Where do ideas come from?

Yesterday I came across a website that had what I thought was a really fantastic feature and my mind set to work as to how I might implement that feature on my own website.

Immediately I could see little ways of improving on the feature. As I did not have time to start wok on it right then - it went on my to-do list but the idea is so good that it keeps flitting across my mind.

A few minutes ago I was in the bathroom drying after a shower - this is the 'workspace' where I frequently have my most creative thoughts. All I was doing was running the idea through my head for the umpteenth time, imaging how I might implement it., imaging how I would launch it, completely visualizing the final entity when all of a sudden the idea just transformed itself inside my head! It was still the same basic concept but in a flash it metamorphosed into something hugely more powerful.

The question is "What happened?". What caused the flip in my head - to see the idea a little differently and transform it. I don't know.

The funny thing is that a month ago when I did not have a broadband connection and was not permanently connected to the web I would have probably not realized the significance of the feature in the original website and so none of this would have happened.

There is a lot to learn here about the birth of new ideas; their nurturing and evolution. Its triggered some interesting thinking. Maybe I should have another shower