Resources are anything. Japanese solution to pirates
This Japanese solution for stopping pirates from boarding ships is an excellent example of using readily available resources to innovate.
Pirates make money by capturing people or property then either hold it for ransom or attempt to sell it. Either way they need to get on board the ship to achieve their goal. Sinking the ship or killing the passengers isn’t profitable so pirates avoid that.
Water is definitely a readily available resource to a ship. Ships also have pumps used for fighting fires, cleaning the decks, and removing unwanted water.
The Anti-Piracy Water Curtain uses what already exists on a ship including what the crew knows how to do. It also doesn’t require many people operate so existing crew can turn on the water curtain and still do their normal job.
Resources are 1 of the 7 Elements of an Outcome. Combining the 7 Elements with 15 Alternatives reveals 105 types of innovation for any Outcome. Learn the entire Predictive Innovation method.
Cheap Natural Gas Transportation Idea
Poor people in China transport natural gas in large plastic bags. If this could be made safe it’s a very low cost alternative to expensive pipelines. Natural gas could be quickly and cheaply distributed to places without infrastructure.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108346/Chinese-villagers-carry-giant-balloons-stolen-natural-gas-heat-homes.html
Running underground pipes is a large investment. The small amount of natural gas these people would use doesn’t make that investment worth while.
The danger is if the gas is ignited. Three things are required to cause this danger, enough oxygen for ignition, natural gas mixed with oxygen, spark or flame.
A very simple solution is to put the natural gas bag inside another bag filled with carbon-dioxide. This would prevent ignition. CO2 could also be used to prevent an explosion while filling the bag with natural gas. First fill the bag with CO2 then use the natural gas to force out the CO2 into another empty bag of the same size. When the second bag is full you know the first bag is filled with natural gas. The process could then be repeated with the second bag.
Creativity and Innovation Can Be Learned
I make a distinction between creativity and innovation. I define innovation as “Profitably satisfying unmet desires.” Profitable doesn’t just mean money, it means better satisfying the desires of everyone involved. A new device or way of doing something won’t be accepted unless it makes things better for everyone who is needed to make it happen.
Creativity is newness without the need to satisfy a desire other than the maker. There is lots of creative stuff that is just horrible and no one likes it. This is why there is an expression “Starving artist”. There is a distinction between creating for no real purpose and creating to improve something. Another part of innovation is until you put the idea into use innovation has not occurred. You must actually do something to achieve innovation, not just have an idea.
The similarity between Creativity and Innovation is information. Both innovation and creativity start with an idea, information. The foundation of information is comparison. Two things are similar or different. Computers store and process information using a very simple comparison, same or different. All information can be encoded using that binary process.
The human mind doesn’t do this in a linear process, it makes hundreds or perhaps millions of comparisons at the same time. So what seems to be an idea “coming into your mind” is noticing a similarity or difference. You recognize some connection then put those things together and that is what we call creativity.
As is often the case, when you ask someone who is very talented how they do something, they can’t describe it. Often it takes someone else watching and recording each little step then asking “Why did you do that?” to figure out the process the talented person instinctively follows.
As an example how do you walk? You learned how to walk before you learned how to talk so you probably never thought about how to describe the process. How do you control the dozens of muscles to respond to your body shifting and falling forward then catching yourself and pushing off again? That natural “instinctive” behavior is something you learned how to do. And interestingly you can intentionally learn how to do it better.
The exact same thing applies to thinking and “creativity”. Everyone has some basic skill they acquired at an early age. You can develop and improve that skill through focused learning.
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