Inventium – Instant TRIZ with cards:
A dive with Andre de Zanger of the Creativity Institute in New York, into the 3 most used principles of TRIZ (the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, out of Russia in the 1940s), through Andre’s card game, Inventium. And as usual, many other topics, and philosophical discussions along the way. Think! Invent! Play! Put the science into creativity, and the creativity into science!
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If you prefer to read this conversation, view the full blog entry.
Dan Keldsen: This is Dan Keldsen from the Perot Systems Innovation Lab and also Delphi Group, a Perot Systems company. Today I have on the phone Andre de Zanger, who is with the Creativity Institute in New York. You can find out more about his work at www.NextIdeaCreativityConference.com.
You can contact him by e-mail at creativityinstitute@juno.com, or get him on the phone at 212-289-8856. Andre is the inventor of Inventium, which is a creativity card game, which is based either on the eight most used principles of TRIZ, and we will explain what TRIZ is shortly, or the complete forty principles of TRIZ, depending on which deck you buy.
I haven't yet bought the deck, but it is definitely on my list. So I am definitely looking forward to our discussion today, which we are going to be talking about Inventium, Andre's card game. And this podcast is called Inventium, Instant TRIZ with Cards. So with that in mind, Andre, thank you for your time.
We have already had a good hour or more discussion both today and last week, which was lots of fun, and for this podcast, I am hoping we can get a little more on your background so people will know who you are and where you are coming from. And also we talked about what is TRIZ, how long has it been around.
I understand you have a nice, succinct answer for that, although it can go very, very deep. And then we will dive into Inventium and how that applies to TRIZ, and we will get a better idea of how to use that.
Andre de Zanger: All right. Well, thank you for having me. It is enjoyable talking with you so far. My background is engineering, and from there I moved to organizational psychology about teams and how people work together. And I did that for Fortune 500 companies, AT&T, and I did technologies and all that.
And then the technical side just wasn't enough. It is really the human side, it is how we interact, and come up with ideas, and live our lives to the fullest. And I moved into the human side and became fascinated with the creative part of us, how do we do this genius work, this grasping of ideas and making them work.
I think that is part of our heritages, the toolmaker, homo sapiens habilis, who could make a tool. And when most men get together, they talk about tools. Most women about relationships, which is why we are from Mars and they are from Venus. Maybe we should just delve right into TRIZ, which is where Inventium came from.
TRIZ is a beautiful technology of inventing. This came from Russia, where Genrich Samuilovich Altshuller (with colleagues) analyzed and reversed engineered from existing patents and said, "What are the principles that the patents are using?" which is a lovely idea, and he did hundreds of thousands of patents, and came up with forty principles of inventing.
So all the patents in the entire world basically have forty ideas, which is quite incredible when you think of it, only forty ideas.
Dan: Yes; it seems almost impossible.
Andre: And let me give you a ten word definition of TRIZ. And that is pronounced ‘TRIZ' in the U.S., 'trees' in Russian. So it is confusing. People think of an oak tree or a willow tree when the Russians are talking about TRIZ.
Dan: Right!
Andre: So half of the community still uses the Russian version, and the other half of the community uses the English version. TRIZ is defined as the theory of inventive problem solving. It comes the acronym in Russian, the word TRIZ.
And here is the ten word definition, and it is quite powerful so you might want to write it down, "All systems evolve," that is the first concept; human systems, technical systems… evolve. They evolve toward ideality--that is a made up word, the ideal of ideals, the best of the best that a function can be - done in no time, using no energy, with no matter. I mean, that is the ideal.
It just happens. And then you come away from that and say, "Can we do it in a fraction of a second, or with a little bit of resources?" So this is an ideal. So you are moving not from a problem but toward the goal of this ideal, which is... Let me give you the whole definition at once and we'll come back.
