Inside the box…

The expression think outside the box is the soundbite we all use to think creatively. It often scares the logical thinkers as the randomness of having no stucture or parameters and literally no box can be very intimidating.

There is an alternative “Inside the box” a book by Drew Boyd and Jacob Goldenberg, they give a framework for how you can do creativity with what you have. New ideas are normally a combination of old ideas and the key is to how sort what you have.

Boyd and Goldenberg give three techniques:-

Divide and rearrange is to look at the components you have and literally divide and rearrange. One of the best examples of this is lego, the bricks are the physical parts that once divided up or rearranged can create many different things. The same principle can be applied with a service, write all the stages of the process on post-its and then stand back and decide whether you can divide or rearrange any of the parts.

This is the journey of promoting and selling a workshop – lets divide and rearrange a few elements. No reason why the Blog cannot move to the end as key learnings for the delegates.

The second idea from the book is Subtract and replace, the best example of this is Apple with the iPod Touch. Initially they did away with buttons and replaced with a wheel. They also went to a further stage and took away the screen.

With the workshop journey, no-one enjoys a death by PowerPoint, how many slides can be replaced with discussion or exercises even though it is an online workshop.

The third idea of Inside the box is Multiply and revise. The example is back in 1971 Gillette introduced the razor with two blades, they did not just double the blades they made the angle different a revision that led to a smoother shave. With the journey of the workshop I need to double the times that I post the workshop to social media with a revision of how I promote it, what is the key angle.

Try and use the technique on a service or a product to see if you can look at it differently, it compliments process mapping technique perfectly.

Please do get in touch for further ideas and for a workshop on creativity or process mapping bev@nuggetsoflearning.co.uk