da Vinci and the 40 Answers

The Book - Da Vinci and the 40 Answers

This book is based on the original, always sold out, workshop at the Wizard Academy. This workshop is now available to your organization. We bring the workshop to you.

Watch the TV interview about the "Da Vinci and the 40 Answers" book on the popular talk show What's Going On with Angela Bozorth. Click the TV below.

 

   

Just released; DaVinci and the 40 Answers.
A Playbook for Creativity and Fresh Ideas - $19.95

See Inside (Sample Chapters)

Buzz about the Book...

"Wonderful Book!
Fun, practical, and enjoyable, Mark Fox's book deserves a wide audience."

Roger von Oech, Author of "A Whack on the Side of the Head," and the "Creative Whack Pack"

The Seamless Brand
TV Interview on "What's Going On"
Radio Interview on WOND with Jeff Whitaker
Radio Interview on WLPR with Len Clark
Interview in Mix Magazine

Da Vinci and The 40 Answers

This is not a “_______ for Dummies” book.  This book requires you to think.  Consider yourself forewarned.

When my wife decides to read, she usually picks up a Daniel Steele novel because, “it doesn’t require any real thought to enjoy it.” That’s the same scoop I get when I ask her why she watches re-runs of “Mayberry R.F.D.” and “Little House on the Prairie” before dinner every night. My wife is extremely intelligent, but after work she likes to give her mind a rest, which of course we all need to do at times.

 

This is a business book on creativity, innovation, marketing, and advertising. This book is intended to teach you how to run your business and life better, and the pages that follow do require some real thought. The ideas and concepts presented here are intended to make you think about things differently. That requires change, and for most of us, change is hard.

 

The Start of Something Magical

“The two of us should put a new class together.” Those were Roy’s first words when I answered the phone in the summer of 2006. Roy doesn’t usually call me out of the blue, so I knew this was an important and serious project.

 

Roy H. Williams is a lifelong student of humanity, and a best-selling author many times over who spent decades asking, "What makes people do the things they do?"

 

Roy is also the founder of the Wizard Academy, a 21st Century Business School.  Wizard Academy is an absolute one-of-a-kind institution. The class Roy was referring to that day, da Vinci and the 40 Answers, was developed at the academy. This course is currently taught both at the academy and at many corporations, organizations, and non-profits like yours.

 

My default mode is left-brain logical and Roy’s is more right-brain creative. This makes for an interesting mix of personalities and perspectives in a dual-instructed course. Most people’s personality and predominate mode of thinking favors one side of the brain, but both of us enjoy spending time in our other, lesser-used hemisphere. We love to spend time in both worlds, and desire for you to do the same. That is one of the aims of this book: to convince you that you need to find a better state of balance by using both sides of your brain.

 

The first half of the book will cover the “basics” of creativity and innovation: relearning how to play, being inspired to play, seeing the value in play, and examining the discoveries of people who were able to escape into their right brain and see beyond societal definitions of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thinking.

 

We’ll examine right-brain logic through the eyes of several great thinkers: Leonardo da Vinci, Genrich Altshuller, Buckminster Fuller, and Walt Disney. I believe these basics were the foundation for these innovators’ creativity. These men may not have used my exact terms to describe the principles of creativity, or even been conscious they were using them, but I feel strongly that these basics are the common denominator of their great minds. This section should give you a solid starting point to help you understand and practice creativity and innovation.

 

In the second half of this book, we’ll cover the “tactics”: Real-life solutions to universal problems. At the end of this book, you’ll understand the tactical approach to applying creativity based on the 40 Universal Answers, a series of specific techniques and perspectives. The 40 Universal Answers are founded in principles of TRIZ – the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving.

 

TRIZ began with Genrikh Altshuller. In his study of hundreds of thousands of patents, Altshuller determined there are only about 1,500 basic problems – and each of these problems can be solved by applying one or more of the 40 universal answers.

 

I have found the principles of TRIZ to be an extremely useful set of tools, but have not been totally satisfied with the way TRIZ is taught to most students and readers. TRIZ is frequently taught from a very technical point of view, which leaves most students feeling overwhelmed. The technical view is simply too complicated for most people.

 

One of the goals of this book is to explain the 40 Answers, or principles, as “lenses,” tools you can use to view the problem or opportunity from a unique perspective. The lenses are not just beneficial for technical disciplines. The lenses translate just as well as solutions to social, economic, political, and environmental issues, as well as marketing, sales, and operations. The lenses of TRIZ can be used to solve any problem, in any part of your business and life.

 

My hope is to explain all these concepts with examples that are relatively easy to digest and apply. You will also see many of my own experiences described in this book as examples of times the basics and fundamentals have worked for me.

