Trigger Words,

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Trigger Words, More

• Jerry Banks
• Creativity and Innovation

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Trigger Words
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Selecting a trigger word

• Pick a random number between 1 and 400

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Try? There is no try. There is only do or not to
do.

• Yoda, from The Empire Strikes Back

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Free Association
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Free Association

• Say whatever comes into your mind given a word
• Useful as an individual or group exercise
• Put thoughts down that will trigger additional
  thoughts
• Looking for thoughts that will lead to solutions
  rather than solutions themselves

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Campbell Soup Company

• Randomly selected word handle
• Through free association, the word utensil was
  suggested
• This led to fork
• One participant joked about soup that could be
  eaten with a fork
• The group reasoned that you couldnt eat soup
  with a fork unless it was thick with meat and
  vegetables.
• Campbells Chunky Soup resulted

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The creation of 1000 forests is in one acorn.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Morphological Analysis
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Morphological Analysis

• Choose parameters of importance
• Choose alternates for each parameter
• Make an exhaustive list of all possibilities
• Examine each in turn
• Some meaningless
• Some already exist
• Some eliminated for other reasons
• Some may merit serious consideration

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Morphological Analysis

• Two parameters form a plane
• Three parameters form a cube

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Morphological Analysis

• New fire fighting approach
• Means by which to deliver fire-fighting substance
• Sprinkler system
• Via HVAC vents
• Aerial assault
• Hand held

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Morphological Analysis

• New fire fighting approach
• Substance with which to fight fire
• Dirt
• Wet foam
• Water
• Dry chemicals

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Morphological Analysis

• New fire fighting approach
• Methods to warn residents of the presence of fire
• Flashing lights
• Noise alarm
• Vibration
• Smell

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Freeze dried berries heat up cereal duel, WSJ,
5/15/03

• Strong sales of fruit-added cold cereals have
  touched off the fiercest battle in the cereal
  aisle in years
• Kellogg
• Added freeze-dried red berries to Special K
• General Mills
• Added freeze-dried berries to Cheerios

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Freeze dried berries heat up cereal duel, WSJ,
5/15/03

• Sales of Special K Red Berries have been so
  strong that Kellogg initially asked retailers not
  to promote it because the company couldnt
  produce enough to meet demand

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Freeze dried berries heat up cereal duel, WSJ,
5/15/03

• Kellogg has come up with even more fruit cereals
• Fruit Harvest
• Berry version
• Apple version

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Freeze dried berries heat up cereal duel, WSJ,
5/15/03

• Kraft Foods has jumped in
• Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Strawberries

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Freeze dried berries heat up cereal duel, WSJ,
5/15/03

• Berry products are appealing to health-conscious
  teens and adults who have outgrown sugared
  cereals but want more taste than a bowl of bran
  can offer
• 110 calories in a cup of Special K Red Berries
  (without the milk)
• Fat free

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Morphological Analysis Exercise

• Use morphological analysis to invent some new
  cereal combinations
• Possible parameters are
• Grain
• Fruit
• Seeds Nuts
• Other

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Morphological Analysis Exercise

• Some possibilities for Other include (but NOT
  limited to)
• Chocolate sprinkles
• MMs
• Marshmallows
• Cocoa powdered
• Brown sugared
• Present your top suggestion

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Faced with declining sales, milk makers broaden
palette of flavors, colors

• ACJ, 8/27/02
• Eager to win back tweens and teens who have
  abandoned milk for soft drinks, the dairy
  industry has rolled out nearly 300 new products
  in the past three years

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Faced with declining sales, milk makers broaden
palette of flavors, colors

• Whole milk ?
• Orange Crème Reduced Fat
• Hersheys Milkshake Cookies n Cream
• Mayfield Chocolate Low-Fat
• Hersheys Fat-Free Chocolate Milk
• Nestle Nesquik Strawberry Milk
• Nestle Nesquik Reduced Fat Banana Milk
• 2 reduced fat milk
• Skim milk

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Exercise

• Using morphological analysis invent new milk
  products
• Consider
• Calcium
• Fat
• Flavoring
• Added ingredient
• Packaging

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Bug List
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Bug List

• Pet peeves that we would like to eliminate
• I was on an airport shuttle going to our sales
  meeting, and I was talking to our international
  sales manager. He had just burned his hand while
  changing his oil, and it got all over his
  driveway.

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Bug List

• Pet peeves that we would like to eliminate
• Jim Brown, director of New Product Development,
  Honeywell
• I was on an airport shuttle going to our sales
  meeting, and I was talking to our international
  sales manager. He had just burned his hand while
  changing his oil, and it got all over his
  driveway.

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Bug list

• Flash!
• Brown saw a way to sell to consumers the
  valve-and-hose oil drain systems that had been
  available until then only to owners of heavy-duty
  trucks.
• We took that stuff and downsized it.
• As reported in BW, The Art of Brainstorming,
  8/26/02

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Bug List

• Shouldnt be too complex
• Eliminating cancer
• In 10 minutes quite a list could be generated
• Too many visits to the dentist
• Need the Task Manager too often
• House needs painting too often
• Condensation on car windows
• Etc.

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What bugs you?

• Off limits
• Anything to do with traffic and drivers

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Wishful thinking technique
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Wishful thinking technique

• Make a wish list in response to a question prompt
• Example
• If your dreams could come true, what do you wish
  that your (a) computer could do for you?

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Wishes include

• 1. Read my mind
• 2.
• 3.
• 4.
• 5.
• Etc.

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Thanks to IBM, we may soon say Computer, heal
thyself (WSJ, 11/6/02)

• Autonomic computing
• Making computers that can take care of themselves
• Computers would automatically diagnose their own
  problems, fix them, and figure out how to protect
  themselves from future viruses, software bugs,
  and hardware breakdowns

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Fine have it your way,Newsweek , 4/10/04

• In a 2000 survey by the National Restaurant
  Association, researchers detected a strange
  desire
• Americans said that they would like to be able to
  pick-up drive-thru food at sitdown chains like
  Ruby Tuesday and Outback Steakhouse

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Fine have it your way,Newsweek , 4/10/04

• Ask and you shall receive!
• New restaurant trend
• Curbside service in which restaurant workers take
  food to waiting customers in cars

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Fine have it your way,Newsweek , 4/10/04

• Also learned that customers dont like those
  tinny speakers at fast-food drive-ins
• Innovation Automated ordering
• Customers will punch in the orders on a touch
  screen

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Do you want good ideas?Do you want to spark more
good ideas in others?

• Relax
• Play music
• Break bread with a colleague
• Read a poem
• Open yourself to eccentricity
• Listen to someone elses story
• Laugh

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Do you want good ideas?Do you want to spark more
good ideas in others?

• Resist the tyranny of drones
• Drones-managers that always follow the rules
• Seek catharsis
• (i.e., relieve tension)
• Get vulnerable
• Do something risky
• Be a rebel with self-confidence
• The art of brainstorming BW, 8/26/02

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Microsoft ad (WSJ, 9/22/98)

• Wouldnt it be cool if your computer could
  _________ ?
• Well, if somebody can imagine it, chances are
  your computer will someday do it.
• Amazing things. Useful Things. Silly things.
• And of course, this says more about people than
  it does about computers.
• People are born to innovate, invent and create....

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End