The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth, 2nd Edition

Technique 29

Biomimicry

Seek nature's eons of experience to find answers.

 

Biomimicry (or biomimetics) is the process of learning from and then emulating nature's ingenious solutions to complex problems. Imagine making high-end audio speakers based on a cricket that uses its burrow to amplify sound. Or drawing inspiration from a boxfish to develop a concept car with 60 percent less drag. Or creating self-assembling fibers, like those produced by spiders, that are five times as strong as steel.

These real-life applications of biomimicry only scratch the surface of this fascinating approach. Nature has spent billions of years designing and perfecting systems and processes, excelling at finding optimal solutions under conflicting constraints and demanding requirements. Science and engineering have similar goals: optimal results with minimal input and minimal use of resources. If you have to solve a problem, chances are nature already did it.

Although biomimicry is often applied by those trained to observe nature at its most fundamental level, it doesn't necessarily require doing expensive, time-consuming research. Many examples of nature's problem-solving abilities are available for the casual researcher. The scope of this book prevents us from offering a comprehensive education in biomimicry, but we can offer some general guidelines for learning from nature and leveraging its vast bank of knowledge.

Steps

1. Change Your Perspective

Using other techniques in this book, you have already ...