Creativity Unlimited: Thinking Inside the Box for Business Innovation

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Preparations for the final step

Shaking the box is just a simple way of breaking your routines. Because that's what the creative process is all about: following a rule or routine with an uncertain outcome. But when you are trying to shake the box, you need to make sure that it's got enough room inside it. And the outcome will, of course, depend on what is inside it.

This part of the book is about bringing together the insights and research results described in Parts I and II. In Part I, we practised expanding the box to free our minds from rules and conventions, common sense, and the limitations of our physiology and consciousness. We tested how easy it can be to think innovatively and find novel ideas if you can break free of self-imposed limitations. In Part II, we filled your now expanded box with some insights into how people perceive products and brands, and how you create meaning.

When we combine the exercises from Part I with the insights from Part II, we can easily see that there are many ways in which we can shake the contents of our expanded box. You ‘shake the box’ when you combine all the knowledge you have with the insights you've acquired into how people function in order to create new business possibilities. But to get the result from shaking the box, you need patience and some solid preparation. Let us therefore now go through what you need to achieve a really ...