Talk to anyone. Preferably, the kind of person who a) has money and b) wouldn't think something like "Hmm, something sucks in life, I think I'll go announce this fact on a social news service in the hopes that someone will solve it for $9 a month."
It really is that easy.
Here's something which will work for anything you care to learn about: "Hiya. I'm interested in your industry. Would you let me buy you lunch so I can ask you about your experiences in it?" Best $25~40 you'll ever spend.
So yeah, perhaps run with that? Its one of the things i'll hopefully be doing in the next year.
Real pain can be found there Tuesday evenings
sadly none of the participants are likely to collate their pain on a website for you unless doing so directly helps.
IRS is unlikely to accept the bar tab as legitimate business expenses.
But then again the comment on Reading a companies complaints list is interesting - find the customer service mnager at big Corp and ask them ?
Hmm, might actually try that :-)
The problem with the IRS is that "they" hold the definition of "reasonable", for a bar, tab? I rather swallow the cost.
... I like the way you think. I very you could get more actually useful information that way. You get what problems you need to be solved, rather than what people THINK they want.
They suck up different feelings from around the web and displays them in a very interesting way
The easiest way is to look to your own field or industry. This is somewhat difficult if you're a programmer but there are tons of opportunities even for us - just take a look at Light Table over at Kickstarter [1] for a recent example or the multitude of software development tools, libraries, addons and frameworks that put food on the tables of many developers [2].
But what if you don't have a field?
In that case you can deep emerge yourself in one. Pick an industry/sector where there is money and volume, lots of resource slack, where society's Big Huge Problems are solved, etc.
How to feel the pain? Start by reading periodicals and other publications. These tend to constantly write about current problems and future challenges/opportunities in a plain and easy to understand language.
Nothing beats going straight to the source so you might want to get in touch with practitioners and associations and pick their brains, follow them around at work, etc. It's important to reflect on the things you see, put them in a larger context, ask yourself how parts of a business could be improved (for a lightweight aid, use the business model canvas [3]).
Asking professionals what their problems are, however, is a problematic approach because practitioners often don't know what they know, what they don't know or the root cause of problems [4] [5]. Casual conversations can still give you valuable information and guidance. At the very least it contributes to giving you a better understanding of the context you're emerging yourself in.
Research papers can be useful because they are often problem-solution oriented, and even dedicate a section to Future Work. The research data can also be useful to build a convincing argumentation for any future solutions. The most exiting ideas tend to grow at the boundaries between different disciplines and where science meets art/entertainment, so any opportunity where you get to see your industry in a new or alien light should be cherished.
Colleges and other educational institutions tend to be the place where practice and theory collide, resulting in all kinds of wonderful ideas. Often these educational institutions have good relationships with commercial and industrial life and can tell you the pains of the industry.
Basically the more effort you invest in emerging yourself in a industry or specific sector and the closer you are to the knowledge, the greater your chances are to find the systemic problems on which you can build multi billion dollar businesses.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_open_source_applicat...
[3] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table