Introduction
Innovations are often obvious in hindsight, leaving us thinking, if only I had thought of that. There are the complex discoveries of science, but there are also those that are staring us right in the face, or so it seems once they have been revealed. There are those that have grown exponentially and we are all aware of like cats eyes, Ikea and Airbnb; and some you may not have been aware of such as the four compartments frying pan and the upgrade to the cable tie - the rapstrap that have left their innovators very wealthy. Like post-it notes, the original cable tie inventor made their employer very happy. And did you also know the tea bag was an accidental invention resulting from tea samples being sent in small silk pouches.
What if you could see such innovation in foresight rather in hindsight?
Moments of inspiration have cognitive patterns, and the fluid thinking model is the result of extracting these patterns across hundreds of inventions and innovations. When applied, these patterns generate a natural flow of ideas without the need for the divine ‘spark’. In essence these patterns are the structure of such ‘sparks’, and therefore enable the spark to be readily available, rather than a rare occurrence.
There are several patterns that combine to create the fluid thinking model. Each pattern has value in enriching thinking, and each has positive consequences for how we perceive and engage with the world around us. Beyond creativity and innovation, practising them can increase agility and resilience.
Part One: Thinking features and properties instead of labels
When we are children, we often don’t know the label or the function of an object and with that open mind it can be anything. A child explores what it could be by exploring its features and properties. In the early years, this exploration starts by putting it in one’s mouth, banging it on a surface and sometimes dropping it from a height and rotating it look at it from different perspectives. Then with age exploration progresses to imaginative play, ignoring the objects proper use.
Something then changes along the way, perhaps being told “it’s not for that”, “don’t do that with the colander it’s for.....”. ‘Labels’ begin to fix the purpose and meaning of an object, and the features fade into the background. This isn’t a bad thing in some ways; it’s efficient to know what something is for, or to know what is assumed to be the best thing to use for a particular task. But in other ways, it severely limits our thinking and our solutions.
To see how ‘labels’ become limiting we can start looking at a classic experiment. A group of students were handed an exam paper and a pencil for their exam. On each desk, there was an object that had one part of it formed from rubber, e.g. a small screwdriver with a rubber handle. Each paper had an incorrect exam reference number written on it in pencil. The students were asked to help by rubbing out the wrong number and writing in the correct one before starting. The students explained they couldn’t help because they had not been provided with a rubber, even though every desk had the material of rubber present, although as a feature of a different object.
We will return to the experiment momentarily, but first we will take a look at some non-typical languages and how these differ in their use of nouns or labels, and what difference this makes to thinking and behaviours.
There are some languages in which there is no distinction between verbs and nouns (labels) and one in which there are only a handful of noun labels, instead objects are in process of doing something, or you could say not an object at all. Instead, everything is seen as being in the process of its function, of what it is doing, e.g. (see pictures below) a sitting, or a supporting, or a holding, or a drying. The features and properties of the stool is what enables each function e.g. the flat surface, smoothness, stability, weight, non-porous, angle/taper of limbs, shape, strength, rigidity, etc. In this language there is no label of stool, just something in process of being and becoming.
Back to the experiment. What if the students didn’t think in labels or nouns? What if they observed and paid attention features and properties of what was around them? Well, the experiment took a different group of students and gave them a bit of training on ignoring labels and instead concentrating on features and properties. From the student’s perspective, this training was not associated with the exam context; however, this group of students found no problem in identifying and using the rubber on the handle of a screwdriver to rub out the number on the exam paper.
Indeed, attention towards features and their application is an aspect of each of the inventions below. Silk doesn’t contaminate the tea in transport, therefore was a convenient way to send small samples, it also signals quality. One recipient of the tea samples recognised another property of silk. Instead of taking the sample out of the silk pouch and putting into water and then straining the water through a fine sieve, one buyer left the tea in a ready-made sieve, that like a silver sieve, does not contaminate the flavour.
Glue should stick, but what if you don’t focus on the failure and focus on the feature of what you have produced, i.e. it’s sticky and then ask where might it be useful for something to be sticky and not stuck! What is the main feature/property of a hotel room? It’s unoccupied by the owner, so where are there other rooms that are unoccupied by owners? What are the properties of the reflection from an animal’s eyes? They are precise, small and bright pinpoints of light, that requires no energy input, and are directional, and at what time of day do you see them?
There are other aspects of thinking involved in these examples which will be covered in later articles, however, thinking in features and properties and not just nouns is foundational. Here are some examples, some more obvious than others. When looking at these examples think about the features or properties being utilised.
These examples use the wellington as whole, but we have also seen the properties of the material being used. Some examples: a small circle from the rubber sides of the boot pinned to a door to draft exclude a key hole; small pieces stuck to the feet of furniture to protect a floor from scratching; loops formed by horizontally cutting a boot used for hanging various items.
Instead of hanging these examples use different properties of triangular hangers to provide support. My favourite is seeing a large dolls house constructed using hangers as trusses for the roof (although this also uses an addition pattern of fluid thinking - which we will meet later in the series).
This use of hard hats is more than recycling, it has also been used to good effect to build bridges between communities and building sites, showing the human side of all involved - not just hard headed builders!
Over the coming months we will introduce you to different forms of perceiving and thinking that we will bring together into the full fluid thinking model. For now the invitation is to start building a new thinking habit, of noticing and thinking about properties and features, and taking a brief pause before you call a boot a boot, or hat a hat! Remembering it’s different to ask what could I do with a wellington? versus what could I do with a waterproof container? or what could I do with a strip of flexible strong weatherproof material?
As a ‘bridge’ (pun intended) to the next article in the series you can try solving the problem below by thinking features and properties. The solution we had in mind can be found in the post dated 29th April 2020, but we have also had a few great alternatives provided by readers.
Challenge:
• Starting with two trees: how would you build a bridge to span a 10m river?
Rules:
• You must have at least two living trees after the build
• You can take as long as you like before starting to build
• You can take as long as you like in building the bridge
• You should maximise the lifetime of the bridge
• You should minimise cost of maintenance
• It must enable people to walk cross carrying significant loads
• You can’t use wood preservatives or other wood paints or chemicals
Good luck.