 

At the end of many sections, you’ll find “Words of the Wizard,” insights from Wizard Academy founder and one of the top business thinkers of today, Roy H. Williams. In many cases you will realize the immediate association between Words of the Wizard and the correlating section, while in others the association is not so straightforward. This is intentional. In those cases where the connection is not transparent it will require some thought to connect the two ideas, but the connections are always there. These supplemental sections support the concept of duality. Can two different meanings of the same thing both be right? That’s for you to decide.

 

My hope is that the information within this book inspires you to draw your own connections and conclusions, and come up with creative ideas and thoughts even beyond what I intended. I want you to learn to take your own mind to a higher level of creative thought. This book is designed to give you the ability to “think outside of the box” at the snap of the fingers. In short, you’ll be handed the keys to innovation.

 

It is my greatest hope that da Vinci and the 40 Answers helps provide a foundation of both basic and tactical ways to apply creativity and innovation in your world. Onward!

 

The Book - Da Vinci and the 40 Answers

This book is based on the original, always sold out, workshop at the Wizard Academy. This workshop is now available to your organization. We bring the workshop to you.

Watch the TV interview about the "Da Vinci and the 40 Answers" book on the popular talk show What's Going On with Angela Bozorth. Click the TV below.

 

   

Just released; DaVinci and the 40 Answers.
A Playbook for Creativity and Fresh Ideas - $19.95

See Inside (Sample Chapters)

 

Da Vinci and The 40 Answers

This is not a “_______ for Dummies” book.  This book requires you to think.  Consider yourself forewarned.

 

When my wife decides to read, she usually picks up a Daniel Steele novel because, “it doesn’t require any real thought to enjoy it.” That’s the same scoop I get when I ask her why she watches re-runs of “Mayberry R.F.D.” and “Little House on the Prairie” before dinner every night. My wife is extremely intelligent, but after work she likes to give her mind a rest, which of course we all need to do at times.

 

This is a business book on creativity, innovation, marketing, and advertising. This book is intended to teach you how to run your business and life better, and the pages that follow do require some real thought. The ideas and concepts presented here are intended to make you think about things differently. That requires change, and for most of us, change is hard.

 

The Start of Something Magical

“The two of us should put a new class together.” Those were Roy’s first words when I answered the phone in the summer of 2006. Roy doesn’t usually call me out of the blue, so I knew this was an important and serious project.

 

Roy H. Williams is a lifelong student of humanity, and a best-selling author many times over who spent decades asking, "What makes people do the things they do?"

 

Roy is also the founder of the Wizard Academy, a 21st Century Business School.  Wizard Academy is an absolute one-of-a-kind institution. The class Roy was referring to that day, da Vinci and the 40 Answers, was developed at the academy. This course is currently taught both at the academy and at many corporations, organizations, and non-profits like yours.

 

My default mode is left-brain logical and Roy’s is more right-brain creative. This makes for an interesting mix of personalities and perspectives in a dual-instructed course. Most people’s personality and predominate mode of thinking favors one side of the brain, but both of us enjoy spending time in our other, lesser-used hemisphere. We love to spend time in both worlds, and desire for you to do the same. That is one of the aims of this book: to convince you that you need to find a better state of balance by using both sides of your brain.

 

The first half of the book will cover the “basics” of creativity and innovation: relearning how to play, being inspired to play, seeing the value in play, and examining the discoveries of people who were able to escape into their right brain and see beyond societal definitions of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thinking.

 

We’ll examine right-brain logic through the eyes of several great thinkers: Leonardo da Vinci, Genrich Altshuller, Buckminster Fuller, and Walt Disney. I believe these basics were the foundation for these innovators’ creativity. These men may not have used my exact terms to describe the principles of creativity, or even been conscious they were using them, but I feel strongly that these basics are the common denominator of their great minds. This section should give you a solid starting point to help you understand and practice creativity and innovation.

 

In the second half of this book, we’ll cover the “tactics”: Real-life solutions to universal problems. At the end of this book, you’ll understand the tactical approach to applying creativity based on the 40 Universal Answers, a series of specific techniques and perspectives. The 40 Universal Answers are founded in principles of TRIZ – the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving.

 

TRIZ began with Genrikh Altshuller. In his study of hundreds of thousands of patents, Altshuller determined there are only about 1,500 basic problems – and each of these problems can be solved by applying one or more of the 40 universal answers.

 

I have found the principles of TRIZ to be an extremely useful set of tools, but have not been totally satisfied with the way TRIZ is taught to most students and readers. TRIZ is frequently taught from a very technical point of view, which leaves most students feeling overwhelmed. The technical view is simply too complicated for most people.

 

One of the goals of this book is to explain the 40 Answers, or principles, as “lenses,” tools you can use to view the problem or opportunity from a unique perspective. The lenses are not just beneficial for technical disciplines. The lenses translate just as well as solutions to social, economic, political, and environmental issues, as well as marketing, sales, and operations. The lenses of TRIZ can be used to solve any problem, in any part of your business and life.

