What does an idea person without software skills or business education do?

A very good friend of mine is an idea person and we spend a lot of time discussing our different ideas for web/iphone apps. I am (thankfully) a programmer so I can prototype my own ideas and put it on the www to get feedback and see if any of them catch on (none have yet). A recent conversation led to a discussion on what options she has. She is not a programmer and works as a part time web designer. When we discuss ideas, we are so not on the same page, so I am not super motivated to spend too much time developing an idea I am not convinced of. Her interests are very different from mine so I often pooh-pooh her ideas, but a few months later she shows me similar ideas that have been successful businesses or products.

What would you advise a person who is a good ideas person? She doesn't enjoy programming, so programming classes may be only the last resort.

Everybody has ideas. Your good friend is no different from almost everybody else on the planet. Ideas aren't worth anything. If they were, there would be a marketplace or exchange where you could buy and sell ideas.

Implementation is everything. If she can't or won't get the skills and education to implement her ideas, then pity her.

Ideas have a negative value, if anything: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1191242

It's pretty harsh, but anyone can come up with a hundred ideas they have no hope of implementing. Myself included ;)

Get some skills? If she already knows some web design, polishing up her skills in that area is a useful skill for a tech startup. With a few months of self-study, or finding some relevant work experience, you could probably get enough basic business education to be of some use. So you were to team up, and you were to focus on building product, and she worried about polishing up the frontend, managing various marketing channels, doing market research, sketching out financial projections, etc - it could work out.

Has anyone seen Quirky? http://www.quirky.com/. Seems interesting. Pepsi Refresh is also interesting (if your idea has a benevolent aspect to it): http://www.refresheverything.com/