Category: Books

Lateral Thinking in Nature

The 17-year cicada has the longest known life cycle of any insect.  In the USA large broods of this species of cicada appear on time every 17 years.  When a tiny cicada nymph emerges from its egg it burrows into the ground, where it lives for 17 years.  After this exact time, it waits until the ground temperature reaches 18 °C spends then emerges in huge numbers.  It lives... Read More--

Key Ideas from the book, The Art of Unexpected Solutions

The book, The Art of Unexpected Solutions (published by Kogan Page), challenges the conventional desire for predictability and control, arguing that true breakthroughs often stem from unexpected events, happy accidents, and non-linear thinking. Some of the key ideas from the book include: 1. Harness Serendipity by Design Serendipity is not just blind luck it can be fostered. While you... Read More--

The Power of Serendipitous Collaborations

The invention of the ice cream cone was an accident born of serendipitous collaboration at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. When an ice cream vendor ran out of dishes, he turned to a neighbouring vendor, Ernest Hamwi, who was selling waffles, for help. Hamwi quickly rolled his warm waffles into cone shapes, allowing the vendor to fill them with scoops of ice cream. The improvised solution... Read More--

Unlock Ingenuity through Play

The Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev (1834 – 1907) loved to play cards.  In 1869, he wrote the names and properties of the 63 known elements on individual cards, then arranged and rearranged them like a game of solitaire. He realised that elements with similar properties could be arranged in ‘suits’ ordered by their atomic weights.  He saw patterns that weren’t apparent... Read More--

Wilson Greatbatch – Accidental Inventor

A mistake that ultimately saved millions Wilson Greatbatch’s life reads like a case study in how curiosity, persistence, and a willingness to embrace mistakes can reshape the world. Born in 1919 in Buffalo, New York, he grew up fascinated by radios and electronics, often taking devices apart just to understand how they worked. That early tinkering spirit never left him, and it ultimately... Read More--

Accept Productive Boredom

In today’s busy world, we have developed a strong aversion to boredom. The moment our minds begin to wander, we reach for our phones, check email, or find some other distraction. Yet in doing so, we are systematically destroying one of the most powerful stimuli for unexpected solutions: unstructured mental downtime. The neuroscience is clear. When we’re not actively focused on a task, our... Read More--

Go Wide, Go Narrow…..

In his book, The Creative Shift, Andrew Robertson, Chairman of advertising giant BBDO, gives this succinct guidance for brainstorms and idea meetings: Go Wide, Go Narrow, Go Deep, Go Public. Go Wide. Use divergent thinking to generate a great number of ideas including absurd and silly ideas. No criticism or judgement allowed at this stage. Go Narrow. Sift the ideas down to a shortlist... Read More--

Why the Unexpected is so Important

Think about the last time something genuinely surprised you. Maybe it was a shocking sports upset, a wild plot twist in a film that made you gasp, or maybe just bumping into an old friend in a city hundreds of miles from home. That feeling, the sudden jolt where the world doesn’t quite work the way you thought it should, is a powerful and sometimes disturbing experience. The word “unexpected”... Read More--

The Unconventional lies beyond the Conventional

In his stimulating and provocative book, Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman gives this advice – originality lies on the far side of unoriginality.  The principle is that if you want to be innovative and unconventional it is probably better to serve your time learning a conventional skill before branching out on your own creative route.  Beethoven’s early compositions were strictly in the... Read More--

Lateral Thinking in Business Strategy

How can you differentiate your business from the competition? Let’s look at some examples of lateral thinking in business strategy and innovation. Nintendo Wii’s Motion Controls: What radical feature can we add? Nintendo introduced a major innovation with motion controls in the Wii gaming console, revolutionizing the gaming industry. This approach was creative and unexpected,... Read More--