A short story of creativity

Creativity Story

1. "Caterpillar Experiment" (Abandoning the Convention)

The famous French scientist Faber discovered a very interesting bug, which has a "follower" habit. They go out to look for food or play, They will always follow another one of the same kind and never dare to find another way out. Farber did an experiment. He spent a long time catching many of these bugs, and then placed them one by one around a flower pot. Not far from the flower pot, he placed some of these bugs that he loved. Eat food. An hour later, Farber went to observe and found that the insects were tirelessly circling around the flower pot. One day later, Farber went to observe again and found that the bugs were still running around the flowerpot one after another. Seven days later, Farber went to look and found that all the insects had died of exhaustion one by one around the flowerpot.

Later, Farber wrote in his experimental notes: It is not a pity for these bugs to die, but if one of them can step out of the thunder pond and change the method, he can find the one he likes. The food you eat will have a completely different fate. At least you won't starve to death not far from the food.

In fact, it is not just bugs that need to change their way of thinking to survive, but also humans who are much more advanced than them.

A very famous company wanted to recruit a business manager. The generous salary and various benefits attracted hundreds of job seekers to apply. After some preliminary and re-examinations, 10 were left. job seeker. The examiner said to the 10 job seekers: "You go back and prepare carefully. In one week, the president of our company will interview you in person." A week later, 10 job seekers who had made preparations arrived as scheduled. As a result, an unattractive job applicant was retained. The president asked the applicant: "Do you know why you were retained?" The applicant answered honestly: "I don't know." The president said: "Actually, you are not like this The best among the 10 job applicants. They were fully prepared, such as fashionable clothes and sophisticated interview skills, but they were not as pragmatic as your preparation. You used an unconventional way to interview me. We conducted an in-depth investigation and analysis of the market situation of the company's products and the situation of similar products of other companies, and submitted a market research report. You have done so much work before you were hired by our company. Who would use you if you don't need you? ? ”

Comment: Sometimes things in the world are so simple that it is unbelievable. If you stick to the rules, only failure awaits you; on the contrary, if you use your brain a little and change the traditional way of thinking, If you innovate, you will achieve success. For example, why can’t those bugs with the habit of “following” use their brains to innovate on their own inherent habits? Instead of running aimlessly behind others, they can change their jobs like that unattractive job seeker. What about a way of thinking? Of course, asking bugs to abandon their inherent habits will inevitably be harsh. Bugs are bugs after all. But what about people?

2. Open your head 1 mm

There is a company in the United States that produces toothpaste. The product is excellent and the packaging is exquisite. It is deeply loved by consumers and its annual marketing volume is booming. Records show that in the first 10 years, the annual turnover growth rate was 10-20. This excited the board of directors.

However, when entering the 11th, 12th, and 13th years, the marketing volume stagnated, but it remained at the same number every month. The board of directors was strongly dissatisfied with the performance of these three years. A high-level meeting at manager level and above was held to discuss countermeasures.

During the meeting, a young manager stood up and said to the president: "I have a note with a suggestion. If you want to adopt my suggestion, you must pay me an additional 50,000 yuan." U.S. dollars."

The president said angrily: "I pay you a salary every month, as well as dividends and bonuses. Now I ask you to come to a meeting to discuss countermeasures, and you also ask for another 50,000 US dollars. "Is that too much?" "Mr. President, please don't get me wrong. You pay my salary to work hard for the company, but this is a major and valuable suggestion. You should pay me an additional bonus."

If my suggestion doesn't work, you can throw it away without paying a penny. However, you will definitely lose more than $50,000. "The young manager said. "Okay, let me see why it is worth so much money? The president took the note, read it, and immediately signed a check for $50,000 to the young manager. There was only one sentence written on the note: "Expand the diameter of the current toothpaste opening by 1 mm." ”

The president immediately ordered the replacement of new packaging. Just imagine, every morning and evening, consumers use more toothpaste with a diameter expanded by 1 mm. How many times more toothpaste will be consumed every day? This decision made the company’s first The turnover increased by 32% in 14 years.

Comments: A small change often leads to unexpected changes when you are accustomed to the old way of thinking and cannot find a new way. Why not open your head 1 millimeter? (Excerpted from: "China Youth Daily", April 4, 2004, Page 3)

3. Breaking the rules

First story: In the winter of 333 BC, King Alexander of Macedonia led his army to the Asian city of Gordium to seize the winter camp. There, he heard the famous legend about the city-"The Gordium." "Knot" (tied by Goldi, King of Phrygia in Greek mythology). According to the oracle, whoever unties this extremely complicated knot will become the king of Asia. This story aroused the interest of Alexander, and he ordered The man took him to Goldie's Knot and tried to untie it, but after studying it for a while, he still couldn't find the two ends of the rope. He asked himself: "How can I untie this knot?" Suddenly, he came up with an idea: "I want to make up my own rules for untying this knot." So he drew his sword and split the knot in half. Asia is destined to belong to him.

