Creative Problem Solving Tips These creative-problem-solving tips were originally published as a regular column in the American Creativity Association's Focus newsletter.   They were written by Richard Fobes, who is the author of The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox: A Complete Course in the Art of Creating Solutions to Problems of Any Kind

Solutions, Creative! Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections CPS tips List of tips, starting at 1 List of tips, starting at 10 List of tips, starting at 20 Hope for the Future Author and inventor VoteFair.org FullRanking.com

Tip 22: Look for useful concepts in diverse areas.

In contrast to the academic tradition of confining your learning to a single specialized area, creative thinking blossoms from learning about many diverse subjects.   When choosing what to learn, emphasize the learning of concepts.

Many innovations have arisen from an awareness of the way something is accomplished in an area that is very different from the area in which the problem or challenge exists.   For example:

• Back when paper was made from cloth (such as rags and discarded clothes), Rene' Antoine Ferchault de Reamur noticed that wasps nests had a paper-like composition.   From this observation he realized that paper could also be made from wood.
• An engineer noticed that her husband, when cutting wood at home, increased the speed of the saw blade when it was important for the cut to be smooth.   This led to partially solving an engineering problem at work in which integrated circuit wafers too frequently cracked when they were cut.

When you began learning about a new subject in school, the focus was on facts such as who first discovered what, what year that happened, how to spell the "name" of the discovery or insight, and other bits of historical and word-oriented information.   Although such information is useful and important in many ways, an understanding of important concepts is of much greater value in creative thinking.   This is because concepts can be applied to otherwise-unrelated areas.

What is a concept? In this context, a concept is a similarity in what is otherwise different.   Here are some examples:

• "Positive feedback" occurs in a sound amplification system when a small noise from the speaker gets to a microphone and is amplified to come out of the speaker louder than before.   Positive feedback occurs in the economy when an increase in someone's salary increases the cost of living and other employed people get an increase in salary which eventually leads to another salary increase for the first person.   Thus, the concept of positive feedback is very useful in attempting to solve the problem of economic inflation.
• The interactions between people talking in a meeting and the communication between computers on a network both involve similar concepts of who talks when, how long they are allowed to talk, and how they indicate a need to talk.   Thus, concepts that facilitate good communication in one of these situations can be adapted for use in the other situation.

Pursue an interest in learning about any seemingly unrelated subject, and focus on learning concepts rather than facts.   Then, for similar concepts in the area in which you are trying to solve a problem, appreciate any insights that arise.   Also, help to promote creative problem solving skills in children by teaching them to take an interest in diverse subjects and to see similarities in what is otherwise different.

List of tips

Top of Page

Next tip