Thinking outside the box

The problem is that a majority of the professors in these colleges have an "I'm allways right and my way is best" attitude.

This discourages free thinking. The people with truly imaginative attitudes either drop out or start applying the blinders to get through.

By the time they hit the mainstream, they either didn't make it as engineers or they only know that the books are always right.

Another problem is that companies will only pay attention to new ideas brought up by highly educated people. The mail room clerk cannot get anyone to listen to his new idea for a mail delivery system that is integrated into the airconditioning and heating system because he doesn't have a college degree to prove that he knows what he is talking about.

I would rather the engineer was thinking of ways to improve the bridge while building it to current codes and specs. That way he may be able to make the next one safer than the previous one.

In principle, I agree. In practice, the engineer designing the bridge is limited by the codes. Innovation is risky, the money men won't permit it. The engineer takes a bridge design that is successful and built to code and he extends it, builds a longer bridge for the same level of loading or a heavier bridge for a higher level of load, he continues until distress or, sometimes, failure occurs. Then,there is an examination and it is realized that that technology has reached a limit and the door opens for innovation.

The days when a Thomas Telford could start with stone bridges, lead the way on to the design and construction of iron link suspension bridges, wire suspension bridges and design canals and port facilities in a lifetime are gone. I'm reminded of the story told of a physicist requesting a grant, and being asked, "Why so much, can't you do experiments with bits of pipe, like Rutherford?". He replied that Rutherford did all that could be done with bits of pipe. Telford, along with others made the big jumps before there were codes to limit them. Advances now require big bucks for the professors and testing etc.

Many years ago, there was a commentary about the Japanese vs the American education system and which was better. To summarize, it was felt that the Japanese system was too rigid; that it didn't allow for individualism. I believe it has changed or at least been made more liberal. I acknowledge that we need the average engineers to do the average improvements. I see a lot of foreign born engineers in the forefront of new technology. Are Indian doctors better than American doctors? Can the accomplishments of engineers, doctors, researchers and others be traced back to their country of origin or school? What causes someone to break out of their mold and blaze a new trail? A lot of questions. I don't think they can all be answered simply, but at least they may have a common link.

In teaching doctors, I think that particular industry has mastered the art of ensuring that the students stay inside the box. Otherwise, healing would be taught, and revenues to the pharmaceutical industry would drop. If you think this is a conspiracy, you aren't looking closely enough.

Chris

" and revenues to the pharmaceutical industry would drop."

I agree there. Pharmaceuticals and lawyers make all most of the vast majority of their money from people who are in distress. Conscience? Conscience? We don't need no stinking conscience!

BTW, didn't you omit either a "don't" or a "not" from your last sentence?

The problem is that some people want to push the boundaries before having an understanding of the basics.

the other side of the sword is, sometimes a little ignorance helps, when trying something new...but with common sense.

p911

One word... Bell Curve... okay thats two... but if you say it quickly...

Understanding the basics and problem solving all pertain to the bell curve. Most learning and most problems will be found under the peak of the bell curve. Sometimes problems are solved by less knowledge, little effort, and more intuition (left side of curve) and sometimes problems can only be found by the greatest genius and numerical brute force methods (ie: edison and the light bulb)

Chris

Good answer apart from Edison inventing the lightbulb.

I was referring to the story that he (and his group) tried a thousand different materials to make a functioning incandescent element that would survive. sorry if I wasn't clear.

Other than things like that I'm not a huge fan of him.

When a person thinks outside the box, that person applies basic knowledge, need, perseverance, vision, and most of all desperation. Things really haven't changed and the requirements will remain. Experience is often trumped by a fresh approach or vice versa. Unless you put your self in the position that creates the need, chances are you will remain mediocre and stop thinking that mediocre is a bad word. Most of us are mediocre most of the time.

"Only a very small percentage of college graduates achieve great success."

I suspect only a very small percentage of non-graduates achieve great success, as well. I do not believe it is appropriate to blame the Universities for stifling creativity. It is a much broader cultural effect...

