Inventing Elephants

This was supposed to be a post inspired by an article in this month's Fast Company magazine, but instead of one big idea I saw many little ones. Here are my favorites.

Looptworks took an assumption - that an amount of fabric not usable for a full clothing production run had to be disposed of - and turned it into a series of limited edition clothing. The Mango Money Center approached banking in a way that reminds me of how microfinance initiatives have approached lending. The way we think that a "bank" that helps us handle money has to be, isn't necessarily so.

Chip and Dan Heath's story about how coordination is a necessity for success was also a story about using and building on the multiple perspectives of individual specialists involved in a complex process. I always like their columns and this story - told through the experience of JetBlue - is particularly compelling for me.

Multiple definitions of what "better" means come into play with Bridgestone's new golf balls designed for the average golfer. Just because a certain design improves the performance of a professional doesn't mean it is the best solution for a casual player.

To top it off and send you surfing for a while there is a review of the winners of the 2010 International Design Excellence Awards. One of my favorites was the Slingbox 700U, not because I care about the product, but because I liked that they took an industry standard for dissipating heat - the fan, etc - and turned it on its head by creating a structure that dissipated the heat on its own my means of its inherent properties. That's just cool.

Most of us will use the same tools we've always used and think the same way we've always thought unless we are deliberately trying to step out of the rut. This is because these methods we already know use the least computing power or brain power, even though they are often less accurate.

This may be true of emotional intelligence and other varied intelligences as well, but today's focus is on cognitive intelligence and whether being considered intelligent really means you are capable of acting logically and rationally.

The tendency is prevalent enough that it is studied in regards to improving IQ tests and defining what intellgence actually means. Here are a few sample questions you can ask yourself.

Do you lack specific tools to act rationally?

For example, certain questions require specialized knowledge, such as calculating probabilities and comparing a small chance in a large population to a large chance in a small population. If you've never been taught this bit of math, then you're lacking a tool.

For example, if you are told that Harry is an introvert and then asked if it's more likely that he's a librarian or a salesman, then most people will pick librarian because the characteristic goes with the stereotype for the occupation. However, any particular person is a 100 times more likely to be salesman, simply because there are so many more of them. 

Are you influenced by the my-side bias?

Most of us have a subconscious preference for those people, stories, or solutions that we identify with in some form or fashion. When tests are run regarding split-second decisions the groups that the individual considers to be on their side are favored. These "my side" decisions can be obvious or subtle, but they do exist.

Do you only focus on confirming and not falsifying?

Most of us will only try to confirm an idea. We won't go out and create the test that would prove something is false instead. This tendency can trip us up with puzzles and in real life situations, even when using standard analytical techniques like the scientific method.

For more try this:

If the above ideas interest you, then you can buy a digital issue of Scientific American Mind and read the full article that inspired this post or go the even more in-depth route and read Keith Stanovich's book on What Intelligence Tests Miss: the Psychology of Rational Thought. 

History is often told in terms of stories across time. This person did this and it caused this. This invention was created and it caused these results. In an of itself, the study of history can be considered a study of systems and interactions.

Even more so when it is considered as a series of ideas that arose and influenced each other.

This was the framework set up by British historian Felipe Fernandez Armesto in his book Ideas that Changed the World. (You might also like this interview with Armesto at The Mind's Construction Quarterly.)

What fascinated me was that many of the ideas most relevant to this blog came from either the last century or the ancient past. 

Recent ideas:

• religious and cultural pluralism along with cultural relativism
• uncertainty (or the implicated observer of Schroedinger's Cat)
• chaotic unpredicability

Ancient ideas:

• our senses can be deluded and a full grasp of reality is unknowable
• there is order to the universe and we can influence it indirectly 
• yet the universe itself is dynamic and changing

In between there were many ideas that reflected the strength of one particular perspective, such as nationalism, a range of religious concepts, the superiority of a particular group of people, civil disobedience, and more. 

We are all affected by broad, sweeping ideas like the ones in the book, but in our day to day lives we can also become aware of smaller ideas that have become part of the system we're trying to influence. 

It is typical to look at what has been done before when trying to solve a problem, but it might also be worthwhile to look for the history of ideas behind what was actually done.