So all systems evolve towards ideality by resolving a contradiction, utilizing resources. So one more time. All systems evolve towards an ideal or ideality, by resolving the contradiction and utilizing resources. The contradiction is a very big part of TRIZ's work. And they have a matrix, kind of a Rosetta stone, of principles.
For example, I would like something to be strong, so you would look down what they call the contradiction matrix, they like things to be strong, and they like things to be light. So that is kind of a contradiction. I would like to have a very powerful car with a lot of torque to get me on the highways.
I want power, but I want economy. And you say, "Wait a minute, if I get a lot of power and torque, it isn't going to be cheap. I will be using a lot of gas." No, no, no; I want both. In a relationship I would like to have freedom, and security. But usually there is a trade off.
And TRIZ tends to look at it as inelegance to have a tradeoff. That is not elegant, and every patent is an elegant resolution of a contradiction. An elegant resolution of a contradiction. So let' go with, I will give you and example, of strong and light.
And the aluminum can industry says, "We want to make money," so what does that mean? So we want to use aluminum in the soda can, because then we wouldn't be spending so much. I want the walls to be thin, but I am shipping this, and it has to have 90 pounds of strength so I can stack all these pallets on top of each other when we put them in the truck and ship it.
So you want it strong, and thin. How do we do that? So on this matrix, Altshuller's researchers have put together and it says, look up strong and look up thin. And they will have a box with two or three, three or four principles, these forty principles that have been used in the past to resolve exactly what you are trying to work on.
So the bridge designers have come up with some techniques, some principles to make steel light yet strong. And other industries have done this, so you could look up a database of past genius! A lovely, lovely idea.
Dan: It's perfect.
Andre: So we go to one and it has principle 15. and you look it up and it says, Spheroidality. And what is that? Well, spheroidality, when you translate it down, it means curves. Make it curved. And if you look at the soda can, there is a curve on the bottom and a curve on the top. That will give you a fifty percent reduction.
This is great! And then it says principle 35, which we are going to be talking about in detail, it says parameter shift. Change. You go, what is that? So again this is a technical base and the engineers can retranslate that into regular talk, which we all do. Shift means transform it from a solid to a liquid to a gas to the electromagnetic field. You do a parameter change.
So all things are matter moving toward energy, and that is really the first law of the universe is the interchangeability of energy and matter. It is Quantum 101, and it is the first law. That is the principle that is the vector, kind of a pointer that says to the designer and the inventor, use this principle.
It is the most used principle, presently, of all the forty principles. It is used more often than any other principle, so think quantum. All the time; lose the energy. Not what is the matter, which most people talk about? Where is the energy?
You know that in your music when the orchestra is on, everybody knows it, and when it is off, everybody knows it. You know it; the audience might not know it, but you know it.
So follow the energy. So here is the translation into the aluminum can, of which they saved 85% and millions of dollars, to make it so thin now that you can crush a can with two fingers, whereas ten years ago, you could not crush a can with two fingers.
They have taken out 85%, and here is how they have done it. It is that you analyze the system, and all systems evolve. And the system of a soda can is what is in it. And you say, well, we have liquid, we have water, we have flavoring, we have the can itself, and what else do we have?
Dan: Carbonation?
Andre: We have carbonation, exactly. That is the key. And the key was, we will add a little more carbonation to create more pressure, and that makes the can stronger. So you use a tenth of one cent for carbonation, and you save three cents worth of aluminum. And that is a three thousand percent reduction in cost.
Dan: Interesting.
Andre: Brilliant. So this matrix of TRIZ says we have a data base of genius, of inventions, of principles. And you can literally look up your situation on this XY matrix, and find the principles that have been used in the past to solve that problem. What a promise! I can MOVE AROUND on a table; that is an engineer's delight.
Dan: And now what is your line for Inventium again?
Andre: Well, this is complex. TRIZ is a complex system and the Russians require six months of training… at least, for you to become skilled in this, and I said yeah, you are not going to do that. How about three weeks? Well, you just get the preliminaries if you understand this. And Americans say, "give it to me in five minutes or half a day; I don't have time."
