Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation

Particularly revolutionary ideas can be too much change for people to handle. Innovations often need to be explained in terms of the status quo. Think about metaphor as a way to use cultural imprinting to provide useful explanations that will aid adoption, which might explain why automobiles are rated in horsepower and electric lights in candlepowe

From Heidegger, he borrowed the notion of unconcealment, the idea that any object can have an unlimited number of features that are gradually unconcealed within an endless array of contexts.

The easier an innovation is to try, the faster it can diffuse—as long as it works and has a valued perceived benefit. When people can reassure themselves that something works before they put money on the table for it, they are more likely to purchase it in the long run.

Discovering problems actually requires just as much creativity as discovering solutions.

Putting yourself in situations that force you to think beyond what is obvious may enhance the effectiveness of transient hypofrontality.

“I tend to be anti-focus group because people answer questions with what you want to know, which is not helpful,” says Genevieve Bell, Intel’s resident anthropologist.

What happens if we bundle this asset with others inside the company? Outside it?

Simplicity, or the means by which disparate elements can be combined into a pleasing and harmonious whole that the public can readily latch on and respond to, is a key factor in the appeal and success of any innovation.

We all have ideas that never went anywhere. It’s time to unearth old notes from previous development projects. Are there innovations or ventures that you started to work on and then abandoned for some reason?

considering—it may be in your financial interest not to muck up your innovation with distracting add-ons that could lower the perceived value of what you’re offering.