 

My hope is to explain all these concepts with examples that are relatively easy to digest and apply. You will also see many of my own experiences described in this book as examples of times the basics and fundamentals have worked for me.

 

At the end of many sections, you’ll find “Words of the Wizard,” insights from Wizard Academy founder and one of the top business thinkers of today, Roy H. Williams. In many cases you will realize the immediate association between Words of the Wizard and the correlating section, while in others the association is not so straightforward. This is intentional. In those cases where the connection is not transparent it will require some thought to connect the two ideas, but the connections are always there. These supplemental sections support the concept of duality. Can two different meanings of the same thing both be right? That’s for you to decide.

 

My hope is that the information within this book inspires you to draw your own connections and conclusions, and come up with creative ideas and thoughts even beyond what I intended. I want you to learn to take your own mind to a higher level of creative thought. This book is designed to give you the ability to “think outside of the box” at the snap of the fingers. In short, you’ll be handed the keys to innovation.

 

It is my greatest hope that da Vinci and the 40 Answers helps provide a foundation of both basic and tactical ways to apply creativity and innovation in your world. Onward!

 

Submit your Success Story

My next book, currently in the works, is called da Vinci and 40 Answers, Success Stories. I am collecting stories from readers who took the initiative, applied some of the lessons in this book, and made a difference.

 

Send me your story and you’ll get some really great marketing and PR for your company for free. Your company and story may be showcased in:

 

·        The book – da Vinci and the 40 Answers, Success Stories

·        My corporate workshops

·        My keynote presentations

 

Submitting your success story is a great way to get some additional exposure for your company in the most positive light imaginable. You will be showcased as a leading-edge thinker and doer in your industry. You’ll be recognized as a leader in creativity and innovation.

 

Send me an e-mail or give me a call and we can talk about your success !

 

email; info@slyasafox.com

phone: 321-626-4786

TRIZ - Weight Compensation

One of the valuable TRIZ tools are the "40 Principles" or what I like to call the "40 Lenses."

One of the lenses is called "Weight Compensation." It is were you use the lift of one thing to lift the other. And it works with all sorts of challenges and issues. See for yourself.

TRIZ - Composite Materials

The final lens, Composite Materials, is defined as changing from uniform to composite materials. For instance, composite epoxy resin/carbon fiber golf club shafts are lighter, stronger, and more flexible than metal shafts.

• Reinforced concrete
• Honeycomb structures
• Airplanes and composites
• A cardboard box
Wood – The worlds best overall composite

Have you heard of the Space Elevator project for placing satellites in orbit without the need for rockets? 

The space elevator “concept” has been around for a long time, but never practical until now.

The analogy is this; take a ball and string. If you tie the string to the ball and swing the ball around, the string will get tight and the ball remains at a fixed distance from your hand due to centrifugal force.

The earth is spinning around at a thousand miles an hour. If you had a really long string (50,000 miles) and a ball at the end of it and tied it to the ground, the same centrifugal force of the earth spinning around at a 1000  miles per hour would do the same thing; hold the string tight, straight upwards towards space!

Then satellites could crawl up the string and let go of themselves in orbit.

The problem is there’s never been a “string” material that is light enough and strong enough to not fall back to earth due to gravity – until now.

We have come full circle back the Buckminster Fuller. Throughout the history of modern science, carbon has only come in 2 forms; graphite and diamond. Now there is a 3rd.  It is not new, it has always existed in nature but science has just missed it until now.

Bucky Balls were discovered in 1985 by Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley at the University of Sussex and Rice University, and are named after Richard Buckminster Fuller.

Because this “new” form of carbon frighten resembles Buck’s geodesic dome, the scientists have named it Bucky Balls.

Bucky balls are the lightest and strongest material man has ever known. So strong and so light, the Space Elevator concept can become a reality. Along with a billion other new products.

Just Google Space Elevator; you’ll be amazed.

TRIZ Lens - Inert Atmosphere

The principle of Inert Atmosphere is typically applied as follows:

1. Replace a normal environment with an inert one.
     a. i.e. Prevent degradation of a hot metal filament by using an argon atmosphere

2. Add neutral parts, or inert additives to an object.
     a. i.e. Increase the volume of powdered detergent by adding inert ingredients. This makes the detergent easier to measure with conventional tools.

We were once moving 300,000 lb. rocket segments around a brand new building at the Kennedy Space Center. When the segments come from Utah, there are dozens of accessories that have to be added to them be fore they are ready to fly. Of course, being a new building, the cranes and structure had not been checked out yet. We didn’t want to be testing the reliability of the new building with 300,000 lb pieces of dynamite, so we replaced the Ammonium Perchlorate in fuel recipe with potassium chloride, an inert substance. The potassium chloride still made the fuel look and feel like a real propellant, but it couldn’t burn. Because the substance was inert, we were able to perform many safety operation checks on the facility.

