"The Harvard Business Review blog has an invited piece about Innovation Software. Tony McCaffrey at the University of Massachusetts Amherst talks about several pieces of software designed to help engineers augment their innovation process and make them more creative, including one his group has developed called Analogy Finder. The software searches patent databases using natural language processing technology to find analogous solutions in other domains. According to Dr. McCaffrey 'nearly 90% of new solutions are really just adaptations from solutions that already exist — and they're often taken from fields outside the problem solver's expertise.'"
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I'm surprised that the article doesn't mention TRIZ and ASIT, which are methodologies for innovation.
TRIZ was invented by Genrich Altshuller in 1946, and has been used by russian engineers to counter the american domination on technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ [wikipedia.org]
The history behind TRIZ is interesting, since Genrich Altshuller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrich_Altshuller [wikipedia.org] was working as a clerk in a patent office (like Einstein), and he noticed that the patents were using some patterns.
He started to categorize all patents to enumerate the used patterns, and he found 39 characteristics with 40 generic solutions.
The idea is that you want to solve a contradiction between 2 characteristics, the contradiction is called a "conflict".
A contradiction matrix of 39*40 cells has been built: http://www.triz40.com/ [triz40.com]
Recently, the TRIZ group succeeded to verify that the matrix was able to map more than 3,000,000 patents.
He started to categorize all patents to enumerate the used patterns, and he found 39 characteristics with 40 generic solutions.
The idea is that you want to solve a contradiction between 2 characteristics, the contradiction is called a "conflict".
A contradiction matrix of 39*40 cells has been built: http://www.triz40.com/ [triz40.com]
Recently, the TRIZ group succeeded to verify that the matrix was able to map more than 3,000,000 patents.
TRIZ was kept as a secret before the Soviet Union exploded, then the russian engineers went to a lot of different countries.
In Israel, the TRIZ group started to simplify the methodology in a smaller set, called SIT.
Very recently, Roni Horowitz simplified SIT into ASIT, which is a set of 6 rules able to map innovation.
In Israel, the TRIZ group started to simplify the methodology in a smaller set, called SIT.
Very recently, Roni Horowitz simplified SIT into ASIT, which is a set of 6 rules able to map innovation.
TRIZ explains that there are 5 levels of invention:
http://www.trizexperts.net/5levels.htm [trizexperts.net]
and it's dedicated to the 4 first levels.
TRIZ is also more adapted to engineers that need a framework to solve problems, but it's not really creative in my opinion.
http://www.trizexperts.net/5levels.htm [trizexperts.net]
and it's dedicated to the 4 first levels.
TRIZ is also more adapted to engineers that need a framework to solve problems, but it's not really creative in my opinion.
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