That is an interesting list...

However, the part about requiring little effort... that is always nice, but some things will require a great deal of hard work. That doesn't necessarily make them bad ideas.

Also, requiring almost zero investment... again, it is nice, but just because something requires an investment, doesn't make it a bad idea... in fact, perhaps quite the opposite.

We used to use in focus groups with a previous company that I was a distributor for, a little four block matrix to help prioritize goals. I will try to explain it without drawing it.

It was a box, with an X and Y axis running through the center. On the horizontal axis, one side (right) represented "high possible return", and the other "low possible return." On the verticle axis, the top represented "least effort" and the bottom "most effort."

Any idea was plotted on this XY graph in terms of the criteria above. You would end up with dots all over the graph representing many ideas. If something hit the top right box (highest return and least effort), it was called a "big bet." If it hit the top left box (highest return and most effort), it was called "a long range plan." If it hit the bottom right (low return and low efforrt), if was called a "quick possibility." If it hit the bottom left (low return and high effort), it was called "a waste of time."

Everything would fall at various points on the graph, and items more towards the XY intersect were more difficult to class (even if something trended to the waste of time, it might be close enough to long range planning to warrant consideration. If they were furthur away, they were much easier to decide on.

It was one way to help prioritize ideas.

OK, now that I have totally turned this thread around, I just thought it would be good to look at some different ways to categorize any idea.