 Commentary by Ellen Domb Subscribe via Email or RSS |  Biography |
October 15, 2007
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Dean Kamen's New Arm |
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TRIZ Journal and Real Innovation Commentators talk a lot about the methods of innovation, but we don’t talk very often about the sense of mission and commitment that are frequently needed to keep an idea alive while all those methods are being used. Dean Kamen is well-known in the invention community – his Segway is an icon of "out of the box" creativity, his stair-climbing wheelchair was featured at one of the first Altshuller Institute meetings, and his use of his personal fortune to sponsor invention workshops and contests for schools has gotten extensive press coverage. Go ahead – watch the video. It takes 5 minutes, so I won’t make the commentary any longer. Think about what Kamen and his people did in 13 months. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/82 TRIZ lesson: did you spot the use of trimming? He mentioned it twice. |
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Comments [1] | Permalink |
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| Categories: Companies, Methodology, Strategy | |
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| posted by Lynda Curtin [ http://www.deBonoForBusiness.com ] | October 23, 2007 at 11:30 am |
Ellen, Thank you for sharing this great example. On a personal note...it was rewarding for me to see Dean Kamen make his presentation within the Lateral Thinking context. The icing on the cake was seeing Dr. Edward de Bono, at the end of the presentation stand to applaud. I spent a week in New New recently learning a new tool from Edward - Six Value Medals, which is a tool to rigorously scan for value when making decisions. Your point about the sense of mission and commitment is extremely important. Dean Kamen and Edward de Bono both demonstrate that very vividly for me. Kamen continues with his invention work and takes on what seems to be impossible. de Bono continues to work at creating helpful "thinking frameworks" in order to help people end up with well thought through decisions, innovations, etc. The clip also demonstrates how different tools - TRIZ and in this case Lateral Thinking have common elements and flexibility. |
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