I hitchhiked to northern California, years ago, in an effort to find some Canadian friends with whom I had lived in Canada. I found them living with a swarm of people in the beautiful hills. After hugs, handshakes, and introductions, I asked for a cool drink of water. This topic shifted the conversation to a more serious tone.
Apparently, the water well plastic pipe connection to the old iron hand pump had come loose a week or more before my arrival leaving this somewhat nebulous group to borrow drinking water from neighbors a half-mile away.
For the duration of the broken pipe situation, attempts to retrieve the pipe, the top of which was eight to ten feet into the hole, were ongoing and varied. Yet the attempts to grasp the top portion of the pipe in order to haul the 30-foot, or so, length out of the hole, had basically taken the same failed approach: attempt to lasso the pipe.
The humorous definition of insanity was at work here: repeatedly doing the same things while expecting different results.
I was asked look over the situation and offer my two cents. To me, what did NOT work, was pretty clear.
Solution: Try the opposite.
By using nail, bent to form an off center mounting point for a length of lashing cord, I was able to secure and pull out the pipe in less than 15 minutes total. The pointy end of the nail was on the short side of the mount, so when suspended from a rope the pointed end would always be naturally higher.
The other key was to make the final length modified nail only slightly longer than the diameter of pipe. Then, feeding the makeshift device INTO the pipe, short end first, then yanking the cord to wedge the device against the inner walls of the pipe, a firm grasp in the pipe was established. The only tricky part was in feeding the device short end first into the pipe. We accomplished this with a temporary loose wrap of thread which held the long end of the nail against the cord giving us enough time to carefully feed it into the pipe.
How does this apply to design or marketing?
Sometimes a group dynamic is not a good thing; too many people standing around looking at trees without seeing the forest.
History shows that the best solutions don’t come from groups, from being stuck on stupid. Real change comes from those who don’t just THINK “different.” They ACT on their thinking, unswayed by those who think they’re crazy. Ask Steve Jobs.
Years ago, without the slightest hint that California would become my permanent home, I hitchhiked to northern California in an effort to find some Canadian friends with whom I had lived in Canada. I found them living in the beautiful hills with a swarm of people whose numbers and members seemed to change by the minute. My surprise visit created a happy reunion.
After hugs, handshakes, and introductions, I asked for a cool drink of water which immediately shifted the conversation to a more serious tone. The water well’s plastic pipe connection to the old iron hand pump had come loose a week or more before my arrival leaving this somewhat nebulous group high and dry.
The top of the roughly 30-foot length of pipe was located about 10 feet below the ground surface. Attempts to grasp it and haul it out of the hole, while varied, had basically taken the same failed approach: trying to lasso the pipe. The humorous definition of insanity was at work here: repeatedly doing the same things while expecting different results.
My Canadian pal suggested we look at it. What did not work, seemed pretty clear. Continue reading ‘Outside the box is getting crowded’
In the early days of desktop publishing — god, how I hated that term — one of the worst, yet most common design/typographic violations was to stretch type willy nilly in order to make it fit a space; some lunch-hour designer’s idea of “type fitting.”
