365QOD- Day1209

Habits of The Mind - Conjecture

"What if it were different?"- Deborah Meier

In Day1208 post I talked about finding connections by looking for patterns.  This idea allows us to come up with new innovative ways to question and determine better answers.

But what if we paused and we did not see a pattern with which we are familiar? It is something completely new.  This is wonderful.  We will experience something with which we can expand our tools and knowledge.

But how do you solve it?  Well,  many posts ago I told a story of a boss who asked his team for a new idea that had been applied in other fields at least three times.  Initially it sounds like the boss wants to punish the team.  But the beauty of the lesson is that we should get out of our own small world and see what someone else is doing that we can copy instead of having to invent.

This search is the answer to our new dilemma.  We need to put on our researcher hat on and look for those examples.  Our solution might be a modified version of what has been successfully applied in other fields.  

A great example of this idea is genetic algorithms.  It uses ideas from genetics to solve a minimization or maximization problem dealing with search.  It uses genetics in an usual way outside of its normal field.  That makes the idea fresh and applied in a different field.

 Today's question us;

"Do you ever look for ideas outside your field of interest?"