If you think about mitigating Global Warming, and you are looking for creative solutions to, it may make sense to map out existing approaches.
Mitigating Global Warming
Creative Thinking – A Masterclass for Facilitators
It is a misunderstanding to think that the purpose of a creative thinking session is to come up with new ideas or innovative concepts. Nor is it the mere application of a creative thinking technique, however exotic it may be. What then?
Creative and Surprising Ideas from the Corona Crisis (1)
Can you design inventive social distancing devices that encourage socializing?
Thinking about the Spread of the Coronavirus (2) – Concepts
In the crucial month of February, in those weeks before the major outbreak in Europe, there was still room to stock up on protective equipment, to scale up the laboratories, to expand the purchase and production of test materials, to prepare for the removal of serum with antibodies in healed patients. Only, it didn't happen. …
Continue reading "Thinking about the Spread of the Coronavirus (2) – Concepts"
Mercedes Benz, Bionic Car, Boxfish and Thinking
Be careful not to project human explanatory models on nature´s brilliant solutions!
Nature Spotting Inspires Wild Ideas
A walk in nature could inspire so many ideas.
Thinking in Analogies
Many teachers in analytical/critical thinking and writing clearly forbid students the use of analogies, because, in one sense, all analogies are faulty. However, as George Lakoff, known for his thesis that the lives of individuals are significantly influenced by the central metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena, convincingly argues that all our thinking is metaphorical. …
More-of-the-Same or a Breaktrough Innovation?
In a recent post What’s (not) an Innovation? we mentioned that an innovation consists of a new combination of a function - the innovation has the purpose of satisfying a need a principle - there is a mechanism or idea how to deliver that function a market - the innovation has a value that can …
Continue reading "More-of-the-Same or a Breaktrough Innovation?"
Patterns in Medicine
We came across a booklet that could be a good example for the kind of studies by the envisioned Thinkibility University. At its West Wing, scientists dissect the basic thinking patterns in a scientific discipline. Siddhartha Mukherjee was asking himself: If there is a science of medicine, then science has laws. Physics has laws. Chemistry …
Searching for Ideas
Idea finding or searching for a new concept seems very similar to word finding. When an individual has consistent inability to produce words for things that they want to talk about they are suffering a kind of aphasia. They experience difficulties in answering questions as: What is the name of the category: church building house …
Conceptual Thinking and Using Physical Things
There is a misunderstanding that conceptual thinking is abstract in nature. Conceptual thinking is seen as just playing in your head, without physical devices? Conceptual art is the physical result of conceptual thinking. In conceptual art, the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of …
Continue reading "Conceptual Thinking and Using Physical Things"
Benefits of Conceptual Thinking
Conceptual Thinking - Thinking with the help of concepts - does have a lot of advantages. concept (Wikidictionary) abstract and general idea; an abstraction understanding retained in the mind, from experience, reasoning and/or imagination; a generalization (generic, basic form), or abstraction (mental impression), of a particular set of instances or occurrences (specific, though different, recorded manifestations of …
Design New Concepts – Thinkibility Boost
There are several ways to design a new concept deliberately. But what is a new concept? Not many people have a quick answer to this question, other than "differently than expected", "something else as normal", "not seen before" or just "interesting". One of the easiest ways to design a new concept is to escape from …
How to Describe a Concept
According to Wiktionary, a concept is an abstract and general idea, an abstraction. It is an understanding retained in the mind, from experience, reasoning and/or imagination. It is a generalization (generic, basic form, or abstraction (mental impression), of a particular set of instances or occurrences (specific, though different, recorded manifestations of the concept. As you …
Analogies and Banalogies
In "Surfaces and Essences", Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander suggest that "analogy-making defines each instant of thought". We build bridges between objects, actions and situations. Analogies help us to think and act in new situations and analogies help us to build new categories. Yet the term analogy is seldom used in everyday conversations and when …
Ways to Recognize Concepts
How to recognize concepts? A concept can be described as a perceived pattern or regularity in events or objects. We form groups of different events or objects into a single category on the basis of some underlying similarity. We are often not aware of what aspects or characteristcs that are underlying the categorization of events …
Where To Search for New Ideas? – Thinkibility Nibble
A surgical team in a hospital realised that their activities became more and more complex, partly because of the treatments that they were offering but also by an increase of the number of people involved. They looked for better ideas, outside their box of thinking. They visited an aircraft carrier, a pit stop at auto …
Continue reading "Where To Search for New Ideas? – Thinkibility Nibble"
World’s Most Interesting Reversals (2) – Thinkibility Boost
As a follow-up of an earlier post about Reversals, we present here some more examples. A Reversal reverses the usual sequence or direction of doing something. For instance: Normally a product is delivered after the customer places the order. A Reversal could be that the customer places the order after the product is delivered. What ideas …
Continue reading "World’s Most Interesting Reversals (2) – Thinkibility Boost"
World’s Most Interesting Reversals (1) – Thinkibility Boost
In a Reversal, the usual supposed cause-effect relation between objects or subjects are turned upside down. For example, it is supposed that the establishment of a permanent observation post increases the safety of recreational sailing. A Reversal could set up that the establishment of a permanent observational post rightly effective decreases the safety of sailors. The …
Continue reading "World’s Most Interesting Reversals (1) – Thinkibility Boost"
Key Concepts as Optical Filters – Thinkibility Boost
Optical filters are devices that selectively transmit light of different wavelengths. They absorb some wavelengths of light – that is, colors – while transmitting others. Optical filters define what we see and what is left out. Key concepts and filters Key concepts do exactly the same with what we perceive. They strengthen or weaken information, …
Continue reading "Key Concepts as Optical Filters – Thinkibility Boost"
thinkibility 