Wow In Music – The Downtown Lights

Darrell Mann

I’m writing this at 3am, soft rainfall and ambient lightning flashes outside suggesting, at last, a break in the unstoppable summer weather, and all I want to do is stroll down to the street corner in my local … Read More

Case Study: Frequent Callers

Darrell Mann

This is the story of NHS paramedic, Rhian Monteith. She was concerned about small numbers of Accident & Emergency ward patients who seemed to keep coming back to the hospital she worked in. So called ‘frequent callers’. … Read More

Best of The Month – If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One

Darrell Mann

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog article about different types of comedy. If I failed to take the humour out of the subject there, I’m now going to take a second crack at doing it here. … Read More

Generational Cycles – Who’s Way?

Darrell Mann

In 1969, Frank Sinatra released the song, ‘My Way’. Even though he was over twenty-five years into his career, it was to become the song that still today defines him. It also became the anthem (funerals, birthday parties, … Read More

Testing the impact of Systematic Innovation training in the NHS

John Sainsbury, Pauline Found, John Bicheno, Darrell Mann

Abstract

The study was inspired by the twofold challenge, posed by Birdi, Leach and Magadley (2012), to determine whether TRIZ training is as effective for managers faced with management problems, as it … Read More

Investments – Smart Bandage

Darrell Mann

Chronic skin wounds from burns, diabetes, and other medical conditions can overwhelm the regenerative capabilities of the skin and often lead to persistent infections and amputations. With the idea of providing an assist to the natural healing process, … Read More

Backward Trends?

Darrell Mann

Its always a happy day when we find an innovation that appears to go against the TRIZ Trends, because it allows us to challenge the models and – hopefully – help to make them more resilient in the … Read More

Not So Funny – Freudian Slippers

Darrell Mann

Freudian Slips. When you say one thing but mean your mother. So the old cliché goes. Freudian slips reveal contradictions. Or their resolution. Are they Inventive Principle 9, Prior Counter-action? Or Principle 10, Prior Action? Or maybe Principle … Read More

Investments – Battery-Free Smart Toys

Darrell Mann

It is often said that the majority of innovations start their lives in the war, sex or toy domains. This month’s investment candidate is looking like it will make the transition from great idea to important reality via … Read More

Best of the Month – Everybody Lies

Darrell Mann

Here’s one of those polarizing choices for our ‘Best Of’ feature. It’s pop-science, and, these days, that in itself is enough to alienate many potential readers. When book covers declare ‘New York Times Best Seller’, that’s usually a … Read More

‘Best’ Inventive Principles?

Darrell Mann

“Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in.” Shannon L. Alder

When the first Contradiction Matrix was created it was all done by hand. Today, it’s possible to use computers to … Read More

Case Study: Level Crossing

Darrell Mann

Humans can be pretty dumb sometimes. Everything the automotive industry does to make cars safer, we all compensate for by driving worse. There’s a similar phenomenon in the rail industry: the safer the level-crossing systems the rail industry … Read More

Biology – Arctic Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus parryii or Urocitellus parryii)

Darrell Mann

Every September arctic ground squirrels in Alaska, Canada and Siberia retreat into burrows more than a meter beneath the tundra, curl up in nests built from grass, lichen and caribou hair, and begin to hibernate. As their lungs … Read More

Wow In Music – Awaken

Darrell Mann

1977. Punk had arrived. Which meant if you were Prog, you had suddenly become a dinosaur. Literally overnight. Some prog bands never recovered. Archetypal prog band, Yes, instead took the bit between their teeth and produced one of … Read More

Generational Cycles – 12 Rules For (Millennial) Life

Darrell Mann

Could the plight of today’s 20-something white American male be cured with a self-help book? For tens of thousands, the answer appears to be a surprising yes.

The author, Jordan Peterson, is a clinical psychologist and college professor … Read More

Breaking Rule #1 – What If The Lawyers Didn’t Get Rich?

Related posts:

1. Welcome to the February 2009 Issue of The TRIZ Journal!
2. TRIZ in ASQ’s New Issue
3. Innovation in a Carbon Constrained World

Read More

Short Thort

Darrell Mann

We often use the mouse-in-maze metaphor to describe the innovation process. The basic idea is that we, first, need to know where the cheese is. This is the Ideal Final Result in TRIZ. Knowing where the destination is … Read More

Patent of the Month – Reducing Ice Crystal Formation

Darrell Mann

Our patent of the month this month is US9,986,733, granted to Bay Area start-up, X-Therma (x-therma.com, ‘biomimetic nanotech’) on the 5th of June. Here’s what the company has to say about the problem being solved in their invention:

… Read More

The 10th International Conference on Systematic Innovation (ICSI) & the 9th Global Competition on Systematic Innovation (GCSI)

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Date: July 08-11, 2019, Liverpool, UK Web: http://www.i-sim.org/icsi2019 E-mail: icsi2019@i-sim.org

Co-Organizers

• International Society of Innovation Methods (I-SIM)
• The Society of Systematic Innovation (SSI)
• The University of Liverpool Management School (Local Host)

… Read More

Case Studies: Magic?

Darrell Mann

Back in 1987, Michael Jackson amazed the world with his biomechanically impossible dance moves in his music video Smooth Criminal. In the routine, Michael leans from the ankle at a 45-degree angle, while keeping his body straight as … Read More