Thinking about Thinking, Creativity, Innovation and Design
In 1968, Dick Fosberry won a gold medal in high jumping at the Summer Olympics. Instead of diving with his belly over the bar and landing on his feet, he did it reverse, jumped over the bar with his back and landed on his back. Nearly two thousand years since the Olympics in Athens, mankind... Continue Reading →
In "Education - 21 Century Challenges" about "What should we teach children?" we posed two additional questions: What advice should young people follow? Who or where should they turn for advice when adults' wisdom may only be outdated biases? We suggested two (visual) approaches; one that departs from the current situation and one that departs from... Continue Reading →
This is the third post in the series “21st Century Challenges” about Who Owns Your Medical Data?. In the first post, we discussed the following: In the future, Big Data algorithms and biometric sensors may detect and diagnose a disease before we have started to notice any discomfort or signs. But would you like your insurance... Continue Reading →
In an earlier post in the series "21st Century Challenges" about Who Owns Your Medical Data? we discussed the following: In the future, Big Data algorithms and biometric sensors may detect and diagnose a disease before we have started to notice any discomfort or signs. But would you like your insurance company to tell you to stop... Continue Reading →
A business model is a plan for the successful operation of a business, identifying sources of revenue, the intended customer base, products, and details of financing. It tells the story around the kind of value the company wants to create. Facebook that has been rather negative in the news lately. It might be because Facebook has an almost... Continue Reading →
In many books about innovation, it is stated that "You just have to be willing to challenge the assumptions of your industry, ask fresh questions, and --get this -- embrace your humanness." Daniel H. Pink Such calls are completely inadequate. Moreover, it suggests that the detection of assumptions is simple. On the contrary, the nature... Continue Reading →
Nowadays there are lots of startup challenges. Mostly they define a very broad area in where ideas are sought. It is a rather passive way to innovate. It is assumed that the idea or the startup is already out there, and it only needs some nurturing in the development, mainly on the business side. The... Continue Reading →
Focus defines the input of information that defines the thinking, and by that, the conclusions, solutions or opinions derived from it. In a schedule: information (A) is semi-processed in a funnel (A,B,C) of biases, assumptions and conditions to a logical solution, opinion or conclusion (C). Area A is the focus area, the area where the... Continue Reading →
Creative thinking can be learnt. How? By using thinking tools. There are many tools for creative thinking, examples can be found in the following books: Edward de Bono presents 13 tools in his book Serious Creativity Grace McGartland has 25 tips and techniques in Thunderbolt Thinking(TM) Arthur VanGundy covers 29 tools in Idea Power Michael... Continue Reading →
In an earlier post we republished Michael Michalko's The Difference between the way the average person thinks and a creative genius thinks" As Michael Michalko noticed that an average person focusses his attention on a specific information and excluding all else. In contrast, a creative genius sees the whole but would move from one detail... Continue Reading →
Recently we were thinking about the news. What makes news? Then there is the discussion about fake news. At Wikipedia we found a page that is about Fake news websites: "Fake news websites (also referred to as hoax news, deliberately publish hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be real news — often using social media... Continue Reading →
Here a sequel to How to Get a More Beautiful Question? Defining the thinking task before beginning an idea generation session is one of the most neglected stages. Most starting questions are far too broad defined. For instance. “In What Ways Might We (IWWMW) get more clients?”. It is more helpful to break it down in... Continue Reading →
In an earlier post about focus, we stressed the importance of paying attention to the focus of the thinking. Taking a problem or challenge unquestioned as it exposes itself may lead to brilliant solutions for the wrong problem. It is therefore required to pay substantial time and effort to (re)define the focus of the thinking. The problem... Continue Reading →
What can innovators learn from art? Observation skills, questioning, and experimentation are vital parts of innovation. Observing everyday activities can lead to new insights where things can be improved on. It can also lead to break-through ideas. The innovation psychologist Leon Segal said: "Innovation begins with an eye." Innovators carefully watch the world around them... Continue Reading →
In this blog post, as you can see in the upper left hand corner, we will focus on the quality of information, an essentially white hat thinking activity. Quality of information as a distinctive focus area or Area of Improvement (API) could be vital for many information intensive enterprises, but also for any other thinking... Continue Reading →
When we deliberately think about something, it is very important to have a precisely defined focus. What should be the outcome of the thinking? If we know what outcome we want, then it is not that difficult anymore to know what thinking steps to do.To get a good focus, it is helpful to ask for ourselves... Continue Reading →
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 →
Always the beautiful answer Who asks a more beautiful question. E.E. Cummings The single most important habit for an innovative thinker may be to ask questions. A well formulated question stimulate and inspire. Questions leads to more questions and the question is why we focus so much attention on answering questions and so little on asking... Continue Reading →
Recently we came across a handsome book by Jodie Newman called Business Creativity. In the chapter about Creative Toolkit, we found five tools that we clustered around the theme Change Point of View, because basically they come all down to the same principle. As we earlier pointed out each of us looks at the world... Continue Reading →
In times past there was a barter economy. Goods were exchanged for other goods. Yet the exchange did not have to take place at the same time, it could be up to a year later. A major economic innovation was the invention of money in form of silver, pearls or any other valued, but scarce... Continue Reading →
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