Ignite your ideas

Ignite your ideas

Creativity without action is mere fantasy. Allow me to introduce methods for conceiving and implementing ideas to identify and solve problems. It's no exaggeration to say that most of the new innovative technologies in the world have emerged through these methods. Knowing how to invent ideas can lead to a surge of creativity.

Ninety percent of the new products and technologies introduced in the world today are additive technologies. Inline skates are nothing more than shoes with wheels added to them. Even the smartphones that are sweeping the world lately are not entirely new but rather products that combine existing technologies and products.

Collaboration is more powerful than working alone. This is because no one person can know everything perfectly.

"There is no individual better than us."

No matter how outstanding an individual may be, they cannot overcome teamwork that is achieved through cooperation among many people. The way to maximize teamwork is to induce agreement through various opinions and to achieve what has been agreed upon collectively. While one horse can pull a weight of 2 tons, two horses can pull 12 tons.

1. 1. Observe contradictions.

First, through observation, you need to find efforts that customers tolerate unnecessary behavior and discomfort. The more habitual the behavior is for customers, the more valuable it will be. Tom Kelley once observed children continuing to grip their toothbrushes with their fists unlike adults. Taking inspiration from this behavior, they proposed a new toothbrush for Oral-B that was thick, soft, and had a squishy feel, which became a huge hit.

P&G developed a one-touch cap after seeing residue left after using toothpaste, but when people didn't adapt well, they redesigned it into a flip-top cap, which generated over $1 billion in sales for a single product over nine years.

Where is the best place to observe customers' behavior without misunderstanding? It's at home and at work. By observing the behavior of parents, spouses, and children all day long, you can identify behaviors that are unnecessary, uncomfortable, or unnecessary. The same goes for the workplace. However, be careful not to show too serious an obsession, as you may be misunderstood.

2. 2. Ask questions.

To solve a problem, you need to ask appropriate questions. You need a correct understanding of the problem. For example, to develop a cancer treatment, you can ask two questions. Conventional cancer drug development companies developed cancer drugs by asking, "How do we kill cancer cells?" As a result, they could not solve the side effects of cancer drugs that attack normal cells. However, a company called ImClone approached the development method by asking a different question, "How do we inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells?" As a result, they developed C225, which blocks the signal to abnormal cells that proliferate antibodies. This is to block the nutrient supply to tumor cells by blocking the VEGF receptor, which promotes tumor cell vascular proliferation, by identifying FLK1 receptors on the surface of blood vessels.

Suppose there is a door, and 1,000 people are trying to open it and enter. They all have one key each. How can you stop them? ImClone blocked the keyhole. ImClone solved the problem with such a simple question and idea.

When a problem arises, continually asking "why" can lead you to the essence of the problem. Usually, six questions are enough. For example, there are many car accidents in a certain area. To devise effective measures, you need to understand why accidents occur frequently. Installing traffic lights, speed cameras, or crosswalks are good measures, but they come with costs, so they may not be efficient or effective solutions.

Question: "Why are there many accidents?" Answer: "Many people jaywalk." Question: "Who mainly jaywalks?" Answer: "Students." Question: "Why do students jaywalk a lot?" Answer: "Because there is no snack bar at school, so they go to the convenience store across the street." Question: "There is a crosswalk nearby, why do they jaywalk?" Answer: "Because they have no time to spare during break time."

With this level of questioning, various cost-effective and effective alternatives can be devised than the alternatives mentioned earlier. The more questions, the closer you get to the essence of the problem. Don't get discouraged; asking will not make you a target.

3. 3. Freely imagine.

Collecting various opinions is important in the process, but what blocks it is fixed ideas. "Don't say you can't do it without trying." This was the personal philosophy of Jung Joo-young, the former chairman of Hyundai Group, warning us about how fixed ideas hinder our actions.

There is a story about a young elephant in India. To teach circus tricks, the trainer tied it to a chain. The young elephant made desperate efforts to escape but only hurt itself. Eventually, it gave up and resigned itself. As it grew, it became content with the small chain. It became a slave to the fixed idea from childhood despite its weight approaching seven tons.

If you look at the <Dictionary of Common Sense Errors> published by Walter Kramer, you will realize how long we have limited our lives in old fixed ideas.

Eskimos live only in igloos. Healthy people don't go to hospitals. Stars are all round. Blood comes out of steaks. Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. Einstein received the Nobel Prize for the theory of relativity. People die of dehydration in deserts. There is a lot of radiation around nuclear power plants. The Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum is original. Sunflowers only face the sun. Male animals are stronger than females. The speed of light is constant.