So we do a workshop in half a day, a day, you get it, and the inventing principles have been getting these down and made very simple and usable with a multiple of examples on each principle, so that in a half day program, you could get it. And we are going to talk about three of them, and you will get it!
Dan: I think the examples are the key, because I have been poking around now, since I found out about TRIZ a month or two ago, and it is still fairly bewildering… so I should probably pick up one of your decks. [Laughter]
Andre: Why don't we start? Let me give you an overview; my simple deck has the top eight principles of the forty that are most used, and if you use those you are going to be over fifty percent getting an answer, if you play your cards right.
So let me go through the eight of them, and then come back to the three and go into more detail. So the first principle is transformation or parameter change. And it is about changing energy into matter, matter into energy, and the classic answer is eBay, which already is all energy.
They don't have any products, no houses, no transportation, and they make all this money by providing the energy field for you to connect up. That is the first principle. The second principle is called segmentation, making it different. The third principle, and by the way, the segmentation is the second law of the universe, that everything is becoming more unique.
The third principle is merging or integration or becoming whole. The fourth one is dynamics, and that it is in motion, it is moving, it is changing. Everything is changing. The fifth one is local quality. A quick example is the razor blades.
Originally Gillette made the whole razor blade out of carbon steel but you only need the carbon steel where you are cutting. So make it local quality. It is interesting where it interfaces. The next one is feedback. All systems that evolve have some kind of feedback mechanism.
The next one is take out unnecessary elements, like in a brick. You take out material and you put holes in the brick, so it is lighter and just as strong, less material, easier transportation, etc.. And the last one is reversal. To reverse the sequence of events is used.
So I am going to repeat them again: transformation, segmentation, merging, dynamics, local quality, feedback, and take out, reversal. We can't do all of them but let's take a look at the top three.
Transformation.
Isn't that what you are doing on this call, you are transforming, and isn't that what everyone is doing, making some kind of change to a system or an idea or a process? The secretary transforms all these words into a nice flow that makes sense?
The steelworker transforms iron ore into useable steel. You are an idea transformer, doing it right now.
Dan: Right, hopefully.
Andre: Well, and you are going to be doing this on a podcast which is a field, so literally we are in this first principle… totally. If you are hearing my voice and we are transmitting ideas and language that is a field phenomenon.
The Neanderthals supposedly didn't have an extended language because their vocal chords couldn't transmit history such as where the animals are, and what happened last year, so they died out because they weren't transforming enough.
So let's go into a little more depth in transformation since it is the most used principle. A second example, other than eBay, is the telephone answering machine beeper. Do you remember ten, fifteen years ago, Dan, that you carried around a little device called a beeper?
Dan: A pager?
Andre: No, it wasn't a pager, it was a beeper. And you took this beeper and you put it on the phone, and went, "beep, beep, beep, beep." So that was a beeper that went into the phone tonality, to hit your answering machine to rewind it and play your messages back. Remember that?
I cannot find one. This product as matter no longer exists in the world because the phone system, and hear the word system, all systems evolve, has evolved and it has the tonal vibrational mechanism that I can just hit the buttons now and go, "beep, beep, beep, beep," and get to my machine.
So this is the first level of transformation, that we don't need the matter because the system has the function or the energy to do it. And if you take that further, the telephone company says you don't even have to have your answering machine any more, "We will do it for you! For a price."
Dan: That is so nice of them. [Laughter]
Andre: And the fourth level is that your cell phone has it already built in. So you don't even need the telephone company any more. You already have it. So there is a classic example of transformation.
Detergent powder, Tide, in fifty years will no longer exist.
It started off as a tablet, and then if you look at the transformation that we went through of solid, liquid, gas, field, that is the transformational evolution. All systems evolve, from a solid toward the field. So we watched this transformation of detergent as a bar of soap that our great-great grandmothers pounded on the rocks to clean the clothes.