Machiavelli was right after all. It is difficult to bring new ideas to fruition. Often perseverance, money and mostly luck are needed, no matter how good the innovative and ingenious the idea might be. In the words of Edgar Johnson, "in an acquisitive society the form that selfishness predominantly takes is monetary greed" . MBAs and accountants hold the money box.

Cheers

Vince

MBAs and accountants are not always wrong, but often enough they are limited in vision and naive about physical principles.

Not always wrong? I suppose we could find a few instances in history where they were actually useful.

While someone needs to control the funds it is best done with a long term view - not with an eye on the next annual bonus.

We must also consider the youth(At least in the USA.) A large percentage of them,US, are overweight from microwave pizza rolls, video games, fast food, allowances from parents, and they want to make a living without actually using their hands. Don't misunderstand me. I firmly believe "The mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Recreational drugs have infested our country. Todays youth call it "Farming." They rob our medicine cabinets, sit in a circle and get HIGH. Not all of them mind you. But I would have to say I believe the ones that end up in mediocre jobs will relate to this post. And the real kicker is WE allow it to happen. The trades are where its at right now. We're a dying breed.

Present human life is so comfort with the deliveries of past generations. There seems to be a sort of feeling of contentment among the educators that mere reading and writing exams are more than enough for getting degrees.

Plagiarism the main devil behind new outlook research activities.

Independent thinking and out of box thinking are the only en routes to solve our present issues.

Literature survey based researches may give guidelines to research and they are not ultimate and lead to narrow visions of the researchers.

Study based research should a part of research and some how it seems to be the only way of research these days. Result oriented finishings and solid solutions derived should be the criteria for award of P.hDs and not ' may be due to this that' based findings. Certainties and decisions should come out from research.

If people take to realistic, originality and risk based thinkings, surely out of box thinking will be the saviour to all our problems.

New thinkings should be encouraged, experimented and nurtured without any mindset biases.

Break throughs and solutions are out of box thinking deliveries and not followed route deliveries.

I've often been told I march to the beat of a different drummer. I often approach a problem upside down and backward, instead of straight on like most. (It tends to give a different perspective!) The company I worked at before got really big on the Six Sigma Black Belt program. I interviewed the program director and he explained it to me, how they taught a logical, systematic approach to problem solving. I countered, that was not my approach, that I did things differently, with great success. I blew him away when I said I thrived on chaos and disorder, even to the point of seeing a neat, orderly row of encyclopedia volumes and pulling two out and replacing them upside down and backwards, out of order. (I was pulling his chain here, just for fun). I went on to tell him that teaching everyone the same methodical approach could lead to lemming-think, where the head lemming sees things at first glance, other lemmings get the same view and follow him over the cliff. A "non-systematic" view is desirable to gain a different perspective! I declined to participate. Later, my mgr asked again about putting me in and the 6-sigma guy told him I'd set the program back 6 months! When they said "Think outside the box", they just gave you a bigger box to think in. Since then, I've been laid off from that company, been a contract worker, and finally started my own consulting group with a R&D lab and pilot plant and have clients in several states and overseas as well. That different drummer I march to has picked up his own rock band!

This has become a superb thread. Deserved the 5-star rating.Thank you ronseto.

i believe that today, thinking outside the box has become essential in almost all walks of life. And i believe that it is not something that you need someone else to teach you. It is perhaps a 'paradigm shift' (pardon the jargon), a change in one's attitude. Results will be quickly visible in a problem-solving situation, not so easy if you are inventing something. Advances in technology have made life more difficult for inventors i feel. The guy who invented the wheel starting from a square wheel had only two ways to go - either go for a triangular one or a pentagonal one Not so easy now

Thinking out 'side of the box' means different things to different people and different cultures.

I do not like plant cultures that prescribe conformance - makes life simple for the boss but guarantees that the company will not make progress.

I believe that 99% of the advances today are small tweaks of existing processes or plants. In many ways these are the most important in day to day life as they give you more from existing plants or equipment.

