Computers can though, through ever-improving data science and processing speeds. It can’t explore an entire solution space. The human brain can only store five to nine items in short-term memory.
Software can help find the non-obvious possibilities. These creative exercises are invaluable, but they happen on a small-scale and rely on the recall of the human mind, unassisted. Why rely entirely on conference happy-hours or facilitated brainstorming to trip over a breakthrough? Some innovation management products take the approach of Design Thinking, or they facilitate Innovation Games, to pro-actively generate new ideas. An astronomer and a physician met at a cocktail party and discovered MRI software could be used to visualize nebulae. Gutenberg happened to visit a vineyard and see a wine press that inspired his printing press. The majority of these breakthroughs, however, were inspired serendipitously. These “discoveries” or “inventions” repurposed and combined existing solutions into something new, a phenomenon referred to as exaptation or the adjacent possible. Some of humanity’s most interesting and impactful innovations are based on ideas borrowed from another field. If new ideas are harder to find, we have to think in unconventional ways. And new ideas, in fact, appear to be harder to find.
The problem is complex because the answer isn’t known to anyone out there. Innovation management software can help collect and catalog ideas, and shepherd them forward.īut a dragnet of ideas from the field won’t solve a complex problem. The solutions are hidden or obscured, but they are known to some. When they happen to ask, the input dies in the daily hustle and bustle, without a process to nurture an infant idea. Employees and customers have first-hand experience and insights, about which no one ever asks. Most innovation management software shares a similar value proposition - capturing good ideas. So can innovation management software help? Reach Beyond the Known They require working in the realm of unknown unknowns. These complex challenges require research, creativity, and discovery. There is no “fix.” The same can be said of climate change, information security, or a complex disease, like PTSD. Public Health is a complex problem, if not a wicked one.
0 kommentar(er)