And then it went to a powder, which is what Tide is now, and people still like the powder. And then it goes to the liquid. And the next phase up would be possibly a gas, which is kind of where dry cleaning is. But the field is the ultimate destination, and literally, Sanyo has an ultrasonic washing machine.
I don't know if you have seen that, but if you go to Sanyo, and go to ultrasonic, you will get their new product, which uses ultrasonic sound to clean clothes.
They do use water, and they use the salt in the water (even fresh water has salt), and they vibrate it, and the salt becomes a disinfectant. And it picks up the dirt that has been vibrated off the clothes, and washes it away. So in fifty or a hundred years, there will be no more detergent.
Dan: That works for me!
Andre: Of course intuition, purposing, like what is your purpose in life, and if you think about that, that is a field phenomenon. It is not matter and it moves you and drives you and motivates you to do what you do. Creativity, intuition, are both field phenomena. So, if you think about it, this principle number 35, parameter change or transformation is the most used principle. Okay?
Dan: Okay.
Andre: Number two is segmentation. That is the second law of the universe, which after the Big Bang, sixteen billion years ago, the physicists tell us, before that there was all singularity and all oneness. But sixteen billion years ago, it exploded into the Big Bang, and everything became different.
And it is still moving at the speed of light, the galaxies are still differentiating. And we are differentiating and each of us is unique, different, and an individual. So this principle is to make things segmented; if they are dependent, make it independent. There is a big drive in America, in our culture, to be independent.
Not dependent, whereas Europe, in Holland, it is much more of a dependent culture because they are small and they are interconnected more, and there is more social consciousness. Not us. We have to be independent, ride off into the sunset like John Wayne, and do it ourselves.
Rely on no one. It is the American way. So this principle is really a biggie here in our culture, and when I do creative problem solving work and innovation work in Europe, it is a different culture and they all have to agree, and that drives Americans nuts because we have the Nike philosophy, "Just do it."
And they go, "Oh, no, we have to talk about it and everybody has to feel good about it." And interestingly enough, the quality of solutions are about the same, and it takes about the same time. We go in there and try it and fail, and we try it again and fail, and fail and try it again.
You know, Nike, Nike, Nike, until we get it, and they talk it and talk it and talk it, and then they get it. And the timeline is about the same. But it is a whole different approach. So, segmentation, make it different. And make it more unique. Segmented.
Just think of a mattress. When they say, "Sleep tight," in colonial terms, a mattress was a rope underneath the straw, and you tightened up the mattress so it would hang. And when we went to innerspring, separate springs, connected of course, so it is a lot more comfortable; and then you go to totally separate springs that are totally encased, even more comfortable.
And then you can go down even further where everything is kind of separate, and it is much more comfortable. Okay? So mattress with separate compartments. The Fusion and Quattro razor blades are segmented blades. You are not just using one; you are using them… segmented.
The X-Ray machine, there used to be one X-ray beam in the 1950s and ‘60s, cutting through the tissues to the cancerous areas, but killing everything in it's path. And they said, "What if we make it two beams and lowered the power. That wouldn't destroy the tissues going into it."
And they said, "Well, why don't we make it four beams," and right now it is 360 beams that rotate around the body with very low dosage, pinpointing the radiation. Segment. If you are overwhelmed by a problem, segment the bigger problem down into smaller parts. The divide and conquer model.
Marketing would be demographics going into social graphics, to psychographics. You keep on segmenting down. Market share. Market segmentation. There is a whole thing on the Internet toward the smaller group interested in the micro-interest is where the money is being made on the Internet.
By segmenting you have everything for everybody. But I have a particular interest in just this, in Celtic music from the fourteenth century, and I have manuscripts, and people say, "That is great; that is what I want!" There's fourteen thousand people in the world that love this, got it?
