Thomas Alva Edison, the renowned inventor, lived in a house with a large front garden and an iron gate at its entrance. It
is said that friends who came to visit were both astonished and annoyed to discover that they were forced to push hard to swing open the gate. Time and again, they complained to Thomas to fix the creaking, old gate and Edison kept promising to oil the hinges and spare his guests the trouble, but never delivered. It was only after his death, at a ripe old age (84), that the matter came to light: the gate had been connected to a pump, and each time it was opened, water was pumped into the inventor’s bathtub.
Monthly Archive for December, 2008
December 31, 2008
Energy solutions with an SIT twist
December 23, 2008
Designer pickup trucks
My husband and I decided to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary by visiting Petra, the amazing Nabataea site. We crossed into Jordan just south of the Lake of Galilee and drove down the Jordan Valley. On our way, we noticed that many of the vehicles transporting agricultural produce were decorated in a way we’d never seen before:
These vehicles are decorated by the farmers themselves. They caught my eye because they are the only colorful objects in an otherwise arid landscape. I was curious why a poor farmer would invest time and money to decorate, sometimes elaborately, what is merely a functional vehicle. What are the origins of this phenomenon? Cultural? Commercial? Something else?
I asked around but no one had a good answer. So I decided to flip the question: if the farmers are spending this much money, what is the benefit that they get? Continue reading ‘Designer pickup trucks’
December 19, 2008
A better alternative to brainstorming
“None of us is as smart as all of us” is the Japanese proverb that opened a recent NY Times article citing the SIT method. The article talks about some of the downsides of the traditional brainstorming technique, within the wider recognition of the positive aspects of the meeting of minds, collective creativity, and the fact that innovation is a team sport.
December 14, 2008
Great jokes and great ads have a lot in common.
Consider the following joke:
“My wife just ran off with my best friend. Boy, do I miss him.”
Now, look at the following ad for Pedigree Dog Care products (Advertising agency: TBWA\Paris, France, Creative director: Erik Vervroegen)
“Beware of the Dog. He’s got terrible diarrhoea”
Both are funny. Now, what’s interesting is to ask, why?
Continue reading ‘Great jokes and great ads have a lot in common.’
December 6, 2008
The better you understand the problem, The better the solution
(Dedicated to my friend Gili, one of the few who truly understand…)
Friday morning, 6:45. I am just about to leave for my weekly cycling. I push the ‘on’ button on my computer to check e-mail. The computer starts up, but a couple of seconds later, instead of making the normal sounds of the operating system booting, it shuts down. My senses sharpen, adrenaline’s pumping. Like a wild animal sensing a threat, I enter troubleshooting mode.
Wearing my thinking cap, equipped with some experience and healthy logic, I apply rule number 1: “Perhaps the problem is not really a problem – confirm.” Naturally, I try to turn the computer on again. The same thing happens: I press the button, the computer starts running and 2-3 seconds after it shuts down.
Continue reading ‘The better you understand the problem, The better the solution’
December 1, 2008
No innovation please, we’re too busy.
A few weeks ago I spoke to a high level manager in a financial institution. We talked about his (truly) impressive activities in the field of innovation, and then he surprised me somewhat by saying: “In 2009 we plan to freeze innovation activities.”
Since the company is not a client of ours, I wasn’t directly affected by this decision, but still, I was curious to understand what stood behind it. Another victim of “the Situation”, I said to myself, but to my surprise he went on to explain: “We have so many good ideas now that we need to pause with innovation and focus on implementation.”
This approach is, in my eyes, a symptom of one of the biggest and most common misconceptions in the field; that innovation is all about coming up with ideas of what to do (products, services, whatever it is you do). The corollary is, obviously, that once you have these ideas you don’t need to be bothered with innovation any longer, all you need is to “just” implement.
In reality, the situation is nearly the opposite. Continue reading ‘No innovation please, we’re too busy.’
