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Monday, 13 June 2011

An Idea List of Ways to Improve Something.


An Idea List of Ways to Improve Something

  • Simplify--remove complexity
  • Apply to new use
  • Automate
  • Reduce Cost
  • Make easier to use, understand
  • Reduce fear to own, use
  • Make safer
  • Give more performance, capacity
  • Make faster, less waiting
  • Provide more durability, reliability
  • Give better appearance
  • Create more acceptance by others
  • Add features, functions
  • Integrate functions
  • Make more flexible, versatile
  • Make lighter weight--or heavier
  • Make smaller--or larger
  • Make more powerful
  • Reduce or eliminate drawbacks, bad side effects
  • Make more elegant
  • Give better shape, design, style
  • Provide better sensory appeal (taste, feel, look, smell, sound)
  • Provide better psychological appeal (understandable, acceptable)
  • Provide better emotional appeal (happy, warm, satisfying, enjoyable, fun, likable, "neat")
  • Aim toward ideal rather than immediate goals
  • Give larger capacity
  • Make portable
  • Make self-cleaning, easy to clean
  • Make more accurate
  • Make quieter
Note: Remember that some of the major problems in modern living are too much noise, too much information, too many decisions, too much complexity, together with a general lack of quality and reliability. Intelligent addressing of these problems in connection with your idea should produce welcome improvements to it.

What-Iffing.
A major block to creativity for many of us is the mind's fierce grasp on reality. This very factor that keeps us sane also keeps us from thinking beyond what we know to be true. What-iffing is a tool for releasing the mind, for delivering us from being blocked by reality.
In its simplest form, what-iffing involves describing an imagined action or solution and then examining the probable associated facts, consequences, or events. Instead of quickly saying, "That sounds dumb," or "That would never work," and leaving our criticism vague, we trace as exactly as our reasonable minds can generate the specific implications or consequences of the newly imagined fact.
For example, what if automobiles were all owned by the government and everybody had a key and could use any car that was handy? Consequences: Parking lot size could be reduced. There would probably be more cars pooling with strangers. If cars were maintained by the government, too, some would be in better shape than now, but others would be in worse shape--no pride in personal ownership. On sunny days cars would be plentiful, but on rainy days, you might get stuck at the shopping centre. Cars that broke down would be abandoned. You couldn't lock things in your car. You'd never know if the car you drove to a location (like the movie theatre at night) would be there when you got out.
Another example might be to ask, "What if we do nothing about the problem?" Then seek as accurately as possible the consequences.
On another level, what-iffing allows us to create a completely new reality, to establish a new chain of being or relationships, to change the unchangeable in hope of generating a new perspective on a problem or a new idea.
For example: What if rocks were soft? We could put big ones in our houses like pillows to lean on in the living room. We could use them like "medicine balls" to toss to each other for exercise. We could line roads with piles of rocks to keep cars from damage when control was lost on dangerous corners. We could jump off high buildings onto rock piles. Crushed rock pits could be used to jump into by athletes. On the other hand, rock grinding wheels wouldn't work anymore. Concrete, made of rock, would be soft. A cinderblock cell would be a padded cell.
Another example: What if we could see odours? You'd know the source of the bad smell in the kitchen--a plant, garbage disposal, wastebasket, old food in the refrigerator. You could see the perfume as it wafted off the girl wearing it--a visible "come on." Since we can see farther than we can smell, you could see who had an orange or banana or Limburger cheese sandwich in his lunch bag from across the room. Visible odours could be socially embarrassing in ways not necessary to detail.
Whether or not the "seeing odours" thought suggests the invention of an odour detecting device, a super sniffer like the ones used by the U.S. military to sniff out enemy soldiers, a main benefit of practicing what-iffing is to train the mind to explore unreality or imagined reality, to think about, for a few minutes, the necessary, logical consequences or facts needed to support such a change in real things. Too often when someone gets a new idea, little attempt is made to think about its logical consequences for a few minutes.
For example, we have heard some people say that the United States should legalize drugs like cocaine because then the pushers and organized crime couldn't make money and would stop pushing them and the drug problem would go away. Okay, what if drugs were legal? Would they be legal for everyone, even children? Well, no, you'd have to be 18 to buy them. But then wouldn't the pushers concentrate on selling drugs to those under 18 instead of to adults, which would be a worse situation than we have now? Or, would adults stop using cocaine if it were legal and cheap? Or would it be legal and expensive? And so on.
As I said, too often we simply stop thinking altogether when something contrary to fact comes across our minds or else we think about it in the most illogical and impractical way. When we ask, "What if the sky were green?" the response we tend to get, either from others or from ourselves, is, "Well, the sky isn't green, so why think about it?" But if nothing else, thinking about it is good practice at logical thinking.
In more practical terms, though, thinking about what does not exist is about the only way we have of eventually making it exist. In other words, the first step to implementing a new reality is to imagine it.
Notice when you mention a "what if" to your friends, their reaction will probably be to laugh and change the subject, or to laugh and suggest one funny consequence. There is little attempt to trace probable consequences thoroughly, to outline a full set of associated realities. By not doing so, we are in danger of cutting off many new idea
Try It Yourself
What If. Choose one of the questions below and then trace the reasonable and logical consequences that would follow. You might be sure to think of both good and bad (and perhaps indifferent) consequences. List or describe (in a sentence or two each) at least ten consequences.
1.         What if anyone could set up as a doctor?
2.         What if each home could run the television only one hour a day?
3.         What if a citizen could serve only one term in one office during a lifetime?
4.         What if gasoline grew on trees and was a renewable resource?
5.         What if exams and grades were abolished in college?
6.         What if our pets could talk?
7.         What if gasoline cost $25 a gallon?
8.         What if we never had to sleep?
9.         What if we could read other people's minds (and they could read ours)?
10.       What if all marriages were automatically cancelled by the state every three years?
11.        What if everybody looked almost exactly alike?
12.       What if clocks and watches didn't exist and daylight lasted six months?

