Can a robot evolve? Or is it chained to the insides of a program? Names like Incher, Jitter and Wings, hit that the robots may not be simply ordinary robots. The Cornell Creative Machines Lab has designed a program within which simulated robots "build" themselves out of cubes of virtual muscles and bones. They provided …
The Thinkibility Notebook
Many people, like artists, athletes, general practitioners, teachers and musicians take notes about their performance in order to improve their skills. By reflecting about their experiences they gain awareness about what is working well and what not. They become reflexive practitioners: paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions. This leads …
Blocking the Left Brain Functions
One of the most fascinating books I ever read was written by Paul Watzlawick, a family therapist, psychologist, communications theorist, and philosopher. In his book The Language of Change he explores the idea that sometimes a completely nonsensical interaction may lead to a very concrete result. He suggests that using language patterns from the left …
Conceptual Thinking
Many people are not very proficient in Conceptual Thinking. Perhaps because it is nowhere taught. Conceptual Thinking is thinking with the aid of concepts. Some people describe it as the ability to effortlessly walk up and down the ladder of abstraction. A concept is 1. A general idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences. …
I’ve Still Not Received Your Weekly Three Breakthrough Ideas
From the Manager's Desk Dear Joanne, today it is Friday, and I have still not received your three breakthrough ideas for this week. Please send me a mail, so we can discuss it in our team meeting on Monday morning. I have wondered many times why employers are so wary to tell their employees to …
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Patterns in Organizations
I know research laboratories that are organized like assembly lines. They employ a huge number of staff involved in planning, financial control and reporting. They rely of the principles behind scientific management (Taylor-ism). They use standard software to control resources, designed for industrial companies like SAP. I know also organizations that help the poor, which …
Innovate the Innovation
Companies and governments must be innovative. But how? Many organizations wait for some curious creative ideas to suddenly appear out of nowhere. The suggestions that are put forward are often not so useful after all. Other organizations go a little further. They organize an “innovation day”, set up a committee on innovation, they try to …
How Many Things Are We Missing?
In an earlier blog post Language is not Innocent – How Thinking Patterns are Created we suggested that people construct thinking patterns from their earlier experiences and the agreements they make with their fellow humans about the meaning of behaviour and things. This is convenient because this ways of engaging in the world produces predictability, routine …
Hands were Made for Walking – Everybody should be Taught That!
Imagine that doctors claim that hands were made for walking, and that everybody should be taught that for a better quality of life. You may object and suggest that we have evolved to walk upright on our feet. But determining how evolution influences us today is not easy. Tracing evolution backwards is a process filled …
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Robustness in Networks
Our thinking habits are often based on simple cause-effect relations as can be seen in Newton's mechanics, engineering and economics. However, with the coming of quantum-mechanics, interconnected computers and global interrelated economies maybe our standard cause – effect need to be replaced by systems thinking. Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things, regarded as …
Mainstream Thinking about Designing Systems
Many technical systems, but also economic and organizational systems are organized to the limits of its capabilities. There are no redundancies, all components are trimmed to the bare bones. A little distortion in a daily routine can cause a cascade-effect and leads to a total breakdown of the system. There is no back-up or fail-safe. …
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Language is not Innocent – How Thinking Patterns are Created
Language is not innocent, it determines how reality is interpreted. Words create logic bubbles that are difficult to escape from. The way we use words may prevent us from finding solutions, restrict new ideas, and lead to wrong public policies. In this blog post we will try in a simple way to explain how thinking …
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What is a Really Good Idea?
When do you know that you have stumbled on a great idea? When do you assess and harvest the fruit of a creative session? When has idea generation delivered an invention? When is has a thinking breakthrough been attained? Unfortunately, books about brainstorming tend not to provide an answer to these questions. At least, have …
Directing the Thinking
Can you direct and control your thinking? And do you know when it is necessary to direct your thinking? Many of us have never learned, at least not deliberately, to direct our thinking. And we may not reflect upon our thinking. We think as we perform other bodily functions, automatically, unconsciously, without attention. However, the …
Reasoning versus Intuition
Many people regard Reasoning the opposite of Intuition. Reasoning is rational thinking using logic, while Intuition is unconscious, a paranormal gift, a magical awareness not accessible for normal humans, or a connectivity to an all knowing esoteric field. However, psychologists have proposed a dual-process theoryof the mind. The output of “thinking” could be the result …
Multi-focal thinking
Multi-focal lenses help you to see at different distances and depths. Like the eyes that have to accommodate in order to see at different distances and depths, thinking has to be focused to foreground and background phenomena A very useful to multi-focal diagnose problems in a complex organization is the System Thinking Iceberg. The …
Your Summer’s Wiki List
Your Summer's Wikipedia List: 12 concepts that shaped the world Thinking in concepts is a great advantage in making sense of complex phenomena. When your are able to articulate concepts in a concise and clear, yet accurate way, it will enable you to escape from it. Knowledge of the main concepts that shaped the world …
Brainstorming and Calmness
Brainstorming Using the brain to storm up creative solutions was a tool invented by Alex Osborn. The creativity tool has become a renowned method to extract new ideas from a group. The aim with the approach is often to generate many ideas and to defer the judgement to later. People may often be scared of …
Thinking Loops
What was I thinking? Becoming conscious of the consequences of one’s actions is an important part of the thinking process. Frederic the Great said: "What good is experience if you do not reflect?" We should strive towards being prepared to take a step back and view our thinking from a distance. In a similar way, …
Black-and-White Background
How does black-and-white background influence our thinking? Thinking is never neutral. Focusing our attention on different aspect is often more difficult than we imagine. Many “little” things can affect our thinking. A recent study suggests that if we see something on a black-white background it is harder for us to consider grey areas when we …