Most people can never play the outside game - they depend on the system to survive.

Usually when I hear "Think outside the box," it's an indication that someone is trying to sell me something (not you, Ronseto, just in general). For example, we have ISO (or ANSI, as you like) inside the box for drawings; is it really desirable for some innovator to suddenly decide to use a new style? We have AISI inside the box; should we encourage using 1008 steel on bridges to be novel? So, there's great value inside the box.

But, new applications of what's in the boxes is of value. Things like marrying cell phones and the net to distance diagnostics of systems beats the heck out of field service calls (OK, I know these go by all kinds of xxxBUS names, but this is how it started).

The big problem (In my completely arrogant opinion) in Unis is that most of the professors have never actually worked with any of the stuff they teach. I ran across a professor not long ago teaching electronics and having the students measure Ohmic resistance with a linear regression of V vs I values, and he was marking them wrong when they forced the y-intercept to zero! An idiot teaching a whole new generation of idiots who will then geometrically teach. . ., well you get the idea.

First off I like to say that there are some very good, professors, teachers and instructors out there. that are fantastic educators. They make a great effort to keep the students up to date that prepare and give their students the tools they need.

Schools tend to (at least in my day) turn out engineers and other disciplines with "blinders".

With that said, I like to say also that there are also professors, teachers and instructors out there where that a saying applies "If you can't do, you teach".

p911

Thinking 'outside the box' has nothing to do with challenging ANSI, ISO or standards. It simply means that just because things have been done one way forever does not mean that is the only way or the best way.

When many big companies talk about this topic it is more of a joke than anything else. Too often they reward their staff to not challenge established methods and ideas.

By definition the educational system would have difficulty teaching this concept.

Ron, you must be aware that on this blog, you are dealing with a population that by definition are "out of the box" thinkers. Please don't expect the results of this poll to be universally applicable.

Out of the box here? I sure haven't noticed much of that! Many of the people here are very conformist and get upset when others challenge them.

Thinking out of the box requires experience by the way! Out of the box without experience is impossible.

I totally disagree...Sometimes someone without any experience in your field can come up with an idea you NEVER would have thought of. It was a 7 year old city kid that gave my (farmer) dad the idea to mount a hay spreader UNDER a swather instead of pulling said spreader with a tractor afterwards.

That is thinking out of the box? The kid didn't even know where the box was - he was just talking. They were mounting conditioners under swathers 50 years back. I had a lot of help from people outside my field over the years and virtually all of it was useless. No problem - probably 99% of workers have never had an original idea.

Have you heard of a guy by the name of Steven Covey? The company I worked for bought into his program which was a course in leadership. I don't know what it cost, but I'm sure it cost the company a lot. This was 15 years ago. All the engineering staff and managers had to attend. I don't know if it did any good overall. The company has changed hands since. It appeared to me that the program was trying to get people back in the box, a term that wasn't used 15 years ago. The pressure of my job kept me and many others from trying to fully implement the seven steps to success. I got laid off a year later along with 500 others in a massive downsizing. Covey is still to be seen on TV informercials selling get rich schemes. The only thing I got out of his course was a good lunch served in the executive dining room.

I wonder if anyone else has had any experience with Covey.

I did the Covey course. The useful thing I got out of it (don't remember the step) is that some things are beyond your control - quit screwing with 'em! I think he said it better than me.

Never try to do with a screwdriver the job a chisel has to do. Why knock schools or even ask this question in relation to a school. A good school should try just to teach you how to read, write, add and subtract. To many schools are not doing that now and getting all fuzzy, kind of like your thinking. Those that can-- will think out of the box and if they have the basics in place their thinking will be sound. Not idiot dreams looking for a PC government hand out due to AA and feel good about yourself BS.

America better start getting on with the real world. We are now reaping the benefits of 60+ years of "Social justice" and it is killing all those fuzzy people produced who are looking to be cared for as a result of this kind of BS. "Thinking out of the box" is not even a legitimate question with todays education levels. Is anybody able to think period would be a better question to ask.