All of these statements are incorrect. Eskimos live in brick houses. The most important source of income for hospitals now is people who come for health check-ups. Stars are never only round. The red liquid that comes out of steak is just a type of protein, not blood. The tallest mountain in the world is Mount Kea, not Mount Everest, which is the highest above sea level. Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the photoelectric effect, and the death rate from floods is higher than that from dehydration in deserts. There is more radiation in outer space than around nuclear power plants, and the Mona Lisa in the Louvre is fake. Sunflowers stop following the sun when they mature, and it's said that females are stronger than males. The speed of light varies depending on the medium through which it travels.

You might have seen pictures of Google offices on the internet. They are like playgrounds. Many people say, "When do they work?" or "Will they really get any work done?" What I've heard is that Google's workload is never light, and they must thoroughly fulfill their responsibilities for the tasks they are assigned. However, Google has provided an environment where employees can think creatively. They didn't want their employees to eagerly await quitting time by letting them play and enjoy themselves at work. They know that creative thinking is accompanied by enjoyment, fun, and integration.

The era when ants could ignore grasshoppers is long gone. Now is the era when grasshoppers make money from ants. Just like grasshoppers, you need to devote yourself to what you love to make a living. In fact, the process of going to advanced countries has seen a shift in the industrial structure from manufacturing to service industries. In the case of the domestic digital content industry, it has shown an annual growth rate of over 10%

4. 4. Add or Subtract

Most creative products emerge by adding, subtracting, reversing, or changing shapes. Inline skates are shoes with added wheels, bidets are regular toilets with added S-shaped tubes, and cross-head screws are regular screws with an additional line. In Part 3, we included examples of "the magic of addition" with pictures.

Conversely, the silver phone, still beloved by the elderly, subtracted unnecessary functions. Sugar-free drinks subtracted sugar. Vacuum cleaners reversed the principle of fans. Sony's Walkman subtracted the empty space in bulky audio devices.

Through observation, questioning, adding, subtracting, and reversing, we bring creative thoughts into reality. The New York Times listed zippers and screws as the greatest inventions. They weren't cutting-edge technologies like semiconductors or satellites.

Korea was said to be born with the DNA of convergence. Representative foods like bibimbap and kimbap demonstrate our ancestors' penchant for fusion even in meals.

A German reportedly admired Korean kimbap, especially with the addition of pickled radish and spinach, along with bulgogi. He praised Korea's craftsmanship.

Scientifically, the genetic DNA of the Korean people has been elucidated. In the mid-1990s, a study at a Swiss university found that Hong Kong ranked first, followed by South Korea, Japan, and North Korea in the world's national IQ rankings. At that time, Hong Kong is now part of China, making South Korea the country with the highest IQ. However, the conclusion of the paper was "there is no correlation between a country's prosperity and the IQ of its people." Still, being first feels good. Haha.

5. 5. Welcome Mistakes

P&G's Ivory soap started from a researcher's mistake. He put soap into a mixer, and the resulting soap, full of bubbles, was so light that it floated on water. Inspired by the soap floating on water, another researcher coined the phrase "Ivory, so pure it floats" and created it.

After hearing this episode, I imagined what the atmosphere would have been like at the company where I worked over 20 years ago. First, I would have received a lot of scolding from seniors for not cleaning up the lab. And if caught by the laboratory director at the time, I might have had the lucky experience of experiencing hell for free.

A Swiss mountaineer invented Velcro after observing burdock burrs sticking all over his body during a climb and discovering through microscopic observation that they were hook-shaped. DuPont developed Kevlar to replace steel wires in car tires but failed. Instead, the fiber is currently used in aviation, bulletproof vests, helmets, boats, ropes, etc. Teflon, used in frying pans and climbing gear, was also developed by a DuPont researcher's mistake. DuPont, which developed Freon gas used in refrigerators, earned a lot of money, and DuPont also tried to develop similar refrigerant gases. One day, they failed again. Researchers happened to cut open the reactor to see inside and discovered a coated surface with water droplets rolling around.

SoftBank's CEO, Masayoshi Son, is famous for pouring all his passion into new businesses. Even he had many failures. What's surprising is that when a business he persistently poured his passion into for months failed, he would completely forget about it. He knew that failure is a process toward success.

Many of the world's greatest inventions came from failures, often from trivial incidents. So, there seems to be a saying, "There are no small things when you know them."

Observe the discomfort of customers, the contradictions in behavior. Then, find ideas that can resolve the essence of those contradictions through free thinking and questioning. And the solution lies within the magic of addition. The more mistakes there are, the more explosively powerful that magic becomes.