Modular furniture is a segmented bubble wrap. And Lego, seventy years of a segmented toy that you can build. Wonderful. And McDonalds has segmented their market, if you look at who is their segmented market, it is the kids.
And they segmented and built the playgrounds for the kids to have fun and build their next generation of consumers. So that is segmentation. The third one we will talk about is merging. Now that is the third law of the earth, but after the Big Bang, we were lonely.
We are out there, unique, like John Wayne riding into the sunset. He is all alone. And we have this need to come together for union. For wholeness. For harmony. For merging. For integrating. So whatever systems are independent, make them dependent, which is almost anti-American.
Dan: Sure. Ah, we are going to be investigated here!
Andre: Really! We are all one if you really look at it from a philosophical standpoint.
Dan: Sure. Is merging truly the opposite of segmentation?
Andre: Yeah, yeah, and so a lot of designs are segmented, merging. I will give you an example. The hammer and the nail puller are two separate entities combined into a hammer. You will hardly see a hammer with just the hammer part.
A pencil in the 1800s did not have an eraser then. Now you can hardly find a pencil without an eraser, except in the library, because they don't want to give you one. So the bifocal of glasses that you wear, do you wear bifocals?
Dan: Not yet.
Andre: But you know about this. Did you know that that was invented by Ben Franklin?
Dan: I had heard a rumor to that effect, yes. [Laughter]
Andre: And now you consider this merging of two glasses into one, or three. Interdisciplinary teams the Meyers Briggs, we need somebody who is a real thinker and who is a real feeler. We need somebody who is real intuitive and we need somebody who is into action.
So there are the four quadrants of Meyers Briggs, and in groups and in teams, it is good to have all four. We can't forget the feeler. I think Tylenol, when they were attacked by the poison, the company there was just going to deny it.
And the feelers in the group said no, we have to acknowledge that this is so, and make it up to people. And it changed their whole campaign. And in a lot of business the feelers are left out; it is a hard, cold, rational, logical place.
But that is not where people are. Customer service is so important at the feeling component. You feel comfortable buying a product, knowing you can bring it back.
Dan: Right.
Andre: They are going to take care of you. Another merging would be merging products, like taking cream and adding a liqueur; Bailey's Irish Cream. Ben & Jerry's--you merge different nuts and cherries, and you have Cherries Garcia, the biggest selling ice cream. How could you merge things in your life?
Start thinking about that. The radio antennae on the car used to be a separate element, and now it is built into the windshield. And, of course, to finish this up, Einstein said, "Become one with the problem." What is it like to be a light beam?
So if you merge with situations, you get a much better understanding of where they are. And that is the top three. And I use these cards. A consultant friend of mine said, "I am going to do this with the Chamber of Commerce." And I said, "Well, what do you mean?"
He said, "Well, I already did approach the Chamber of Commerce and said, "Why don't you business guys instead of having a lunch and a speaker, come with a business problem you would like to get an answer to?""
And he did that and gave out the cards, went through the same little gig that I just gave you, and he gave a card to each person and broke them into groups of four and said, "One of you is going to be the client with problem, and the other three people are going to use these cards to solve the problem using that principle."
And give it back to that person, because the person with the problem can't see their own nose. If you try right now to look at your own nose, it is very difficult. You can't see it.
But when you share this problem with others, they can see your nose, or the problem and they can say, "Well, why don't you make more energy for the situation, or why don't you make it more unique?" Or, "Why don't you integrate it with another part of your products or services."
And the lights go off and people go, "Wow! What an idea!" So people come away with solutions. They have a mini think-tank and they go, "Wow, we should do this once a month!" They go around and each person becomes a client, and each person becomes an expert in the principle.
And it has been working very nicely and very simply and it is very direct. You don't have to go through a learning program on TRIZ, and most people are not inventors or engineers or scientists, and they kind of resist, saying, "I am not an inventor, I am not an artist, you know." So invent teams is a very simple, simplistic, powerful tool to generate ideas.
