Combinatorial Play

Shooo so thats a mouth full - combi-nato-real Play. Whats that all about. Well the term itself was coined by Einstein, to define the mixing (cross pollination) of concepts from different fields to determine if there are any new valuable insights that can be formed. Einsteins actual words were "the search for patterns that yielded new meaning".

Referring back to IDEO, one of their examples of combinatorial play, is the "materials box" that is available when ever a new product design team starts working. This is essentially a box into which interesting odds and ends are stored (like new material types, different kinds of packaging etc). The box serves as an idea impetus when conceptulising the new product.

Combinatorial play is the main factor behind most ground breaking discoveries like the theory of relativity, Darwins origin of the species, the discovery of the microwave oven, the creation of the first apple PC, the development of the Star Wars Movie and and and ....

In fact what most people dont realise, is that the human sub-consious mind is in a constant combinatorial play state pairing different concepts together. Some surface to the conscious mind, and is explored further while most are discarded into the dusty depths.

For the entrepreneur, combinatorial play is crucial to find a competitive edge, innovative solution or new nitche to exploit. I believe that play is the operative word in this regard. It is the act of playing (which is a creative state) with concepts either physically or mentally that leads to finding innovative solutions.

Dont forget how to play, as this is perhaps one on the most crucial tools towards maintiaining a creative state of mind. Buy play with diversity, continiously do something different to further allow the cross polination to occur. In fact the more diverse your explorations and interactions are, the better populated your own personal "materials box" becomes. Also, it broadens your view of the world, and further encourages subconscious combinatorial play.

The zen in all of this, is learning how to allow the subconscious to surface the seeds of its combinatorial play, hand over to your conscious play which can lead to innovative creations.

Making your ideas stick

One of the best ways to develop the robustness of ideas is through social interaction - share your idea, discuss them, put them under scrutinity to find its strengths and weakness.

But a cruical challenge is always- how to communicate your idea in a compelling way so that it sticks in the minds of the people you share it with, especially after you have left. One of the best methods I have come across on doing this comes from the book "Made to Stick" - Chip and Dan Heath. A simple numonic SUCCES is used to define the crucial characteristics that your idea should be packaged into:

• S - Simple - dumb down the concept or the idea, so that it can be explained to the normal person. Translate the complexitiy into every day anologies that the person can relate to .


• U - unconventional (surprise) - The message should present the concepts and ideas in an out of the box manner. Dont be bland, or boring when describing the solution that your idea addresses.


• C - Credible - The idea must be believable, and solve a real problem and be presented in an interesteing but sensible manner.


• C - Concrete - Dont be fuzzy about the idea or the concept. It is crucial that you have personally subjected your idea to stress tests, so that when you put is across its not half baked. It does not have to be fully formed, because the process of interaction will reform it.


• E - Emotive - Be passionate, and evoke emotion in the person that you are talking to about your idea. When crafting the message, evoke an emotional response to make the person you are sharing this with care about what you saying.


• S - Story - Storytelling a great medium to use to convey the idea. Make it a personal journey about how you arrived at the idea, perhaps even narrate your personal creative process.

A good example of the success of this, is using stories to convey business achievements, out of the box solutions, "in the field" quick fixes to address a client issue or meet a customer requirement. Research has shown that these stories become embedded in the informal operating practises of organisations.

Tapping into this source of innovation is however crucial to the evolution of the business, and successful agile organisations find ways to capture these knowledge pools and draw it formally into the organisation.

Creative Genius

"A problem is the foundation of a creative idea"

A creative genius is the individual that finds the most unique solution to a problem. But is a creative genius born, or are they made. In his book Borrowing Brilliance, Mr David K Murray, makes an intersting observation that perhaphs all of human kind are creative geniuses. I believe this is entirely possible.

Strokes of creative genius are arrive at by solving problems from unconventional sources. In most cases ideas are never new and unique on their own, they are conceptualised from bringing different spheres of understanding together. This is observing a problem in one area, and spotting a possible solution from different applications. I referred to this in the first post as cross polination between different industries.

The broader one looks for ideas, away from the original problem, the more likely one is to find a unique creative solution.

The heart of innovation is in mastering the search of creative ideas to problems.

Concept Maps

Mapping ideas and concepts is usually a very valuable way of assessing the strength and logical flow of aspects of a new innovation. I have used concepts maps and mindmapping extensively when developing strategies, designing process flow, and conceptaully laying out new organisation interactions.

CMapTools from IHMC is a brilliant tool to use for modelling in detail concepts and new innovations. It can be downloaded from www.Cmaptools.com

Taking a idea to the next level involves modelling it in some way. A mindmap is great way of capturing the brainstorming of an idea. Concept mapping is the next level of detail to model the utility of the idea to a target market.

What is Innovation

I regard innovation as more than just idea creation. There's always lots of ideas. The important part is bringing the ideas to fruition. Bringing the idea to Market - That is innovation.

"forward-thinking design and innovation comes from a combination of insight and inspiration, and that the greatest ideas mean very little if you can’t experience them firsthand." - IDEO

Small businesses more than ever need to innovate to stay on top of their game. Sometimes the innovation is not about a new patentable technology, but could be as simple as cross-pollinating an idea from a different industry, different field of science or study into the business.

So the key to this, is having an open mind, diverse interests, curiosity and creativity. Some of the most established businesses lose market share to small companies that innovative by bringing creativity and radical technology to an old market. This creates a new start to the "S-curve" business life-cycle, creating a new wave to carry the market forward.

It has been the innovation in technology that has caused disruption and rapid demise to businesses that stay only focused on incremental changes to their business model or products.

So how do you innovate in your business ....

This article "21 ways to Innovate" by Paul Sloan talks about 21 ways to do so. A summary and comments follows, but I suggest you check out the article itself.

1. Ask Customers
2. Observe Customers (The American company IDEO is an expert at this.)
3. Cross pollinate from other industry ideas
4. use difficulties and complaints (sometimes your most difficult customers point the areas where creativity is required)
5. Combine
6. Eliminate
7. Ask your staff (The one place you can count on to have the most ideas for innovation. Providing the space and opportunity to explore these ideas is the job of the innovation leader. An innovative capacity audit is a great tool to find hidden pools of innovation, spot opportunities for innovation development initiatives and measure the competitive positioning of the business from an innovation perspective)
8. Plan
9. Run brainstorms
10. Examine patents (interestingly, patents were originally designed as an open forum for peer review of ideas and concepts.)
11. Collaborate (idea generation, knowledge development, is a social activity. Collaboration is a wonderful social activity to accelerate knowledge development, facilitate cross pollination and develop professional relationships)
12. Minimize or maximize
13. Run a contest
14. Ask - What if
15. Watch your competition
16. Outsource
17. use open innovation
18. Adapt a product to an unintended use
19. Try TRIZ
20. Go back in time
21. Use social networks