Familiarize
Monsters of the wild and creatures of
the sea adapt to the environment they live in as much as they physically can.
If they could not adapt or evolve,
they go extinct. If the climate is changing, they change the immigration path,
if it is too hot for them they try to move to a cooler place and vise versa.
Only humans had the creativity and
aggressiveness not to adapt to the environment but use the environment and make
it adapt to their needs.
Humans are able to cut through
mountains, fly into the clouds, dive into the deep of the ocean not because
they are the strongest or the most skilled, but because of their ability to
familiarize themselves with the most abstract and most challenging situations
their environment has to offer.
So how does one adapt? This technique
is used by magicians, stand-up comedians, painters and different artist of all
kinds.
Magicians are the masters of using
this technique; it is the only way they function. From weird character concepts
to magicians who cut people in half and artists who disappear in less than 30
seconds while they were chained in a pool cage filled with water.
Just to illustrate how early the
magician’s circles adapted the concept of familirisim, here is a story from
ancient times.
In ancient Egypt, there was a magician called
Dedi and the story goes as follows:
According
to the Westcar Papyrus, prince Djedefhor brings
up the story of Dedi.
He stands
before his father, king Khufu, and says: “There are only tales of miracles
which happened a long time ago, something known by past generations. Truth and
falsehood cannot be distinguished here.
But there is someone under thy majesty´s own
lifetime who is not known, someone who is able to make a ignoramus become
wise".
Khufu asks: “What's the meaning of this,
Djedefhor, my son?” Djedefhor answers: “There's a commoner named Dedi, living
in Djed-Sneferu.
He's a simple citizen, but 110 years old, eats
500 loaves of bread, a shoulder of beef and
drinks 100 jars of beer every day. He is capable of resurrecting decapitated beings.
He is also said to be able to make wild lions so
obedient that the animal would follow him with a cord dragging on the ground.
Furthermore, this Dedi has the knowledge of the number of I put in
the wenet-sanctuary of Thoth.”
The
pharaoh spent a good deal of time seeking for these chambers, planning to build
something similar to his horizon. And Khufu orders: “You thyself, Djedefhor, my
son, may bring him to me!”
Even in that very early start of
humanity the magician was painted in a more of a mythical figure. He does not
eat , drink or live in a normal manner and this lifestyle made him able to
perform bizarre and abnormal actions. In other words the magician was able to
familiarize himself with unfamiliar surroundings.
A great modern example of how we as a
species are able to familiarize ourselves with the environment with disregard
to how abstract the object in question is, would be the modern technical field
of IOT.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an
environment in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over
a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
IOT has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical
systems (MEMS) as well as the Internet. The concept may also be referred to as
the Internet of Everything.
It is the network
of physical objects or "things" embedded with electronics, software,
sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and
exchange data. The following examples are to elaborate on the implementation of
such a concept in real life and how we are again using our creativity to
familiarize our environment;
Smart
Cities
Smart Parking: Monitoring of parking spaces
availability in the city.
Structural
health: Monitoring of vibrations and material conditions in buildings, bridges
and historical monuments.
Smart
Roads: Intelligent Highways with warning messages and diversions according to
climate conditions and unexpected events like accidents or traffic jams.
Smart
Environment
Forest
Fire Detection: Monitoring of combustion gases and preemptive fire conditions
to define alert zones.
Snow
Level Monitoring: Snow level measurement to know in real time the quality of
ski tracks and allow security corps avalanche prevention.
Earthquake
Early Detection: Distributed control in specific places of tremors.
Smart Water
Smart Water
Potable
water monitoring: Monitor the quality of tap water in cities.
Chemical
leakage detection in rivers: Detect leakages and wastes of factories in rivers.
Pollution
levels in the sea: Control real time leakages and wastes in the sea.
This concept as shown above can be
used in a variety of fields by listing the field , the topic , the story , the
character or the industry on one side of the table and create a list of 10
unfamiliar tools, things , approach on the other side of the table. By
matching, eliminating or just brainstorming a process with the creative team.
Some Final thoughts
According
to Dr. Yuval Harari, there were three major revolutions in the history of
mankind; a cognitive revolution, an agriculture revolution and a scientific
revolution. It is of no coincidence that the three revolutions are made by the
capacity of the human brain to both innovate and create. Creativity is a unique
feature of our race.
For far too long the human mind was lost in the woods of ignorance until the mind have let the light of innovation guide us through this dark forest. Innovation skills and techniques are observed in all the aspects of our lives from business to parenting, from survival to discovery and in both creating and destructing.
For far too long the human mind was lost in the woods of ignorance until the mind have let the light of innovation guide us through this dark forest. Innovation skills and techniques are observed in all the aspects of our lives from business to parenting, from survival to discovery and in both creating and destructing.
This book
offers a crack to the code of innovation through experimenting some case
studies and examples. Yet creativity in itself is just a tool that should guide
to an ultimate goal. Just being different doesn’t mean it is useful, just being
innovative doesn’t grantee success. The tools that are offered in this book
should be used as youtility built that is making the process of reaching a
specific goal easier, faster and overall more efficient.
This small
E-book should be my personal guide to create another book under the same title
both longer in length and deeper into the code of innovation.
So if
you’re reading this and have any ideas, feedback or thoughts on what would you
like to read in the next edition of the book feel free to contact me and send
your thoughts.
twitter : @fouad_khafaga
twitter : @fouad_khafaga
