Filed under: Charlotte, financial services, innovation trends, science and technology | Tags: analogies, analogy in innovation, bioscience, NC Research Institute, NCTA, Wall St.
flickr photo credits: serendigity and Matthieu :: giik
On Wednesday, I attended the NCTA Emerging Trends and Technologies Breakfast Series over at the NC Research Institute (where I also found out that NCTA is pronounced “en-see-ta” by those in the know.) Prime speakers, good info, and primo networking opportunities abound.
This particular event was about Biotechnology, but one thing stuck in my mind – Mike Luther, president of the Research Institute, mentioned how the bioscience community looks to Wall Street to find ideas (and not just for funding.) They wanted to know how to efficiently sort through massive amounts of data (think genome sequencing) to find meaningful patterns.
I am a huge advocate of using analogies in ideation, because there’s many an idea to be borrowed from one industry to solve a problem in another. To practice this, use a simple exercise: “How is a _____ like a ______?” to start thinking about how two seemingly different things might actually be similar. Finding analogies on a daily basis is surely an innovation muscle that’s worth strengthening.
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[...] podcast (it helped me survive the banking collapse last fall,) and they’re amazing at finding everyday analogies to present difficult economics material to non-economists. With health care in so much focus, [...]
Pingback by Dissecting the health care debate for the rest of us « It happens here: Consumer-centric Innovation in Charlotte and beyond August 25, 2009 @ 2:46 amGreat article on applying analogies from one industry to another. Do let me also point out that the exercise “How is a ____ NOT like a ____?” can in some cases even more effective in leading to break-through ideas than the similarity question though both are needed for ideation.
Comment by Frank Chen October 23, 2009 @ 12:12 am