Dan: Okay, now in that vein, I think I told you this previously, but I sort of avoided things like Inventium, the Think Pack by Michael Michalko, and the Creative Whack Pack and various things like that because at the time I felt like I was either a creative or inventive person, or I wasn't. And using anything else was a crutch.
So I am just wondering… how have you found people to react? I mean, you have already hinted that you have run into people who say, "Oh, I am not an inventor, so why am I even here? Why would I use these cards?" Is the answer just do it, or try it and see what happens?
Andre: Well, I have a couple of ideas around that. One is, it is a new perspective, and it is a new lens to see the world through. And just with these three things, probably in the next week or so, you will start to see things from those perspectives, "Oh, that is really segmented; that is really unique. Different."
In marketing, how are you different? How is your company different from the big guys in doing something? What is your uniqueness? You can't be everything to everybody, so there is segmentation. And how then can you tie this into other services in using your company?
One guy is doing this, and he says, "Oh, but Dan is doing this innovation. Maybe you guys can connect up." So there he just merged, right? And it is about the energy. A lot of the consulting work in business is that they have lost the vision; they go flat.
There is no juice; there is no force. There is no motivation. Well, that is number one! So it is all around us, Dan, and to look at it as these are the principles of inventing. This is not the Whack Pack which is his idea of inventive or creative principles, you know, like SCAMPER.
That is somebody's idea. This is not coming from a database of reality, of historical proof. These are! So you can't go wrong. These are in the patent offices all over the world. So if you want to be inventive, or innovative, then you differentiate in innovation and invention.
Invention is as it comes out of the air; it is like this idea, wow, I mean, this is like genius or godliness. Innovation is a lot more down to earth. It is usually a rearrangement, a recombination, recombinant DNA?
It is a reconnection, a resequencing, a doing this first instead of that, adding this little piece to that, that is merging. You know, recombine it in a unique way. Most people say, "Wow, I never thought of doing it that way." So that is a lot more, maybe I should call it "Innovatium." Then you would really get a tongue twister!
But it is really lower down from inventing to innovation. So do we need to be innovative? The United States has lost its foothold in research and development. Europe is spending more money on it. We are losing that edge of new stuff.
We still have the entrepreneurial power of innovation, and I think that is our strength, that we can do it a new way, and new is better than old. And I have traveled through Europe and Asia, and I say we can think of a new way, and they kind of shake their heads, like, "No, the old way is better."
So we have a mindset, and of course other places in the world like Singapore have the same mindset, and they loved our work because it was innovative. And this is how this tiny little country is a powerhouse in Asia.
They just scoop up, they want this innovative thinking, this inventive thinking; they just love that stuff. But as I go to Cairo, they look at me and call the Secret Police. Like, "Why do you want to change the way people are doing things?" Very scary!
I am doing innovation, and they have the Secret Police, and am I doing a workshop, and I am going, "Holy smoke!" You know? And since I am breeding revolutionary thinking in these countries, that is exactly right. They don't want new, different, better ways.
Dan: Even if you pitch it as, "But these are old ways!"
Andre: Old new ways! Yeah, it is like Tide: new and improved. Old and new; they can mix it up!
Dan: So let's wrap this up by something. I am curious; have you used Inventium at all with kids? Below college?
Andre: Actually, I have. I did an Inventium set with kids, and it was really a lot of fun. I drew an animal on the blackboard, and I said, "This is a pet." And inside I wrote ‘peeve', and I said, "What is your pet peeve?" And I asked the kids, "What ticks you off?" I ask adults what pisses you off, but with kids I said ticks you off.
Well, visually it is a lot more powerful. But some of those kids came up with some really neat stuff. They said, "What really ticks me off is getting the peanut butter out of the bottom of the Skippy jar." So when we broke into groups, that was one of them.
