This post deals with Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman’s theory of decision-making, and reminds us to keep our eye on the ball.
Author Archive for Roni Horowitz
October 6, 2010
Innovation Tip:
Innovation does not mean that we need something new! When ever you need to accomplish a new task always try to review existing resources before bringing in new ones.
August 4, 2010
Betting on Leaves
One of your boastful friends makes a bet with you that he can tell you in no time at all exactly how many leaves there are 
on a tree at any given moment. Of course you agree to the bet - it seems like the quickest way to earn a free meal in your favorite Italian restaurant. As soon as you’ve made the bet, you figure out the catch: how the hell can you prove him wrong?
I’ll give you a few minutes…
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… Did you come up with something?
July 20, 2010
Your Problem might be the Solution
Let’s face it, in most of our daily tasks we don’t need to be creative. All we need is to retrieve from memory ready-made templates and the problem is gone. 
There are however situations in life or work when the known routines don’t seem to work.
Sometimes we need to do something that simply seems impossible - we need to double the throughput of a production line within two weeks after several years in which all we were trying to do and managed to do was to increase the production by no more than 20 percent. (In one of my consulting projects we did exactly that…).
Often a problem seems very simple, but after several attempts to solve it, it turns out that the routine methods fail.
On yet other occasions, we do have a working solution, but for some reason we are not satisfied with it. We just don’t seem to find a better one.
In all these situations SIT can help us find a simple solution that for some good reason our brain could not produce.
SIT is based on the simple observation that many creative solutions in different domains fall into a relatively small number of distinctive categories. If we know these categories, we can use them to find new solutions.
“Out of the box” solutions, it is claimed, fall into their own boxes.
People writing CV’s look for all sorts of gimmicks and ideas to differentiate themselves from the crowd. 
Many of these gimmicks don’t usually help in the long run, and in many cases they damage the chances of those who created them.
As in many other cases, to be effective the idea needs to be within the boundaries of the “Closed World” of the problem.
So when thinking about how to impress their future employers people need to think about ideas that are related to them, their employers and the job they’re after.
Recently I came across such an idea, and will present it as part of a fictive CV that was sent to the company, ABC Advertising, in 2010.
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Continue reading ‘Innovation for Job Hunters: how using “Closed World” can give your CV an edge’
May 31, 2010
Take a step back to move forward
You probably know the little riddle about the dog, the carrot and the rabbit that need to be transported to the other side of the river. The problem is that their owner can take only one of them on each trip across the river (it was a very big carrot! 
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When the dog and rabbit are left unattended, the dog devours the rabbit. And when the carrot and the rabbit are left unattended, the rabbit eats the carrot.
How can the rabbit, the dog and the carrot be transferred safely to the bank on the other side of the river?
If you haven’t heard this one, take a few moments to try solving it before you read on.
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The solution is to take the rabbit on the first trip, go back and take the carrot. Then take the rabbit BACK to the original bank, leave it there and take the dog. On the last trip, the rabbit is taken to the other bank and the owner can continue his journey with all three.
April 14, 2010
What you see is what you get – or is it?
The book “Thinkertoys” by Michael Michalko mentions a story on page 7 about a group of scientists who visited a tribe in New Guinea who believed that the world ended at a river nearby.
When one of the scientists had to leave, he crossed the river and waved to the tribesmen as he got to the other side. The tribesmen didn’t respond. When the other scientists asked why they hadn’t responded, they said that they hadn’t seen anyone across the river.
Their belief about the end of the world was so strong that it actually blinded them.
Do you think this happens just to people disconnected from the modern world? Well, I think this happens to all of us all the time. We simply can’t see what we don’t expect to see.
When I started writing for this blog one of my goals was to show that SIT principles are universal and can actually be found everywhere - in brilliant solutions to problems of all kinds, in stories, movies, scientific theories and in…
… jokes.
Humor and creativity go hand in hand, so it stands to reason that we’ll find SIT principles in jokes (the good ones, at least).
Many people believe that analyzing jokes actually kills them, so if you’re one of those, I’m about to kill one for you…
I’d like to thank Don Young for sending in this story a few years back.
So here it is:
A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He takes his faithful pet dog along for company. One day the dog starts chasing butterflies, and before long he discovers that he’s lost. So, wandering about he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having lunch.
Continue reading ‘Killing a joke softly with SIT (with apologies to Shirley Bassey)’
