The last day of September began just like any other day in the hi-tech factory up in the green mountains of the Gallillee.
Itai, head of the final quality control process, made sure that the testing system was properly adjusted. He checked the temperature guage of the huge cooling cell in which the unit had been tested overnight, and nodded to himself satisfactorily - everything was ready for the final testing procedure, the last stage before shipping the product to the customer.
One click on the red button, and the checking process began.
It took only a few seconds for Itai to realize that something was wrong. The rotating sound of the pistons didn’t sound quite right. Instead of a rythmic ticking, he could hear a screeching sound every now and then. Even before he had the chance to decide what to do about it, the system came to a screeching halt and the words “FAIL” flickered in bold red letters across the test screen.
An hour later a similar malfunction occurred in another system…Pandora’s box had been opened!
The following story shows how Inventive Thinking can help us to negotiate and get out of tricky situations.
A few years ago I took a ride to an SIT workshop with one of my colleagues (he was driving). On the way, we stopped to drop off his computer that needed fixing. We parked near the entrance of the shop and started marching towards the entrance.
“I wouldn’t park there if I were you,” said the doorman, “you’re likely to get parked in”. We were in a hurry, so we answered, ‘It’ll be OK,’ even though we had a nagging suspicion that it wouldn’t be. Anyway, when we came out of the building, our suspicions were confirmed - a truck had parked us in, and the driver was very busy unloading.
Apocalyptic newspaper headlines cause panic. Panic induces paralysis. The media is overloading us with evermore information and commentaries about “the situation”: poorer quality of life, higher unemployment, pay cuts, zero real growth, etc. Most companies in the market usually react alike. Companies start operating on ‘automatic pilot,’ or, in the worst-case scenario, they act on impulse, adopting clichés which are not necessarily rational, like laying off workers, cutting wages, putting trainings on halt and such.
Inventive thought and innovation are usually seen as a prerogative reserved for markets in times of growth, while, in fact, during slowdowns and recessions, there are plenty of good reasons to be creative, to invest in innovation, develop innovative strategies and even launch new products.
Mind bogglers are problems in which solutions are simple and straightforward, but for some reason or other run counter to human intuition.
Today I present to you with two classic mind bogglers. Let’s see what we can learn from them.
The first one is a classic and I’m sure many of you actually know it:
Three travelers go into a hotel and are charged $30 for a room. They each contribute $10. That evening the hotel manager realizes that the men were overcharged. They should have got a group discount and paid $25. So he sends a bellhop up to the room to return $5. The three travelers however cannot equally split the $5, so they give the bellhop $2 as a tip and keep $3 which they split among themselves - $1 each.
Now each traveler has paid $9, for a total of $27. The bellhop has2$. So $29 is accounted for.
Recently I had the great privilege of hearing Michael Braungart’s keynote speech on “cradle to cradle” at the Green Industrial Design conference in Holon, Israel. “Cradle to cradle” is a revolutionary approach to sustainable development, co-developed with William McDonough and published in their book of the same name (2002). I’m a big fan.
This philosophy radically challenges “over-population” as the root to all the current environmental problems. Its newness is in the concept that if we redesign the way we make things – transitioning from the current system of “cradle to grave” into a new cyclic system of “cradle to cradle” – then it wouldn’t matter how much we consume. That way, we can continue to consume, but after the products’ usage has ended, if designed correctly, they can become raw materials for future products.
Some call this a new industrial revolution. Only this time, doing it the right way.
Today I was looking for a parking lot and was very happy to find one that displayed a large sign offering one hour free parking with every carwash.
My car certainly needed washing, so I took up the offer and parked my car there. Three hours later I came to get the car and was prepared to pay for two hours parking. To my surprise, the cashier at the booth told me to pay for one hour only.
I couldn’t hide my surprise, and so the cashier explained why.
According to his theory, we tend to be interested in things that are new to us but at the same time still connected to what we already know. New, but not too new…
Biederman proposes a simple mechanism by which the brain seeks to “maximize the rate at which it acquires new but interpretable information.”
A story based on a true case
