Patent of the Month – Negative Refractive Index Meta-Materials

Darrell Mann

Patent of the month this month takes into another foray into the realm of so-called ‘negative materials’. Or, as seems to be becoming more popular, ‘left-handed materials’. Which has a certain ring to it, if you happen to … Read More

Best of The Month – Radical Help

Darrell Mann

I had the very good fortune this month to hear this month’s Best Of The Month author speak at a Summit held by the Welsh Government for 250 of its leaders. One of the themes of the day … Read More

Innovation Capability Maturity & Complexity

Darrell Mann

To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, ‘all happy enterprises are alike; each unhappy one is unhappy in its own way’. About six months ago now (time flies!) we assembled our first version of the Complexity Landscape Model (CLM) (Reference 1). … Read More

Contributions to the further development of TRIZ

Dietmar Zobel, Wittenberg

Preliminary remarks by the publisher

In developing TRIZ as an inventive methodology, G.S. Altshuller made the explicit claim to develop „Creativity as an exact science“ (the title of one of his books). The scientific core of the … Read More

Not So Funny – 40 Inventive Nature Principles

Darrell Mann

1. Segmentation 2. Taking Out 3. Local Quality 4. Asymmetry 5. Merging 6. Universality 7. ‘Nested Doll’ 8. Counterweight 9. Prior Counter-Action 10. Prior Action 11. Prior Cushioning 12. Remove Tension 13. ‘The Other Way Round’ 14. Spheroidality/Rotation … Read More

The Operationally Excellent Sinking Of The Titanic

Darrell Mann

One of the most enduring workshop features in the TRIZ community is the ‘save the Titanic’ exercise first conceived by Ellen Domb. Nominally it is about resources, and as such often gets used alongside the 9-Windows tool. In … Read More

Biology – Owl Neck

Darrell Mann

It is one way of seeing the world from a different point of view. This short-eared owl made sure to turn heads, by swivelling its face completely upside down. The bird was captured by wildlife photographer Alain Balthazard … Read More

Short Thort – Tightrope

Darrell Mann

Innovation Tightrope #155: managers want to challenge solutions, but don’t want their questions challenged; engineers want to challenge questions, but don’t want their solutions challenged…

…innovators have no (ABC-M) ego.

Related posts:

1. Testing … Read More

Investments – Electrocatalysis Reactor

Darrell Mann

CO2 could be repurposed in an efficient and environmentally friendly way with an electrolyzer that uses renewable electricity to produce pure liquid fuels. The catalytic reactor developed by the Rice University lab of chemical and biomolecular engineer Haotian … Read More

Generational Cycles – Teen-Movie Re-Makes

Darrell Mann

Many would say that there are only three different films. Some would say seven. Either way, that’s never stopped film companies from making thousands of the damn things. Occasionally, they run out of ideas so badly, they decide … Read More

Wow In Music – Just The Way You Are

Darrell Mann

One of the funniest things I ever saw on television happened about twenty years ago when a very hip and trendy TV music programme invited Paul McCartney onto the show for an interview. It was a big coup, … Read More

Who Do They Think You Are? (Measuring Mental Gears)

Darrell Mann

Take a look at the following list of words:

Now imagine someone who knows you really well looking at the same words. Which is the word or phrase they would choose to best describe how they see … Read More

Best of The Month – The Hidden Order Of Art

Darrell Mann

Such has been our desperation to find something – anything! – to recommend this month, we’ve found ourselves digging a long way back into business literature history. We ended up going back over fifty years to 1967. But … Read More

Patent of the Month – Bioelectrochemical Bioremediation

Darrell Mann

Some months are better than others. Some weeks are better than others. The first week of September saw a swarm of below-average patents. The second week, on the other hand gave us several candidates for this Patent of … Read More

Not So Funny – I Fought The Law…

Darrell Mann

As we all know, innovation starts with breaking rules. The Laws of Physics, for example, make for very good rule-breaking innovation opportunity-finding targets. Except out-thinking people like Einstein can sometimes be hard work. For easier to find dumber … Read More

The ABC(-M) Of Workshop Design

Darrell Mann

Most times people tell us they ‘get’ something, it means they don’t. I hear the word all the time with S-Curves. Everyone, it seems, these days ‘gets’ the theory, but the moment they’re put in a situation … Read More

Short Thort

Darrell Mann

If the problem is Complicated, the Five Pillars of (technical) TRIZ are sufficient. The moment the problem becomes complex, two additional Pillars need to be brought to bear if the problem is to be solved effectively:

… Read More

Biology – Fogstand Beetle

Darrell Mann

Stenocara gracilipes, also known as the fogstand beetle, is a species of beetle that is native to the Namib Desert of southern Africa. This is one of the most arid areas of the world, receiving only 14mm of … Read More

Investments – Negative CTE Materials

Darrell Mann

Scientists have created materials that shrink uniformly in all directions when heated under normal everyday conditions, using a cheap and industrially scalable process. This potentially opens up a new paradigm of thermal-expansion control that will make electronic devices … Read More

Generational Cycles – Jordan Peterson – Hero To Heroes

Darrell Mann

In a polarized world, there aren’t many more polarizing figures at the moment than Jordan Peterson, the man responsible for the publishing phenomena that is, ‘Twelve Rules For Life’. Peterson was born in Canada in June 1962. Which … Read More