When should you think "inside" the box?

When should you think "inside" the box?

"Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box"
Thinking "outside the box" is one of the most widely promoted axioms in business. Kevin Coyne, Patricia Gorman Clifford, and Renée Dye propose that neither thinking outside the box nor analyzing your current box produces quality ideas.

Thinking outside the box, the authors propose, creates too wide a field of possibilities. Analyzing your current box by slicing and dicing existing data places too many limits on your team.

So what are you supposed to do? They say create new "boxes" in which to think. I have been in a LOT of brainstorming sessions and I have to agree with them. Here are some examples from agritourism to apply it to our industry.

Outside the Box
If I give a focus group of guests the task to "think outside the box" regarding  the Maze Fun Park, what data would I get back?

• Add a rollercoaster!
• A mechanical car wash because our driveways are dusty!
• A life-sized Transformer!
• Water fountains synchronized to music!

All those answers are, indeed, outside the box. Many of those new attractions would be pretty neat to add to the mix. What those answers would not do is build our brand of "Kid-powered, brain-powered fun on the farm". They are ideas, but ideas that leap too far from our mission, purpose and brand.

Chop the Box
If I give my creative staff the parameter that we are brainstorming about ONLY "corn maze designs", I'm going to be chopping a box we already know well, not moving forward on new products for our clients.

We may indeed come up with a number of new picture and theme options for corn maze designs, but we're not going to move the industry forward with those kind of limitations.

Inside New Boxes
If I give my creative staff a new "box", something different happens. In a recent brainstorming session we wanted to uncover new, innovative games that are based on image transfer (creating an image to complete a puzzle, prove you found a location, or add to a collection of images.)

Absolutely no means of image transfer, paper-type, writing instrument, game-style was out of bounds. (This session would not, however, have been the place to bring up new pedal-powered riding toys.)

Image transfer was the box we would work in. That brainstorming session produced three new products we'll launch through this email after prototyping is complete.

We stayed inside this new "box" to keep our focus on a specific product line extension. That focus kept us from wasting time creating, debunking and disposing of wild ideas we could never use, yet allowed us the freedom to reach beyond the products we already knew.

Choosing New Boxes
The artful balance comes in setting the parameters of your new box. Too restrictive and you won't find anything new. Too loose and the ideas become unusable.

As I proposed last time, knowing your goals, your purpose, and your brand are crucial to selecting your box's parameters. Choose something you already know well, maybe something you haven't changed in years.

Example: A few years ago, we looked at our birthday party programs. They simply were not selling despite kids continuing to have birthdays each year! Parents were griping about paying $8 per kid. We were griping about not making money.

We threw our birthday party program into a new box, added new ideas and packaging, brainstormed new options and solved the problem. We didn't add a rollercoaster. We hardly added anything! Now, the same parents griping about paying $8 per person, now happily pay $199.00 for the first 10 kids. You do the math.

Take your hayride or your corn maze, throw it into a new box, and kick it around. Call us if you need help. As you read Hugh's Reviews, you find that looking within your current products and services, thus staying “inside the box”, produces results more quickly than inventing something completely new.

Creating something brand new is much more challenging than looking within and refining, modifying, re-pricing, extending, or repurposing something you already have.

This might be just the season to do some new tricks with an old attraction in a new "box".

Have a great week. - Hugh