Outside Look

I really enjoy stories about people who bring a completely outside perspective to what appears to be an intractable problem (and thus the name of the blog and consulting service). One of the things that I notice time and again, even in myself, is the ‘curse of knowledge’ - the tendency to lock in to a myopic view of a problem or industry, and stop looking for solutions outside the traditional box.

It takes some effort and purposeful attention to get out of this view. I hate the phrase, but we need to ‘think outside the box’ sometimes. This story about John Kanzius, a business executive and radio technician who comes up with a new potential method of treating cancer is a great example. The story is a bit sensational, but reading past that it is clear Mr. Kanzius took a problem, motivation, and ideas completely outside the accepted or expected and brought a new idea. It might not work, but then again it might.

We should always challenge ourselves to look at our day to day problems from a different angle, and try to apply our knowledge and experience to new problems.