Do those ideas currently hold sway? Are they related to other ideas? Can ideas that are currently prominent in other parts of the overall culture be tied into the problem under review?

Borrowing Brilliance is an ode to creativity, to ideas that can be made real, and to constructing something new out of other things. It is a deeply personal book, partially the story of business failure and success and partly a hymn of delight to the amazing abilities of the human mind.

Read Borrowing Brilliance for the Stories

The basic principles are in the two pages at the end of the book. They can be pulled from the book's website or from my previous blog posts about the book. You don't read this book for the basic ideas. You read it for the stories and the passion behind them that embeds them into your mind so you can make use of them.

If you understand this, then I recommend this book highly. You won't find specific techniques on working with your team or shifting company culture, or anything like that. But you will find a framework and a method for developing your own inspiration without requiring a muse, plus receive permission to get things wrong, and develop a way to talk about what you're doing when 

The Spiritual Essence of Borrowing Briliance

In the very last chapter of his book, David Murray describes four paradoxes that I feel capture the spirit of the book as much as the six steps are its body.

Material Paradox - originality results from thievery

The book is called Borrowing Brilliance for a reason. We build on what has come before and by combination and incubation with a goal in mind we come up with something unexpected.

Wisdom Paradox - with age comes mental vigor

The continued use of our minds makes them better and more suited to being creative in whatever field or in any field.

Lover's Paradox - love creating but not the creation

Becoming attached to either the borrowed or the new is a step in the wrong direction. He tells stories of mountain climbing and surfing and that's part of the deal here.

Genius Paradox - need for left and right brain

We break down and we build up again. Reduction and holism are needed side by side and step by step, so that the steps repeat themselves.

I enjoyed reading this book and found it personally inspiring. If innovation is part of what you do, or should be doing, then I recommend giving it a read.

Take a look at my views on the body of Borrowing Brilliance and Murray's six steps to business innotivation.

1. Build a Foundation for Innovation with Problem Definitions
2. Use Existing Ideas to Construct New Ideas
3. Innovate Through Metaphorical Connections
4. Give Your Subconscious a Turn
5. Compare the Solution to the Problem
6. Iterate, Recycle, and Evolve Your Way to 
7. Book Review: Borrowing Brilliance by David Murray

Innovation is rarely a single linear path. The first idea, carried through to execution, is still imperfect. You repeat yourself, going through the process of right and left brain thinking again and again.

Every time you return to one of these steps, you do so with more insight and a greater sense of creative intuition. - David Murray

I found this idea strangely comforting, as it means I don't have to be right. I don't even have to have a better solution this time around, because it is information gained, either way.

Even better, it means that it is okay if something feels like a cheap imitation or insufficient, because innovation is actually an evolutionary process, as Murray calls it. Each adjustment and cycle could be extremely significant or a minor variation.

Some interesting questions that he proposes for the stage when you think you may be done are:

• Can this idea be used to solve a different problem?
• What components can I replace in this structure to make it more effective
• What components can I add or subtract or extract from or rearrange within my idea that will solve these additional problems?

Then you take the insight you gain from these mental gymnastics and go back to the beginning so you can pass through the steps of defining, connecting, and incubating and evaluating again.

He doesn't really provide a way to figure out when you're done, or, more accurately, ready to commercialize. He doesn't offer hope for being ready for the budget meeting with something that boosts sales forecasts, but for developing long-term answers, with the development process sometimes delivering short term rewards. 

If you're committed to innovation and creativity, then you're committed to the time it takes. You've got to keep trying. To keep climbing. To keep thinking. - David Murray

This is the sixth and final, after a fashion, step in the process of innovation that David Kord Murray writes about in Borrowing Brilliance. The chapter itself contains a good collection of examples of potential mental shifts, some of which might resonate with you.

You can find my posts on the other five steps at:

1. Build a Foundation for Innovation with Problem Definitions
2. Use Existing Ideas to Construct New Ideas
3. Innovate Through Metaphorical Connections
4. Give Your Subconscious a Turn
5. Compare the Solution to the Problem
6. Iterate, Recycle, and Evolve Your Way to Innovation