And what they came up with was a multiplicity, and put a lid on the bottom of the jar, so you have two lids. The other one said we would package it so the gravity pulls down the peanut butter into the lid, so you just reverse the label.
That is reversal, and brilliant. That is what Heinz is doing now with the catsup. And a lot of the soap and shampoo people are doing the same thing. So the kids were very fluid in their thinking. Another kid had, "My peeve is I hate soggy cereal." Did you hear in Boston, by the way, that three people were found dead in their Cheerios? Did you hear about that?
Dan: No.
Andre: Cereal killer! As JFK said, if you aren't having fun, you are not doing it right! So the kid came up with the idea that he hated soggy cereal because it floats in the milk and gets soggy and disgusting. Well, he made two tiers, he segmented the bowl and made two tiers, and the cereal would be on the top tier, and he would pull it over into the reservoir of milk.
And another kid said, "I am a member of a big family, and I am the youngest one, and I get the edge of the table, and I can't get into the table because of the let of the table." And they got an old chair and came up with cutting a wedge into the chair so it could slide under the table. Brilliant!
Another kid had a problem with the shoelaces flopping around the edge of the sneakers. So he glued on a magnet so he could put the tips there and they wouldn't flop around. Brilliant. Do you know who invented the earmuff? A thirteen year old kid in 1880. You can look it up. Google "earmuff" and you will get to that.
So a lot of children have tremendous capacity for merging and connecting up and connecting these principles, just as we went through it, they came up with it naturally, and what they are doing, and by the way, the chair thing was take out.
They realize the principles are there all the time, and you become conscious of it, just like I said now with the chair. You take out the interfering part.
Dan: Right.
Andre: You combine the magnet, which is principle 35, you know, the field, use the electromagnetic field. I mean, it is everywhere. So that would be nice to do more stuff with kids, and maybe even get a kids' pack with kid examples.
And have them, again, go into the experience of it, I think, is the way you actually do it, so you break down using these cards in a small group, has been the power, not just the thought.
But working in harmony with others so that they can use the principle on you that you are blind to. That is the power of groups. That is the counsel of the Indians. Everybody had power with the talking stick.
And even the deviant, even "who speaks Wolfman," is an example of the whacko who thinks he is a wolf and howls; it is an Indian tale. And he is whacko. He dresses like a wolf, he runs like a wolf on all fours, he is a whacko part of the tribe. And this tribe was in transit, moving from place to place.
It was the Iroquois nation, called the Walking People, is the book by Underwood, and it is a fascinating book of tales of problem solving. They kept on learning and learning as they went, in order to survive. They came to this area, and they were camping there and living there, and the wolves were fierce.
They were stealing the food and stealing the kids. And so this is like what do we do? Do we kill the wolves, do we move on? And they said, "Well, what about Wolfman?" And of course they sent Wolfman into the counsel, and he said, "Well, of course; it is their breeding area! Everybody knows that."
And they all look around; they didn't know that. And they realized they needed to hear who speaks for Wolfman, and so the history of the tribe took that on, that anytime they are in important decision making, they call in the deviant, who speaks for Wolfman.
So the group phenomenon for using problem solving with scientific tools like TRIZ and Inventium increases the quality of new ideas, innovations, and inventions. So you can do it by yourself as a powerful piece.
If you were in a meeting, you could just flip these cards and say, "How about if we just reverse the whole sequence?" We are planning to do this, this and that. How about if we move this one forward? And they go, "Hmm...I never thought of that." And you just were looking at these cards under the table, and they think you are brilliant.
Dan: Right!
Andre: "If we are going to spend all this money, why don't we put the quality where we need it, you know? And save a lot of money." And they go, "Wow, that is a great idea!"
Dan: And you just got a raise!
Andre: Speaking of that let me tell you a Proctor & Gamble story. I am doing a seminar and I meet a guy from Proctor & Gamble, and he says, "We are using the cards, too." And I said tell me about it. And he said, "We had a terrific success."
