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Creativity Hack: One-Hop Associations

Finding ways to connect two unrelated concepts liest at the root of many innovations. Combining unrelated objects or concepts is one hack to finding novel ideas. However, combining completely random ideas has one drawback – it often leads to incongruous ideas that don’t always resonate with people. The One-hop association method is a way to connect unrelated (but not completely random) concepts and leads to ideas that are perceived as surprising in a good way.  

About The Hack

For this hack, you start by building an association map of an object. Suppose your task is to make a new and interesting ruler. You first start with the ruler in the center and choose a few ways that a ruler might be connected to other objects. Attributes like “used with”, “material” and “similar to” tend to be easier to work with for younger children. Then, you list different values for each of those attributes like a ruler is used with paper and pen. This gives the first order of concepts that are directly associated with the ruler. Next you extend the association map by one more level and list second order concepts that are associated with the first order ones. Finally, you try to connect back the second order concepts with the original object and see if that leads you to any interesting ideas. 

As an example, a ruler is used with paper which is used with scissors. Trying to connect a ruler with scissors might give you an idea to make a ruler with a sharpened edge that can also help cut paper. The reason this hack works well is due to the incongruity theory. When people notice an incongruity, they can either find it amusing or be disappointed. When people can tie the incongruity back to the product, the product feels more fun, interesting or amusing, but when people can’t find an underlying connection, the idea appears confusing. 

Summary

Finally, here is a quick summary of the creativity hack and how to use it in product design or with students.

DescriptionTo find a creative idea for product improvement, try to build an association map and combine concepts that are one hop away. 
ExampleIn designing a new kind of ruler, start by listing concepts that are connected with a ruler using attributes like “material”, “used with” or “similar to”. Then repeat this exercise one more time to find the next level of concepts. Finally try to combine second order concepts with a ruler to   
Tips Instead of combining objects directly, use attributes of the second order object to combine which can lead to novel ideas  
ExtensionsTo extend the association map, use more types of attributes like “similar to”, “environment”, “sounds” and more. The more extensive the map, the more opportunities to find new ideas. 
Creativity Hack: One-Hop Associations

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Creativity Hack: Combining Unrelated Ideas

One of the most potent ways to find creative ideas is to take two completely unrelated concepts and try to combine them. This ability to associate unrelated ideas is a natural process for our brains but we often underuse this capability in finding novel ideas.  

About The Hack

Associative thinking, the ability to combine unrelated ideas, underlies a lot of innovation we see in the real world. Google search, one of the most well known inventions, is the product of associative thinking. When Sergei Brin and Larry Page were students working on improving search, they hit upon an interesting insight. The problem that they were trying to solve is to point users to high quality web pages that contain information users would find useful But how do you determine which websites are good and which ones are not? Their “aha” moment came when they realized that academic journals have a mechanism to identify high quality papers — the number of times a paper is cited by others. Applying the same concept to web pages, they realized that the more a web page is linked to by others the more authoritative it must be. They used that idea to create their first algorithm to rank web pages and Google was born! 

To use associative thinking in product design, find random objects or concepts and try to connect it to your central problem. For example, suppose you are tasked with making a new kind of mug. You then think of different objects or attributes, not typically associated with a mug, and see if there are ways to combine it. Suppose you picked a ball to combine with a mug. The simplest way to combine would be a ball-shaped mug. But, you could go further and use an attribute of the ball in a more meaningful way. Let’s say you pick “inflatable” as an aspect to incorporate. That leads you to creating an inflatable mug that is easy to pack on trips and provides good thermal insulation thanks to the layer of air in between. 

Summary

Finally, here is a quick summary of the creativity hack and how to use it in product design or with students.

DescriptionTo find a creative idea for product improvement, try to combine a random object or attribute with the product. 
ExampleIn designing a new kind of mug, you combine it with a ball. One attribute of the ball is “inflatable” which leads to the idea of an inflatable mug. The mug is useful because it packs more easily for hiking trips and also provides better thermal insulation due to the layer of air in between.  
Tips Instead of combining objects directly, use an attribute of the random object to combine. That often leads to more interesting and novel ideas  
ExtensionsTo build associative thinking in students, ask them to incorporate other famous characters (fictional or otherwise) into their stories, or do a project that combines their hobbies with a subject they are learning (e.g. music and math)
Creativity Hack: Combining Unrelated Ideas
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Creativity Hack: Designing Through Metaphors

Metaphors by themselves are creative acts — they bring together two unrelated concepts and provide a fresh way of looking at something familiar. Consider the overused and cliched metaphor about creativity, “thinking outside the box”, which implies stepping back and approaching the problem from a different direction. The origin of the metaphor is believed to come from the nine-dots puzzle, where you have to connect a 3×3 grid of dots using four lines or less without lifting the pen. The only way to solve the puzzle, that most people miss, is to connect the lines outside of the imaginary “box” created by the dots. Once you understand the principle behind the puzzle, the meaning of “thinking outside the box” becomes much more clear. 

