Thinking Outside the Box

Thinking outside the box or what if is a way to bring fresh perspectives to a given issue, question, or problem. Even if the what if is not true today, it may be true tomorrow (Rasberry 1998). Consider the following six questions  

What if instrument manufacturers would adopt specific RMs Until now, there has been a general tendency for instrument manufacturers to avoid admitting the need for RMs. If instrument manufacturers could be convinced to make a serious appraisal of needs in the field, they might provide some resources to help meet those needs (Rasberry 1998). After all, the extra cost of providing suitable RMs, as a part of an annual service contract costing US 20 000 on an instmment that is worth US 2 million is quite insignificant. 

What if instruments could be designed which were remoteiy self-calibrating with respect to calibration services of a National Metrology Institute (NMI) While this may sound very far-fetched , it is not difficult to speculate that future application of telemetry, transducers, intrinsic standards, detectors and computers will link some instruments directly to a NMI to obviate their need for RMs (Rasberry 1998). 

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In my career I ve found that thinking outside the box works better if I know what s inside the box. ... 

A disadvantage is that a checklist may allow an investigation team to jump to conclusions, and does not provide the opportunity to think outside the box. This is especially important if the checklist is one of the less comprehensive types. It is also tempting to use the checklist too early, before all causal factors have been identified. Be sure to determine what happened and how it happened before determining why it happened. Otherwise, the team will think it has identified the right root causes, when in reality not all of the root causes have been determined. 

Introducing brainteasers involving practical applications Thinking outside the box Presenting ten tests of your true mettle... 

Iona Black, Yale University I agree that you cannot force people to get into diverse groups. So, at Yale, when we put them into discussion groups, we do not know who is who. Within those groups, I find that you have to let them know that it is okay to think outside the box. 

Finally, it is necessary to give them an outlet to express their views. Do you have any statistics or have you looked at that effect, of thinking outside the box, because that will keep them, I believe, within the discipline. 

Sylvia Hurtado I do not have the research, but I cited Taylor Cox, who has looked at small-group dynamics. Actually, some of Morgan s work talks about innovative organizations. All of them have talked about the importance of diverse perspectives and managing that. I would get a copy of Taylor Cox s book. He probably has several, but one book reviews all the research that has been done on thinking outside the box and how that relates to creativity in groups. 

The growth in the OTC industry will come not only from additional switches but also from a lot of "think outside the box" approaches. One thing for sure, the industry cannot keep marketing additional flavors to grow their business. The business model will have to change ... 

Scientists and governments alike have recognized the uniqueness and effectiveness of this conference. The National Science Foundation recognized the Malta Conferences as one of the ten best examples of thinking outside the box. United States Senator... 

In an attempt to think outside the box, the U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command (SBCCOM) attempted to discover possible alternative ambulatory decontamination facilities, which would be able to supplement standard shower decontamination in the event of a large scale mass casualty event. One such alternative would be to use an Olympic-sized, heated swimming pool. The SBCCOM calculated that such a swimming pool as a communal bath with soap (and the water already present) could decontaminate large numbers (well in excess of 100,000 people) of ambulatory casualties exposed to nonconvulsive doses of the nerve agent sarin (SBCCOM, January 2002). The dilution factor of the large quantity of water would keep it nontoxic for many tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of people. 

IT could help in such instances of unexplainable malaise by its power to analyze data on lifestyles and psychological and genetic differences and make recommendations, the same as for any more physical medical issue. Admittedly, to provide in the near future a more personalized service, an implementation of Marvin Minsky s caring agents, (Chapter 9) with a broader and more spiritual service than simply connecting to a wise human being will take some thinking outside the box. But what can be done soon is for mainstream... 

The term thinking outside the box means thinking (1) out of common bounds and (2) creatively and innovatively. To call upon creative new solutions to new problems is, however, more easily said than done. To the ancients, as to many philosophers today, the trick is to achieve radically new modes of thought. 

Our main goal is to help you learn to become a truly creative problem solver. Our world badly needs people who can "think outside the box." Our focus is to help you learn to think like a chemist. Why would you want to do that Chemists are great problem solvers. They use logic, trial and error, and intuition—along with lots of patience—to work through complex problems. Chemists make mistakes, as we all do in our lives. The important thing that a chemist does is to learn from the mistakes and to try again. This "can do" attitude is useful in all careers. 

Scientific trail blazers are routinely treated roughly.... Apparently contempt is viewed as a perfectly normal and appropriate response to anyone who thinks outside the box. 

In today s rapidly changing workplace, safety and loss prevention professionals cannot always go by the book for the answers to new and unique problems and issues. When there is no tried-and-true solution to a problem, safety and loss prevention professionals must think outside the box of conventional solutions and develop new and creative solutions. 

This example illustrates the benefit of thinking outside the box as defined by Industrial Chemicals and examining the root causes for order variation, i.e., the supply chain structure. But it also means moving to a bigger box, i.e., including more entities in the supply chain. The new perspective considers the link between demand variation and truck capacity driven by existing coordination agreements (backhaul discounts). The case shows the benefit... 

My engineering background has given me an ability to solve problems and think outside the box," he says. 

Creativity and originality of the candidate s work. People who think outside the box ate what you want when you build a research program."... 

H. Eisner, Managing Complex Systems Thinking Outside the Box, Wiley-Interscience, 2005... 

Further investigations and an optimization of the process conditions are under way. Hopefully, the results will interest many more potential users in this flexible, low-cost, and promising technology inviting both academia and industry to think outside the box and use it to its full advantage. 

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