Innovation in Practice Blog
Innovation Through Task Unification
The famous inventor, Thomas Edison, lived in a beautiful home. But something was unusual about the gate that led into his house. His visitors had to push the gate very hard to open it, and then again very hard to close it. It seemed odd that such a successful inventor like Thomas Edison wouldn’t fix his gate. Rumor has it that Thomas had attached a pump to his gate so that every time someone opened or closed it, they were pumping fresh water into the plumbing system of the house.
This is a great example of the innovation technique called Task Unification. Task Unification is defined as the assignment of additional tasks to an existing resource. That resource can be a component of a product or service. Or it can be something in the immediate vicinity of the product or service.
Mastering the SIT Innovation Method
One way to develop your expertise in the SIT techniques is with pattern spotting. A key premise of SIT is that for thousands of years, innovators have used patterns in their inventions, usually without even realizing it. Those patterns are now embedded into the products and services you see around you, almost like the DNA of a product. You want to develop your ability to see these patterns as a way to improve your use of them.
Creating New Opportunities in the Digital Space
The SIT method is great for creating exciting new products and services. But you can also apply these techniques to digital assets.
For example, let’s apply the Attribute Dependency technique to a website. You start by listing the internal and external attributes of the site. You list the attributes, and you create a two dimensional matrix that pairs internal attributes to other internal and external attributes.
Graduates, Start Your Innovation Engines: 5 Tips to Being Creative in Any Job
A college diploma is one key to starting your career engine, but learning to be more creative could help turbo-charge it. Just like college coursework, creativity can be learned—you don’t have to be born with these skills. Focusing on them is definitely worthwhile: companies value creativity because it spurs growth and competitiveness. As a recent graduate, you can stand out from the crowd by coming up with great ideas no matter what position you start in.
Having the skill to innovate and be creative on command can make you more attractive to a company and help you land a dream job. To do so, keep these five tips in mind on how you can solve problems and be creative in any job, at any level!
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