I agree. The job of education is to "learn how to learn". When education is successful a student can research and continue learning throughout their life. They have the tools to explore and continue to expand their knowledge base. Those tools allow critical thinking "outside the box".

That cynical view of managers is all too often correct. But not always. Though a majority of managers I have worked under were dubious, I have also experienced sterling management.

As has been said, sometimes we have to be inventive in order to design an item that conforms to code. Working outside of the box to produce something that will fit within the box, so to speak.

I have met very few people who could be good managers and engineers simultaneously. The engineer concentrates on the information he lacks for making a decision and would put off making it if he was permitted.The manager concentrates on the information he does have, on which, he makes his decision.

The problem is that some managers get to enjoy making decisions without enough information so much that they interfere with the progress of the work. We are sometimes forced by the manager to proceed without all the facts, and then do it all over anew the information arrives.

"to proceed without all the facts, and then do it all over anew"

I have to admit I've quit a job for a similar clusterfreak... only it was worse. I was a quality auditor, and would have be representing the mess at an audit... I felt like I got left holding the bag, without any authority to have done it better. I left that day, extremely furious, and never went back.

Chris

I have to laugh at times when I read 'thinking outside the box':

1) When a large company utilizes the word - company wide especially

2) It ıs used to support stupid ideas

3) The bean counters use it to try to influence engineering

4) Management uses it in general

Great new technologies in the steel industry (the one I know best) are not going to come from someone without significant experience either in the business or in a related field. There are too many factors involved that are not apparent until the existing tech is understood.

The steel industry underwent a major "thinking outside the box" moment about twenty years ago when SOMEONE got the bright idea to build and operate "mini-mills" that were much more energy efficient and capable of producing much smaller runs very cost effectively. Even if you needed to make as much as you USED to do, you did it in smaller batches a lot less expensively AND you could also go after projects that you could not afford to make before.

Is "thinking outside the box" what we used to call "lateral thinking" 50 years ago?

If so, it's not exactly a new concept.

Throughout my career, I have often asked- "What if...?" or "Can we try...?" or some other version of the same thought. I have very little time and even less acceptance of "rules of thumb" or "that's the way we have always done it" without having the underlying rationale for those solutions clearly explained.

Because of that approach, I have won international energy awards, developed systems that operate with 50% higher efficiency than "standard" systems, have developed equipment that can recover heat from sources that everyone else has given up on, and am a prototype test away from having developed an entirely new way to make electricity with no pollution and less than 25% of the cost of other generation systems.

If you start with the concept that "engineering" is "applied physics" and then work very hard to understand the "physics" of machines or systems, then you can develop better ways to do things with the full understanding that your "new" results will work because they fit "the rules"- even if others can't see how you can do what you have done (because they only know a FEW of the rules).

A lot of engineering schools work hard to train students on how to apply "current" formulas or methodologies, and explain what actions various machines take, but put very little emphasis on the "why" of those ideas or results. More emphasis on physics- the "why"- will lead to more innovation.

A couple of quick examples-

Data processing air conditioners use about 50% more airflow per ton than standard HVAC systems. When they need to dehumidify, they turn on more cooling to reduce supply air temperature then turn on reheat to kill the excess cooling to maintain room temps. I developed a system that REDUCED air flow if humidity got too high. The reduced air flow required cooler air to meet the space cooling load (and also extracted the moisture). When the humidity was satisfied, the air went back to high speed and the cooling operated normally. This saved 50% excess cooling and high levels of reheat energy and paid for itself in 4 months.

When you move products in pipes with air, formulas I found indicated that you can lift material vertically for less than 1/3 the energy needed to move it horizontally (because the material falls, has to be re-accelerated and repeats). I lifted the material 16 feet higher than it would be delivered horizontally, then turned the pipe down and made the "horizontal" distance in 1 second (the time it takes for material to "fall" 16 feet). This cut the energy required by 40% AND allowed for less expensive fans and ductwork.

It is all in understanding (and applying) the physics.