One of many interesting insights from an "in vivo" experiment with the real-life scientific method:

When Dunbar reviewed the transcripts of the meeting, he found that the intellectual mix generated a distinct type of interaction in which the scientists were forced to rely on metaphors and analogies to express themselves. (That’s because, unlike the E. coli group, the second lab lacked a specialized language that everyone could understand.) These abstractions proved essential for problem-solving, as they encouraged the scientists to reconsider their assumptions. Having to explain the problem to someone else forced them to think, if only for a moment, like an intellectual on the margins, filled with self-skepticism.

It is a very difficult task indeed to recognize your own assumptions. That is why systematic methods-metaphors that force you to look at the situation from various perspectives often help us find novel solutions. My own role as a moderator during an ideation session is to shake people out of their normal ways of thinking.

tags: method, metaphor, creativity, example, book, brainstorming, magicians

I find this optical illusion - young girl or old hag - a good metaphor for inventive thinking. As an inventor you've got to be able to see both, old and new, in the technology you are trying to improve, disrupt, or displace. You need to understand how a recipe for success in the old world picture became a recipe for disaster in the new world. What are the useful features that you need to preserve in your future solution? What are the harmful factors that have to be overcome? If you don't the both sides of the innovation equation, the path to creative destruction can rather quickly become a road to self-destruction.