Week 3 – Generate: Observation & Analogy > Topic 5: Observation and Analogy > Observation
- NARRATOR: Last week we discovered the kernel of how to more radically innovate, overturning frames.
- Frames are the expectations or assumptions we all use to interpret new information.
- The linguistic device we use to define our deeply entrenched frames are metaphors.
- Using a four-step approach of identification of existing frames and their consequences and then devising alternatives and appreciating new consequences, we then practiced how to shift or break frames.
- Because frames are so deep and automatic, they’re difficult to identify and break.
- We looked at a model culture for group innovation.
- Next three topics- we’ll build a tool box full of aids for frame breaking, the G of PIG In MuD.
- Now draw its face exactly, including what you see on every button, the placement of every icon.
- OK. Take out the phone and check how closely you replicated what’s there.
- How is it possible that we can’t remember something we’ve seen so many times? The answers seem obvious.
- So we only pay attention to what’s most relevant.
- That does not happen to be the placement of every symbol and icon in our cellphones.
- Consider a single piece of clothing and describe every facet of its design.
Week 3 – Generate: Observation & Analogy > Observation is complacent > Observation is Complacent
- What is most relevant to us? Not surprisingly, it’s what we expect to see.
- Which of the two central circles is larger? Most people see this as the circle on the right.
- The bias of seeing only the expected can be perilous in producing biased stereotypes.
- Around midnight, Diallo was standing outside his building enjoying the night air after a long day’s work when four New York City police officers in an unmarked Ford cruised by.
- The officers patrolling that drug-infested South Bronx neighborhood thought that Diallo matched the description of a local rapist.
- They got out and called, police, can we have a word? Diallo, who spoke little English, turned to flee while searching for something in his pocket.
- One of the officers assumed he knew what Diallo was reaching for.
- GUNSHOTS] When it was over, the police found in Diallo’s bullet-ridden hand a wallet.
- When the officer who yelled gun realized what had happened, he slumped down on a nearby stoop and cried.
- What the officers did not stop to observe was the expression on Diallo’s face.
- If we only see what we expect, we’ll never notice things we perceive incorrectly.
- Overcoming standard pattern recognition is needed to see imperfections and the need for improvements.
- In the book, “Innovation Generation,” I suggest practicing by contour drawing, recording exactly what we see, not just how we imagine things look.
- While the Xerox engineers designed smart parking meters, the anthropologists noticed that many parking spots had been cordoned off unnecessarily and could be readily freed for use.
Week 3 – Generate: Observation & Analogy > Analogy > Analogy
- Analogy is one of the most common tools used by scientists and businesspeople to come up with new ideas.
- Analogies are associations in which we find commonalities between things.
- With metaphors we fully equate the things whereas with analogies we appreciate similarities as well as differences.
- Analogies help us to better understand intangible concepts by relating them to something readily observable.
- Another analogy to explain the structure of an atom is to say that the size of the nucleus as compared to the space taken up by the orbiting electrons is like the size of a pin as compared to the whole of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
- Aeronautical engineers build mock-ups and try them out in wind tunnels before building a costly aircraft.
- To find the best shape and size they used the analogy of a pizza box to a laptop.
- How would you use analogies to jump out of your normal biases and assumptions? Does building the longest list of analogies you can come up with help you to develop novel suggestions? “.
Week 3 – Generate: Observation & Analogy > Associative hierarchies > Associative Hierarchies
- What Sarnoff Mednick and his theory of remote associations called flat associations, flat associations, more so than what Mednick called steep associations, provide a matrix likely to overlap with other associations.
- Asked to elicit associates, a person with a steep hierarchy of associates might say, mutt, fido and bark.
- In contrast, a person with a flat associative hierarchy might respond to dog with the above list plus the additional works- color, hair, couch, house, phone, beast, friend, walk, pound, grooming, parlor and so on.
- While the two steep associate lists have no overlap, the flat associate lists overlap at the words partner, hair and beast.
- The ability to generate more associates and more original associates leads to surprising new ideas that can even help to jog memory.
- How is an apple like a space station? How is a friend like a shooting star? Flat associations led the design firm NeoNurture to a prototype for a neonatal incubator that was further afield and thus more surprising than anything previously imagined.
- Try to greatly expand the list to create flatter and broader associates.
Week 3 – Generate: Observation & Analogy > Discussion of stop & thinks > Discussion of Stop & Thinks
- Women shoes are too often uncomfortable impediments to getting around.
- Some shoes leave your feet cold, others are too heavy, many don’t protect from the rain, and are even ruined by unforeseen weather.
- Observing the diversity of shoe designs would help spur insights into imperfections.
- Then ask people how they feel about their shoes, and what makes them by certain brands.
- Using analogies and prototyping would be highly useful.
- Put the problem to materials engineers to find lightweight, waterproof materials.
- What other devices are used for protection of body parts? Helmets? Pads? Guards? Ask what the analogies are for.
- Medical devices are two body protection as shoes are to feet.
- Understanding how novelty enters art may provide awareness of how to combine pleasure and practicality.
- Observation and analogy are useful tools in the PIG In MuD toolbox.
- Observation, when it involves a repeated stimulus, becomes complacent.
- Analogies are useful in detecting associations to other things that may serve to answer questions or solve problems.
Week 3 – Generate: Observation & Analogy > Week 3 Wrap-Up > Concept Review
- Neither is terribly outside the box yet both provide propulsion to launch innovation.
- Observation, when it involves a repeated stimulus, becomes complacent.
- Analogies are useful in detecting associations to other things that may serve to answer questions or solve problems.
- The flatter the hierarchy of associations, the more assistance it may provide.
Week 3: Generate: Observation & Analogy