Second article: In the 1870s, Shores Company, a famous typewriter manufacturer at the time, heard many complaints from users: If typists typed too fast, the keys would hit each other. To solve this problem, management asked engineers to find a way to prevent this phenomenon from happening. After the engineers discussed it for a while, one of them said, "What if we slowed down the typist? The keys wouldn't jostle so much." The result was an inefficient keyboard arrangement. For example, the letters "O" and "I" are the 3rd and 6th most commonly used letters in the English language, but engineers placed them on keyboards where they can be struck by less flexible fingers. This "inefficient logic" is commonly used in keyboard design, and this extraordinary idea solves the problem of impact on the keyboard. Since the inception of this solution, typewriter technology and word processing technology have improved dramatically.

Article 3: A group of Russian immigrants have a tradition of celebrating New Year’s Eve on the afternoon of December 30th every year. After a reporter from the Los Angeles Times heard about it, he thought there must be a reason and went to interview them.

"Why do you celebrate New Year 36 hours earlier than others?" she asked. An old man who was nearly 70 years old replied: "Forty years ago, when we were still in the Soviet Union and living very poor, we found that it was much cheaper to clear a band on December 30. That's where this tradition came from." What is strange is that most of these people are now so wealthy that they can easily afford extravagant entertainment on New Year's Eve, yet they still celebrate the New Year the afternoon before. This "celebrate the New Year early for a tired and obsolete reason" mentality exists almost everywhere in our lives.

4. The story of the trash can (looking for a springboard)

A few years ago, a city in the Netherlands had a littering problem. The originally clean and tidy place became an eyesore because people no longer used the trash can. . The streets are littered with cigarette butts. Beer bottles, chocolate wrappers, newspapers and other types of waste.

The health department was obviously concerned and began looking for ways to clean the city. One way is to increase the fine for littering from 25 guilders (Dutch currency unit) to 50 guilders. They tried this, but with little success.

Another option is to increase the number of inspectors patrolling the streets in the area, which can also be regarded as another "punishment for littering" method. Likewise, it doesn't help solve the problem. Later, someone asked the following question:

What if the trash can paid people when they dumped their garbage into the trash can? We can install an electronic sensor device and a coin return system for each trash can. Every time someone puts rubbish in the bin, it pays him 10 guilders.

This idea is at least a slap in the brain. The question “What if?” turns “punishment for littering” into “reward for compliance.” However, this idea has obvious flaws, because if it were implemented, the city would go bankrupt - half the people in Europe would be there to take out their rubbish.

Fortunately, those who listened to this idea did not measure it by whether it was feasible, but used it as a springboard to ask themselves: "What other ways can we take out the garbage?" "What about rewarding people who put it in the trash can?" This question led them to the following solution. The Ministry of Health has developed an electronic trash can with a sensing device on the top. When it detects that garbage is poured in, it will activate the recorder and play a joke from it. In other words, it’s a trash can that tells jokes! Different trash cans told different jokes (some had bad puns, some had long boring funny stories, and some had short quips), and it quickly paid off. The jokes were changed every two weeks, and people deliberately dumped their garbage into the trash cans, so the city returned to its original tidiness.

5． Three stories about thinking outside the box

A sixteen-year-old boy

In 1972, McGowan was nominated by the Democratic Party of the United States to run against Nixon for president. Later, McGowan decided to replace his vice presidential running mate. A sixteen-year-old boy saw the opportunity of a lifetime and bought 5,000 discarded "McGowan-Egolan" campaign nameplates and car stickers for five cents each. He then sold these historic monuments for $25 each.

Although this young man’s one-time fortune did not bring about a revolution or breakthrough in the industry, the key thing is that he discovered opportunities that others could not detect. Who is this boy? He is none other than Bill Gates, the richest man in the world today.

The discovery of sticky notes

The discovery of sticky notes was quite accidental. Originally, scientists wanted to study a highly viscous glue, but found that what they obtained was a weak glue with weak viscosity. Just when everyone was feeling frustrated, a person from 3M discovered its true value from this experiment.

So, this became a business opportunity that could make billions of dollars.

Cleaner's Advice

The Cutlery Hotel in San Diego, USA, is the birthplace of an important building. At that time, the hotel management felt that the original elevator was too small and needed to be expanded. So, many engineers were found to solve this problem together. Their plan was to dig a big hole all the way from the basement to the top floor to build a new elevator.

Their discussion was overheard by a janitor who asked them what they wanted to do, so the men explained their plan. After hearing this, the cleaner said: But this will make it very dirty and messy, and if the business is closed, many people will lose their jobs.

An engineer listened to the cleaner and asked challengingly: "Do you have a better idea?"

The cleaner thought for a while and said: "Why not outside the hotel?" What about repairing the elevator? "Thus, the Ketri Hotel became the birthplace of the outdoor elevator that is now widely used.

Even if you are not an expert, you will still have great ideas.

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