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Slide 2 A Whack on the Side of the Head: Thats not my Area Redone in Microsoft PowerPoint By Tristan Ford Redone by Osfield Incorporated Boot To The Head! Slide 3 The Solar Cell A solar technician has a problem. Her research lab is experimenting with a new solar cell material, gallium arsenide, which is causing her problems in the slicing stage of cell production. Her task is to use a special high speed wafer. She cuts the material; it cracks. She tries changing the position of the saw. The material still cracks. She is quite frustrated. At home that weekend, she is in her husbands shop watching him make cabinets. She notices that when he wants to make precision cuts on certain types of wood, he reduces (rather than increases) the saws cutting speed. She gets an idea: why not try the same approach on the gallium arsenide. She does, and it works. Slide 4 What this woman did exemplifies an important part of creative thinking: recognizing the basic idea of one situation and applying it to another. Boot To the Head! Slide 5 Thats not my Area How many times have you heard; Thats an administration problem or Thats an engineering problem or Thats a marketing problem? The idea is none of those problems are purely engineering, administration, or even just marketing problems. In fact, theyre all connected in some way. They are all of the above. They have to work together in some way to get the job done. This applies for a ton of other jobs and life challenges too. But if you develop the thats not my area attitude, you wont ever be able to recognize these problems and creative thinking will become much harder for you. Slide 6 Cross-Fertilization Boot To The Head! Slide 7 Looking in new fields for different ideas is great. Many significant advances in art, business, education, entertainment, politics, and science have come about through such cross-fertilizations. Nothing will make a field decline more quickly than keeping out foreign ideas. Slide 8 Exercise: Suppose the following people went to lunch together. What could they learn from each other? There are no wrong answers. Boot To The Head! Slide 9 A bus driver and comedian An automobile mechanic and a politician A kindergarten teacher and a software programmer A priest and the head waiter at a five star restaurant An airline pilot and a geologist A policeman and a librarian A circus clown and an air traffic controller A TV producer and an elementary school teacher A bull fighter and a gardener A fool and a banker A choreographer, a librarian, a prostitute, and a professional football player Slide 10 Exercise: Do you get your own ideas from any of the following? o Outside people o Places o Activities o Situations Boot To The Head! Slide 11 Numerous People have claimed that these outside influences have helped them. Magic- Through the study of performance you can learn the power that certain symbols have when they are associated with one another. Slide 12 Flea Markets Flea markets are one of the last outposts of a free enterprise. If you want to know what a free economy is all about, go to a flea market. There you can see the other peoples opinions of the products by looking at the prices that they selected themselves. Slide 13 Sports provide a good source of ideas. People have found an interesting parallel between why some teams always win and why some mangers are able to motivate people so well. Slide 14 In the course of their evolution, natural systems have solved in variety of problems-often in quite ingenious ways. If you look at nature with an eye toward similarity, youll pick up some good ideas. Slide 15 Chapter Summary The main idea of this chapter is that always solving your problems the same way, can damage your creative thinking. Thinking inside the box will slowly create the Thats not my Area attitude, and you wont be open to the great ideas that surround you daily. Journey outside the box and experience what others can contribute. Slide 16 Develop the explorers attitude: there are always new things to discover! Dont get so busy that you loose the free time that you need in order to complete step one. Read more than just one genre. You never know whats there until you go there. Go outside the box. Boot To The Head! Slide 17 Fiction is a great genre to start with. It helps your imagination get a head start. An imagination is one of the things that helps to develop the explorers attitude. When an idea comes to your mind, dont let it go. Write it down A.S.A.P! Never let it go even if it doesnt sound good at first. It will later on. Whether its the next day, or a decade later. Dont be afraid to take risks or advice from a new person. Youll thank yourself in the end that you did. Look for new ideas in tons of different places. Think of someone elses ideas as well. Boot To The Head! Slide 18 Slide 19 This has been an Osfield Incorporated reproduction Revised from Tristans highly animated version BYE!