8 Course Module 1c: Engineering Ingenuity
Example of Assignment: Research for Knowledge to Stimulate Thoughtful Discovery:
The more knowledge acquired, the more relevant breakthrough ideas can be achieved. Quantity of input brings forward quality of output. There are two types of research activity:
Passive: Involves studying data by using the internet or reading materials already produced
Immersive: Involves personally interacting with an environment that is the subject being studied
Innovations are facets of associations: multiple ideas that are mashed together. One idea + another idea = innovative ideas. Before you begin to charge into creating a solution… the first step is to stimulate your mind. Too many people rush to create a solution before they take the time to ponder other possibilities or directions. People often use their brain as a library of past experiences to champion a solution from what they already know. Researching activities is an excellent approach to stimulate the mind to explore divergent discoveries.
There are six distinct types of research methods sometimes referred to as mining (15):
| User | How the user, or customer thinks, what they do, what is important to them, what is their story. |
|---|---|
| Market | What is the competition, and other companies, doing to compete? What do their management think, how do they run their operations, who do they hire? |
| Expert | Intelligence gathered from experts, academics, and analysts about what they think. |
| Patents | Repository of published intellectual property related to products and services. |
| Foresight | Structured study to discover patterns that anticipate future developments. |
| Unrelated | Study associations from random data to correlate (mash together) into other ideas. |
Create an innovation from stimulating your mind with knowledge – and mashing research findings together to form a solution. Start with data, gather information, think about what you have discovered. Next, find correlations from what was learned about various subjects and combine these attributes into an idea (or multiple ideas) relevant to a solution to accomplish your mission.
Example of Research Stimulation Exercise
Assume you work for American Greetings Corporation who are reevaluating its tactics. You are about to work on the strategic mission below. The future of American Greetings depends on creating new gifts and occasion categories that deliver sustainable growth over the long-term.
The Mission: create a new category of ink-on-paper products (2–D or 3–D non-gift cards) that help solve customers’ problems and inspire wellbeing. We cannot simply redesign what we already have … or just do more of what we already do. More cards, more journals, and more stationery will not bring the overall growth required.
There are challenges that every person struggles with — such as finding successful ways to leave a family legacy with grandchildren, teaching kids about character or supporting others. Our mission is to show compassion and help others — and with that purpose there is the opportunity to solve some of the challenges many people have in living and sharing.
There must be something more to offer in 2-D or 3-D to make an impact on gross dollars. We have the opportunity to provide our retailers and consumers with something unexpected, something that surprises them … something that is meaningfully unique.
