This week I have the most innovative though process to share which has powered around 100+ breakthrough inventions of past century
Do you feel art and science are interconnected while learning about stars and their beautiful lights ? Have you ever find a correlation between history, and science while learning about how an invention like steam engine evolved over time.
Science in its true sense can't be categorized into separate streams, it simply doesn't makes sense to study about protein structure in chemistry and about how proteins helps our body in growth in biology. Everything is connected, and if you are good in physics there is a high chance you are good in math too. Interdisciplinary thinking is a way to help you expand your understanding of a subject.
All the subjects that we see are interconnected and teaching or reading them in silos assuming if you can get expert of science by being expert in one small domain without knowing how it affects the other domains of life and overall science is not viable for long term.
Things that we see around are connected but the world is designed to work on the principle of divide and conquer. We first broke things into silos to understand them like I told in my last post. This a not the best way to apply first principle thinking (FPT) by breaking a subject into small subjects and disconnecting them over time into smaller objects.
But if you can connect these silos for yourself, it can open the non existent door for you. It seems there is no limit to what you can create and think, once you master cross disciplinary thinking. You can be infinitely creative like Leonardo Da Vinci , Picasso Amanda and join the league of creative genius.
Creativity is connecting the unconnected to see things from a different perspective to bring novelty and uniqueness in ordinary things.
This is not limited to creativity, multi disciplinary approach has been at the core of many discoveries ranging from the pioneering invention of assembly line which paved the way forward for industrial revolution of 19th century to invention of travel trolley bag.
Assembly line invention was inspired from Henry ford observation of a butcher cutting location separating the work at hand according to different specialists of the specific works.
Cross pollination of ideas created the best of the ideas you can ever create. It helps in critical thinking rather than the traditional problem solving method of question -answer.
Here are some more examples of cross disciplinary innovation 👇
MRI scan gets combined with adventure
Doug Dietz, the Head designer, discovered the real problem of adopting MRI scan was the experience. That's when the GE Adventure Series was born.
2.Automobile gets combined with gaming
BMW's iDrive system was inspired by the video game industry. The iDrive system helps drivers use the relatively complex navigation in a playful way.
For more cross disciplinary innovation check this website
How to create ideas by connecting functionalities from different fields ?
This is what we will learn today
Step 1- You need to be open to ideas and different perspectives.
Step 2- Identify the problem in your industry by asking why five times
Step 3- Try to think if this problem is similar to some part of any other industry.
The invention of travel trolley by James Cole was inspired by careful observation of big carriage having it easy to carry forward the load and having wheels and connecting that with the small carry bags as small wheels attached with bags.
Step 4- Then connect ideas from different fields to gain a new insight or perspective.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them- Albert Einstein
Try to solve a big problem with fresh eyes by a shift in perspective.
Shake up your thinking and get past the natural inclination to stick with what you know—sidestep the cognitive biases. There are certainly other techniques which are not working in your own industry but can work to solve the much needed problem of another industry.
That’s it for today
See you next week
Till then
Stay hungry, stay curious
Sneha Prajapati