Wow In Music – Take It With Me

Darrell Mann

First up, no-one – no-one – writes lyrics like Tom Waits. He has the rare knack of hitting a nerve. The song ‘Take It With Me’ from his 1999 album, Mule Variations represents something of a high-point … Read More

Depression Leverage Points

Darrell Mann

From Matt Haig’s book, ‘Reasons To Stay Alive’ (Reference 1):

We have a project looking at Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at the moment. The Director of the National Institute of Mental Health and the Department of Veterans … Read More

Best of The Month – Crisis & Renewal

Darrell Mann

As it becomes more and more difficult to find new business books to recommend to ezine readers, we’re forced to make more and more forays into the past to look for lost classics. That search, too, becomes less … Read More

Call for examples of Inventive Principles in Health and Social Care settings.

John Sainsbury

The use of Systematic Innovation is generating some attention in health and social care settings in the UK. Workshops are proving effective in analysing problems and providing strong innovative solutions. Problem exploration tools have enabled workshop participants to … Read More

Biology – Polysphincta Wasp

Darrell Mann

Wasps. Subject of four previous ezine features. Wasps break records. Evil records. We’ve had two different parasitic wasps (Issue 148 and Issue 184) and this month we hear about a zombie-making species.

Setting off a startling chain of … Read More

Patent of the Month – Fusion Power (Almost)

Darrell Mann

For the most part, the words ‘nuclear’ and ISIS don’t really belong in the same sentence these days. Fortunately, the ISIS in question here is ISIS Innovation Ltd, an offshoot of Oxford University. I’m assuming the company was … Read More

Not So Funny – Double Standards

Darrell Mann

We live in a strange world. Usually, these days, a world in which we’re all forced into personalized filter bubbles that makes us less and less able to empathise with people holding views different to our own. Irony … Read More

Boeing 737 Max

Darrell Mann

I worked fifteen years in the aerospace industry at the start of my career. Safety was everything, something that united the whole industry. When planes fall out of the sky it is not good news for anyone. Therefore, … Read More

Generational Cycles – A Star Is (Re-) Born

Darrell Mann

The Star Is Born story has become an iconic one: Fading star discovers and nurtures the next generation star, and then dies. It is a classic Hero’s Journey tale. One with, quite literally, a death of the ‘old’ … Read More

Short Thort

Darrell Mann

“It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way.” Oscar Wilde

Related posts:

1. TRIZ India Podcast- Murali interviews Darrell Mann

… Read More

Biology – Spittlebug

Darrell Mann

The froghoppers, or the superfamily Cercopoidea, are a group of hemipteran insects in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. Adults are capable of jumping many times their height and length, giving the group their common name. They are perhaps best known, … Read More

Investments – Prosthetic Voice

Darrell Mann

“In my head, I churn over every sentence ten times, delete a word, add an adjective, and learn my text by heart, paragraph by paragraph,” wrote Jean-Dominique Bauby in his memoir, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” In … Read More

Physical Contradictions: Solving Or Managing?

Darrell Mann

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Albert Einstein

For me, the physical contradiction part of TRIZ/SI still remains the weakest part of the toolkit. Something has been niggling … Read More

Wow In Music – No Me, No You, No More

Darrell Mann

I was reading the inspiring book, ‘Your Song Changed My Life’, by Bob Boilen a few weeks ago. In the book, Boilen interviews a number of my favourite artists asking them, per the book’s title, which music changed … Read More

Patent of the Month – Strengthening Member

Darrell Mann

We head to the Motor City for our patent of the month this month, to a trio of inventors at Ford. Their strengthening-member patent, US10,279, 842, was granted on 7 May. Here’s what the trio has to say … Read More

Best of The Month – Zucked

Darrell Mann

“Move Fast, Break Things”. The Facebook corporate motto. An, as it turns out, iconic example of reaping what you sow. A strategy that Roger McNamee amply demonstrates, not only allowed the most rapid rise of any corporate entity … Read More

The Innovation ‘Golden Triangle’

Darrell Mann

98% of all innovation attempts end in failure. 98% of all TRIZ-originated innovation attempts end in failure. 98% of all Design-Thinking-originated innovation attempts end in failure. The same 98% figure applies to almost every problem-solving tool, method or … Read More

The Coffee Panacea

Darrell Mann

Upon learning this month that caffeine makes perovskite photovoltaics more stable, thus enhancing their commercial potential in the next generation of solar-cells https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/solar/java-takes-the-jitters-out-of-solar-cells, it made us wonder what other miracles coffee was capable of achieving. Turns out quite … Read More

Patent of the Month – Nerve Stimulation Method

Darrell Mann

Our patent of the month this month takes us to the New Jersey-based enterprise, Electrocore LLC. US10,252,074 was granted to a trio of inventors at the company on 10 April. The company has been around and offering non-invasive … Read More

Short Thort

Darrell Mann

“In the received wisdom, which assumes that the problem is resistance, it follows that what is needed to overcome the resistance is leadership. So when the project fails, this is seen as resulting … Read More