I came across an excellent blog post today written by Bradford Cross regarding "The Next Silicon Valley."  The piece winds you through the history of Silicon Valley and describes how that area became what it is today.  However, Cross didn't write the post to be instructional on how to become the next Silicon Valley. He wrote the post to illustrate the point that there is no "next Silicon Valley." 

"Efforts to duplicate silicon valley tend to fail because they attempt to follow the valley by looking at where it is now.  They don't look at the century of history." 

The critical error in thinking, as Cross points out, is that trying to emulate success in this manner ignores context.  Essentially, people see the end product -Silicon Valley- and believe that they can hatch a plan to achieve the same results in other areas across the world.  However, it is interesting to note, even Silicon Valley couldn't have planned to be what it is today.

"No one could have looked at San Francisco or Stanford at the dawning of the 20th century and laid out a reasonable plan to arrive at the economy of today."

I didn't bring up this topic because I care all that much about the history of Silicon Valley, but because I see the same mistake being made by aspiring entrepreneurs.  When entrepreneurs walk around looking for their next big idea, they ignore context.  They generate ideas based on the notion that they will come across some grand idea and then devise a plan to make it happen.  It is important to your mindset as an entrepreneur to recognize that things do not happen that way.  You can't envision a path to becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.  You can't create a roadmap to emulate the success of Steve Jobs.  Why?  Because Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs didn't know what they would ultimately create when they set out to start their companies.  They couldn't have envisioned their journey at the outset, or the results of their efforts, and neither can you. 

So, as you go through your idea generation process, keep in mind that you won't become the next Silicon Valley superstar by trying to emulate the successes of those who came before you.  Everyone creates their own path.  Start with an idea, however big or small, that you are passionate about and accept that the path to your eventual success or failure is largely unknowable.