Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

CHAPTER 7Step One: What’s Going On?

Step 1: What’s Going On?

Step 2: What’s Success?

Step 3: What’s the Question?

Step 4: Generate Answers

Step 5: Forge the Solution

Step 6: Align Resources

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Step One: What’s Going On?

Puzzles, Probes, and Possibilities

The exact date isn’t recorded, but I imagine it must have been a crisp January day. The light was perfect for taking photographs. A successful 34-year-old physicist inventor had decided to take his family to New Mexico for a short vacation. He needed time to think. While working for the National Defense Research ...