About The Hack 

Metaphorical thinking can be extended to help trigger creative ideas in product design. The type of ideas that this process generates might come across as more surprising and fun, compared to the typical incremental innovation ideas, and therefore this hack makes for a useful addition to the initial ideation phase. 

As a real world example, suppose you are trying to come up with new feature ideas for your document collaboration tool (e.g. Google Docs). To trigger creative ideas your goal is to try and combine “collaboration” with different natural or artificially created phenomena. Let’s say you pick your phenomenon to be “shadows.” You then explore characteristics of the phenomena that might apply to collaboration. One aspect of shadows is that they hide or make something less visible than the parts that are well lit. Applying this to your product, an idea could be to use AI to selectively add shadows to parts of the document that are more solidly fleshed out. This simple mechanism can nudge collaborators or reviewers to focus on parts of the document that need more work or clarity, thereby improving overall group productivity. 

You can iterate through the process to generate more ideas. For example, another phenomenon could be “name carved on a tree”. What does this phenomenon imply? Why do people carve their names (e.g. “Josh was here”) on trees? It could be that people want to memorialize their presence or perhaps a way to mark their achievement after a long hike. Applying that to our example of collaboration, one idea could be to use AI to determine the order of authorship on a document based on how much different collaborators have contributed to the document. Many times the order of authors is predetermined before the work is actually done and doesn’t get updated based on actual outcome. This feature could make the process more fair for everyone.  

The idea behind this hack is to explore different metaphors because not all of them will yield immediate insights. However, once you get an opening it might help trigger more ideas in that direction.  

Summary

Finally, here is a quick summary of the creativity hack and how to use it.

DescriptionApply metaphorical thinking to come up with new product design ideas. Come up with a few natural or artificial phenomena (like shadows, fresh tracks on snow etc.), identify characteristics of the phenomena and apply that to the product under consideration.
ExampleApplying “shadows” to a document collaboration tool could suggest an idea where parts of the document are shadowed to indicate that those sections are complete and nudge collaborators to focus on other sections. 
Tips Not all phenomena will lead to fresh insights, so if no ideas get triggered in a few minutes then pick a different one.  
ExtensionsOnce you get a new direction through metaphors, you can reframe the problem and come up with more ideas. Using the previous example, you could reframe the problem as “how can we guide collaborators to the section that will improve efficiency?” Reframing then leads to a different set of ideas, for example guiding someone to a particular section because someone else is already working on another. 
Creativity Hack: Designing Through Metaphors
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Creativity Hack: Reframe A Challenge

Reframing a problem is an effective way to come up with new ways to solve the problem. However, many times people end up rewording the problem instead of reframing it in a broader context. At a cognitive level, reframing is related to abstract thinking which underlies creative and complex problem solving. Abstract thinking allows one to get to the essence of a problem. 

About The Hack 

To reframe, find the higher level of abstraction of a problem or an activity. A higher order abstraction typically fits the pattern “[description] by [activity]” while a lower level of abstraction fits the pattern “[activity] by [description]”. For instance, if the activity is ‘reading a book’, a high-level description could be ‘relaxing’ (“I [relax] by [reading a book]”) while a low-level description could be ‘flipping pages’ (“I [read a book] by [flipping pages]”).

As a real word example, what if your challenge was to improve the coffee experience? Without trying to reframe the problem one might be tempted to focus on the quality of the coffee beans or new blends that might appeal better to customers. And in fact, this was the direction Starbucks was taking till Howard Schultz, who later became the CEO, went to Milan on a buying trip for the company. 

In Milan, Schultz got deeply inspired by the vibrant coffee culture. Espresso bars with trained baristas making cappuccino and other drinks from high quality arabica beans were everywhere. People met at these local espresso bars to connect with their friends or to discuss various issues. The social experience and the sense of community was so entwined with coffee as a drink. Schultz’s determination to bring that vibe and culture to the US led to the explosive growth of Starbucks. While Schlutz didn’t deliberately use reframing, the fortuitous trip became a catalyst for him to take the broader view and realize that people “socialize by drinking coffee”.  

While a higher level of abstraction can open up new avenues of thinking and more transformational ideas, lower levels of abstraction are also useful. They can help identify incremental improvements that might also be useful to implement.

Summary

Finally, here is a quick summary of the creativity hack and how to use it.

