Use the stepping stones of analogy

I invent nothing; I rediscover.

-Rodin

Put yourself into the shoes of an inventor. You have become dissatisfied with the solution to some existing problem or daily necessity. You are casting about in your mind for a new idea. Something occurs to you, possibly suggested by reading about other people’s attempts in the files of the patent office. You go home and sketch your invention, and then make a model of it.

There are other later stages, of course, but let us stop here. The point is that the model you have reached may well have been suggested by an analogy from nature. Indeed you could look upon nature as a storehouse of models waiting to be used by inventors. In the box below is a quiz, which you might like to attempt to answer now:

QUIZ
List specific inventions that were (or might have been) suggested to creative thinkers by the following natural phenomena:
1. human arms
2. cats
3. seagulls
4. a frozen salmon
5. spiders
6. earthworms
7. a flower
8. the eye of a fly
9. conical shells
10. animal bone structures
Can you add to that list? Take a piece of paper and see if
you can add at least five other inventions that have
sprung into the inventor’s mind by using an analogy as a
stepping stone.
In case you get stuck, here are some more natural
phenomena that could have suggested inventions to alert
creative thinkers. Can you identify what these inventions
might have been?
11. dew drops on leaves
12. human skulls
13. bamboo
14. human foot
15. human lungs
16. larynx

Remember that what the natural model suggests is usually a principle that nature has evolved or employed to solve a particular problem or necessity in a given situation. That principle can be extracted like venom from a snake and applied to solve a human problem. Radar, for example, came
from studying the uses of reflected sound waves from bats. The way a clam shell opens suggested the design for aircraft cargo doors. The built-in system weakness of the pea pod suggested a way of opening cigarette packages, a method now widely used in the packaging industry.

The same fundamental principle – that models for the solution to our problems probably already exist, we do not have to create them from nothing – can be applied to all creative thinking, not just to inventing new products. Take human organization for example. Most of the principles involved can be found in nature: hierarchy (baboons), division of labour (ants, bees), networks (spiders’ webs), and so on. If you are trying to create a new organization you will find plenty of ready-made models in human society, past or present. Remember, however, that these are only analogies. If you
copy directly you are heading for trouble. More of that later. Nor are we limited to nature for the kind of metaphors or analogies that trigger creative thinking. Soichiro Honda was an engineer who excelled in creative thinking and innovation. While he was building his first four-cylinder motorcycle he gradually realized that although the engine was fine his designers had made the machine look squat and ugly. He decided to take a week’s break in Kyoto. One day, sitting in an ancient temple, he found himself fascinated by the face of a statue of the Buddha. He felt that he could see a resemblance between the look of Buddha’s face and how he imagined the front of the motorbike would be. Having spent the rest of the week studying other statues of the Buddha in Kyoto he returned and worked with the designers on a harmonious style that reflected something of the beauty he had glimpsed.

KEYPOINTS

1 - Thinking by analogy, or analogizing, plays a key part in imaginative thinking. This is especially so when it comes to creative thinking.
2 - Nature suggests models and principles for the solutionsof problems.
3 - There are other models or analogies to be found in existing products and organizations. Why reinvent the principle of the wheel when it has already been discovered? Some simple research may save you the bother of thinking it out for yourself.
4 - Honda’s story illustrates a principle that we shall explore more fully in Chapter 4. He had a wide span of analogy – who else would have seen an analogy between a Buddha’s smile and the front of a motorcycle?

Everything has been thought of before, but the problem isto think of it again.

-Goethe