 Attribute Analysis.
Attribute analysis is the process of breaking down a problem, idea, or thing into attributes or component parts and then thinking about the attributes rather than the thing itself.
For example, let's say you work for a ball bearing manufacturer and you discover that a flaw in one of the machines has caused the production of 800 million slightly out-of-round ball bearings. You could ask, "What can I do with 800 million slightly out-of-round ball bearings?" and, of course, a few things come to mind, like sling shot ammo and kid's marbles. But you could also break the ball bearings down into attributes, such as roundish, heavy, metal, smooth, shiny, hard, and magnetisable. Then you could ask, "What can I do with 800 million heavy things?" or "What can I do with 800 million shiny things?"
Further, you can focus on each identified attribute and ask questions about it, like this:
What can heavy things are used for? Paperweights, ship ballast, podium anchors, tree stands, scale weights, and so on
What can be done with metal things? Conduct electricity, magnetize them, melt them, and make tools with them
To solve the problem of poverty, ask, what are the attributes of poverty
Some answers: people, crime, lack of food, lack of goods, large families, psychological lacks, low self esteem, welfare, lack of jobs, lack of job skills, lack of value-rich upbringing, lack of education, lack of motivation, poor economic judgment (poor buying skills), poor quality housing, poor quality transportation.
Then, each of these attributes can be addressed, either directly, or through further attribute analysis. For example, take "poor economic judgment." What are the attributes of that?
Some possibilities: buying low quality items, buying smaller packages at higher price per ounce, wasteful spending habits, tendency to "blow a wad" on payday, inefficient food buying (expensive rather than quantity or health considerations), lack of market competition (and hence higher prices), lack of ability to budget, tendency to use money for non food items like alcohol, inability to calculate price per ounce, etc. to determine greatest economy
Discovering attributes can be aided by the use of checklists. For example:
Physical: colour, weight, material, speed, odour, size, structure, taste
Psychological: appearance, symbolism, emotive ("happy smell of detergent")
Functional: intended uses, applications, how it does what it does
People: who's involved?
Miscellaneous: cost, reputation, origin, class it belongs to, definition
Attribute analysis is sometimes described as a smashing technique, because it smashes our fixed and frozen collection of thoughts about a problem or idea. Notice that this is accomplished by refocusing onto something belonging to the problem but more general or abstract or more specific and concrete. Often, attribute analysis is another way of recognizing that a given problem is really a collection of interrelated smaller problems. And often it is a way of perceiving the variables that make up a situation or thing in a way that allows us to change one or more and improve the whole thing.
Example problem: How can we read and remember better? First, what are the attributes of reading and remembering?
Possibilities: books, repetition, visualization, understanding (comprehension), quantity of material and number of details, length of time desired to remember (short or long or permanent)
What are the attributes of visualization? ... Solution: draw pictures of what you read.
What are the attributes of understanding? ... Simplify text by rewriting it or summaries of it into your own words
Another problem: What are the uses for a yellow pencil? What are the attributes?
Possibilities: yellow paint, hexagonal, pointed, rubber end, metal ring, wood, graphite rod, long and stick-like shape
What are the attributes of wood? Burns, floats, electrical insulator, nailable, paintable, gluable, structural component, soaks up liquid slowly, can be sanded or carved
Morphological Analysis.
Morphological analysis builds upon attribute analysis by generating alternatives for each attribute, thereby producing new possibilities.
The rules are simple:
A. List the attributes of the problem, object, or situation as you would in a standard attribute analysis.
B. Under each attribute, list all the alternatives you can think of.
C. Choose an alternative from each column at random and assemble the choices into a possibility for a new idea. Repeat the choosing and assembly many times.


In the next post we will be working on problem solving, what’s all about problems!
Have a fruitful week!

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