DescriptionReframing challenges can open up new possibilities and lead to more transformational ideas. Reframing isn’t about rearticulating the problem. Instead it involves moving to a higher (more general) level of abstraction. To reframe the problem, cast it in the form “[description] by [activity]”.
ExampleSuppose your challenge is to improve libraries and encourage people to read more. A higher level of abstraction could be “I get intellectual stimulation by reading ”. By focusing on intellectual stimulation, you might get a different set of ideas — book clubs, puzzle nights — which can be used to attract more people to the library.
Tips – A higher level abstraction corresponds to “why” while a lower level abstraction corresponds to “how”
– A common mistake is to change the goal and/or the subject while reframing. For example, deciding what product to build for the customer might start with what the customer is trying to achieve but end with “to make money for my company” which is an incorrect reframing.
ExtensionsThis technique can be used in reverse to find lower levels of abstraction, by casting it in the form “[activity] by [description]”. That typically leads to incremental or improvement ideas which are also beneficial.
Creativity Hack: Reframe A Challenge
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Creativity Hack: Build, Tear Down, Rebuild

When it comes to brainstorming, most groups fall prey to cognitive biases that reduce overall group creativity. People get so invested in their own ideas that they might overlook obvious downsides. Or they might get swayed by others’ opinions especially when the others have some kind of authority. Two common cognitive biases in group decision making are myside and one-sided thinking. Myside bias occurs because people are more inclined to reason in ways that support their opinion or idea while ignoring or minimizing contradictory viewpoints. One-sided thinking is our preference for arguments that are one-sided rather than those that offer multiple perspectives. 

It’s easy to see why these biases occur frequently and why they lead to flawed decisions. Due to myside bias, people tend to only offer arguments that support their idea in any discussion. Due to one-sided thinking bias, people are more easily swayed by a person who presents one-sided arguments than someone who presents a more nuanced view that considers multiple perspectives. A one-sided solution appears simpler and cleaner, and because it causes less cognitive strain, it becomes more persuasive. These biases are not correlated with measures of cognitive ability like IQ – intelligent people are just as prone to them as others. 

About The Build, Tear Down, Rebuild (BTR) Hack To Reduce Groupthink

A structured approach to brainstorming and group discussions can eliminate the effect of these biases. Using the Build, Tear down, Rebuild (BTR, pronounced better) technique described below, teams can arrive at more unbiased and intelligent decisions. Here is one way to run a BTR session:

  • Prior to the  group session, ask team members to send their ideas to you privately (nominal brainstorming), which helps build independence of thought.
  • At the start of the group meeting set expectations that the goal of the exercise is to make each idea the best version of itself. This shifts the tone in the group from competitive to collaborative. 
  • Take one idea at a time and have the group discuss the following aspects (use a whiteboard to capture all information in a table format). By asking the following questions, you first build up an idea (pros), then tear it down (cons) and then rebuild (mitigations) it again to arrive at a superior version of the initial idea. 
    • Pros: What are the advantages of this idea?
    • Cons: What are some drawbacks of the idea?
    • Mitigations: Are there some ways to mitigate the cons by changing something about the idea? 
  • After all ideas have been thoroughly discussed, have the group look at all ideas together to see if different ideas can be combined to give a better solution overall. This step tends to happen organically as the discussion progresses, so leaders may not need to ask explicitly.
  • After the meeting, send the information captured to meeting attendees and ask them to reflect some more. This step gives an additional incubation time for new insights to emerge. 

The building up phase (finding pros) helps to expand the potential of the idea. The original proposer may have missed some aspects that others identify. The tear down phase (identifying cons) helps identify current limitations or boundaries where the idea will work and not work, and starts to shrink the potential of the idea. Finally, the third phase (finding mitigations) tweaks the idea so that some of the limitations are overcome. It re-expands the idea and places it in a more realistic zone.

Summary

Finally, here is a quick summary of the creativity hack and how to use it.

DescriptionDuring brainstorming, ensure that all ideas are thoroughly discussed to avoid any biases. For each idea, first identify the pros of the idea, then follow up with current cons and finally ask the group to think of ways to mitigate the cons. This allows any idea to arrive at its best, yet practical, version.
ExampleHere is a simple example (from an elementary aged student) whose idea was to improve a toothbrush by adding a 2-minute song as a timer. The obvious advantage is that it helps kids keep track of the right amount of time to brush their teeth. One con is that listening to the same song every time could become boring quickly. So a mitigation could be to have multiple songs that rotate at random. Another solution is to have the songs in a different language so kids can learn a new language at the same time.
Tips – To increase idea output, ask team members to think of their ideas beforehand. 
– To further reduce groupthink, collect all the ideas before the start of the meeting and discuss each idea anonymously (without sharing who suggested the idea)
ExtensionsThis technique can be used not just in brainstorming but also in any kind of group decision making, where there are several possible solutions each with their own advantages, disadvantages and constraints.
Creativity Hack: Build, Tear down, Rebuild