The Shoefie, Vigilance and the Number Zero.
George Shewchuk
The shoefie, vigilance and the number zero are the essential insights that drive the solutions to the following crowdsource challenges:
• Increasing Shoe Sales
• Keeping Drivers Safe in the Australian Outback
• Raising the Awareness of Sudden Death in Epilepsy*
The path to a novel solution is always self-evident.
But only self-evident in your imagination! As soon as your thought process hits the “air” many of your "first" ideas tend to crumble or just evaporate. Thinking out loud is the best way to exorcise the biases and assumptions we all have. This is not to suggest that a personal bias is detrimental to solving problems, in fact, a unique point of view and even a wrong-headed assumption may point to a better solution
It’s never easy to re-frame a problem statement, and it’s even more difficult to “unlearn” those cognitive patterns that only lead us down well-worn paths to typical solutions. We need novelty and innovation not because it's de rigueur, but because there is no other way to broadcast the signal in the noise and to satisfy the growing complexity of stakeholder needs.
*The solution documents to these challenges are available for review by email requests only. Also see the case study section on this site. Please note that some details may be omitted to satisfy the NDA’s.