And I said tell me about it. He said, "You know, we built this new process of interlacing the fabrics in the paper towels to make them really strong. They don't come apart. And they have been selling like hotcakes," like a Bounty model, I don't know which one it is. Then he said, "But there is a problem."
So I said, "What is the problem?" He said, "In our manufacturing, we dry the paper, and we have six of these machines that dry the paper, and they cost six million dollars each. And this new process, this interweaving, the water doesn't come out. It takes longer; we have to buy another two machines to dry it."
And I said, "Well, let's do a TRIZ/Inventium type thing on it." And they got twenty people together and they gave them all forty principles, two cards per person for a three day workshop, and they became immersed in those two principles. They studied them, they went on the Internet, and they went on the TRIZ information, examples, examples, da, da, da.
They come back the second day and they start doing it. And this is not a heterogeneous group; they have maintenance people and the clean up staff and the PhDs and it was very advanced; who speaks the Wolfman? The whacko. The guy mopping the floor in the factory, and they are not all asleep, you know.
And one guy comes up and says, and I don't know what principle it was, but let's call it 23. He says, "Principle 23, pulsating action." And he had studied pulsating action and looked at it and said, "If you pulsate the air instead of a steady stream of air, it will absorb the water and pull it out.
So the hand dryer in the toilet, they go all solid stream, and if that is pulsated, it will be half the time. By the way, that is why people don't like it--it takes too long to dry your hands. This principle worked. They went back and they tried it out, and they saved four million dollars, in a three day workshop. Each of them got a ten thousand dollar bonus.
Dan: Yeah, and suddenly a $50 deck of cards doesn't look so bad!
Andre: Hey, they are a bargain!
Dan: At that price, you could give everybody a deck.
Andre: And what I do is go into a company and say, "Buy twenty packs of the forty cards, and I will do a half day workshop for you. You take care of my expenses, you know. And I have gotten into a lot of companies doing that, and that is a reversal. You don't have to pay me; you get the results. And then if you get good results, bring me back and we will do the same thing. And I used that reversal principle in my consulting business." I say, usually, "I am going to do this kind of stuff and you are going to pay me that amount." So that is the how much/when. Let's reverse that.
What if I come in and do it and you don't pay me anything. You decide to pay me based on how much it is worth." So I am willing to take that risk because I know the power of the inventive mind, and just think of what I could have done if I had gotten a piece of the action of the four million dollars! That would have been nice!
Dan: You should have put another card in that says, "Give me ten percent of whatever I save you!"
Andre: I did this workshop in South Africa, this is a true story, and they broke into small groups. They were working, working, working, and they came up with their problems. And I came up to this one group and said, "Well, what did you do with it?"
And they said, "With the umbrella, the drippy water, and we are going to build a cup on the bottom of it." And I said great, and they were happy. And the next group, they did something. And I came to the last group, and said, "Well, how about you guys?" And they said, "We are not saying."
"What do you mean you are not saying?" They said, "We have come up with such an idea that we are not sharing it." I said, come on! And they said no. And it just ticked me, I said I should have gotten that ten percent, you know! But they left the conference, the entire creativity conference!
They had got it, and they said, "This is incredible! Thank you very much! We have no more time to dilly-dally; we are starting a business." And I went wow! Wow! I really wonder what it was!
Dan: And you never found out?
Andre: Never found out, no. Isn't that funny?
Dan: You will have to do some research on that one. Interesting. Well, hey, let's wrap this up. Thank you so much for your time here. And let me just sum up. I was speaking with Andre de Zanger, who is with the Creativity Institute in New York.
You can find out about some of his work at www.NextIdeaCreativityConference.com and e-mail him at creativityinstitute@juno.com, or give him a ring at 212-289-8856. Today we were talking about Inventium, Instant TRIZ with Cards, and a lot of other things on the way there, too. That is the way these work! And thanks again for your time, Andre.
Andre: A pleasure; pleasure.
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