The Trouble with Out-of-the-Box Thinking "Many of the revolutionary ideas in the technologies and arts don't come from the person who solves the problem by thinking out of their box. It comes from the person who has seen the right solution already somewhere else -- who has other boxes to think in..." (Andrew B. Hargadon is an Associate Professor of Technology Management at the Graduate School of Management at University of California, Davis, and Director of Technology Management programs - His Book How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth about How Companies Innovate (Harvard Business School Press, June 2003).
Peter G. Neumann talks about out-of-the-box thinking, the events of Sept. 11, and breakfast with Einstein.
"My job - quite literally, these days - is to come up with ideas. So of course I measure an article like this against my own practice. First: think outside your discipline. "Read — and not only in subjects that are directly related to your profession." Yes, but don't just read (that traps you into linear thinking). But seek out things like Idea City and soak in the wisdom of a hundred disciplines. Second: "Check the fit" by evaluating the idea and, according to the article, ask, "is the idea aligned with your sphere of influence?" Piffle" More...
"The best ideas won't come looking like they're just right. Fred Stratton, the CEO of Briggs & Stratton, once said that genius lay in the ability to see how two things that nobody else sees as related *are* related. This ability to make distant analogies unlocks a world of potential. And it's all a matter of looking for how things are the same, not for how they are different. "How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate" by Andrew Hargadon