart and some drawings that help
you decide what you need. Now you can compare the actual cost and get
a realistic estimate on your invention.
But imagine if you had many people researching the same project over the
Internet. Five people in a group could storm surf the information that
would take weeks to do without the proper source.
Storm surfing is nothing new. People do it every day. But next time you
surfing that website remember on how many ideas that you could form by
storm surfing.
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