A fire extinguisher is another example of Inert Atmosphere.  A Halon fire suppression system works because it takes the 3 components of fire; fuel, spark, and oxygen and chemically reacts with them to make them inert.

Can you make a hostile environment more “inert” by eliminating the troublemaker? You can do so by approaching them ahead of time and making the situation more inert for the rest of the team so you can actually get something done. Handle them separately.

What is the cheapest and easiest way to improve a boring or inert room, office space, or building ? Paint the walls.

TRIZ Lens - Strong Oxidant

The principle of Strong Oxidants is usually applied as follows:

1. Replace common air with oxygen-enriched air.
     a. i.e. Scuba diving with Nitrox or other non-air mixtures for extended endurance

2. Replace enriched air with pure oxygen.
     a. i.e. Cut at a higher temperature using an oxy-acetylene torch

3. Use ionized oxygen
     a. i.e. Ionize air to trap pollutants in an air cleaner

4. Replace ozonized or ionized oxygen with ozone.
     a. i.e. Speed up chemical reactions by ionizing the gas before use

Strong Oxidants essentially relates to increasing or decreasing the concentration of oxygen in an environment. This lens can be applied especially liberally, and does not necessarily have to relate to the element of oxygen.

Spark Your Creativity
Instead, consider oxygen as an initiative or spark that changes the environment.

A student in my class once asked if I was a gamer or if I knew anything about game-theory training and the ways gamers design games. Although I know almost nothing about the topic, his theory was fascinating because there’s a great deal of similarity between game design and Strong Oxidants. The programmer has to make the game interesting to keep players interested in playing to the next level. They also have to make the game challenging enough to keep the player’s attention; however, the game can’t be too challenging or players will give up and stop playing. There has to be an oxidizing “spark” that keeps players intrigued or else the game will fail.

Guest speakers, seminars, and conferences can also be a strong oxidant. Sending employees off to a convention can spark creativity and drastically change the work environment.

The jester from ancient times is also an example of a Strong Oxidant. The jester’s primary role was that of a comedian, but the jester was also a war consultant to the king. In fact, the jester was the only person who was allowed to argue with the generals in front of the king. The generals could come up with a big master plan of how to attack the enemy, only for the jester to laugh and say, “Let’s just not show up for a few months and let the soldiers starve to death.” (By the way, that plan has actually been used to great success several times throughout history.) The jester was an oxidant because he was allowed to come in and mix things up and tell people that their plan was crazy.

How can you spark creativity and innovation in your business?

TRIZ Lens - Phase Transition

Thermal expansion is usually defined as:

1. The use of thermal expansion, or contraction, of materials.
     a. i.e. Fit a tight joint together by cooling the inner part to contract, heating the outer part to expand, putting the joint together, and returning to equilibrium.

2. If thermal expansion is being used, use multiple materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion.
     a. i.e. The basic leaf-spring thermostat uses two metals with different coefficients of expansion. The metals are links so that it bends one way when warmer than normal and the opposite way when cooler.

An easy way to explain thermal expansion is to consider the problem of a tight jar lid. If you can’t undo a lid, you can always heat up the jar to loosen the lid. Similarly, many people use torches to loosen up tight bolts.

My airplane engine is another great example of Thermal Expansion. One of the biggest problems with Cessna aircraft-type engines, also known as combustion engines, is you can shock cool them. If you cut the power and descend to quickly, the engine is cooling very quickly outside while the piston inside is still hot. You end up shrinking the engine around the piston, and you can actually make the engine fail. Pilots have to be very careful upon descent in a piston airplane to avoid engine failure.

The engine in my plane actually uses a combination of water-cooled and air-cooled heads. Because water takes so much longer to undergo a drastic temperature change, you can’t shock cool the engine.

A less literal application of Thermal Expansion is mixing up team members in group projects. Paring someone who is “hot” in their career, with someone who’s not, will encourage creativity and productivity in the less outstanding employee.

How could you look through the lens of Thermal Expansion to improve your product or service?

TRIZ Lens - Phase Transition

A Phase Transition uses phenomena occurring during phase transitions, such as volume changes and the loss or absorption of heat. For example, unlike most other liquids, water expands when frozen.

Hannibal and Hot Air Balloons
Hannibal is reputed to have used this principle when marching on Rome. There were large rocks blocking his passage through the Alps. Hannibal supposedly poured water in the cracks of the rocks at night. The cold night air froze the water, and the expansion to a solid state split the rocks into small pieces that could be easily pushed aside.

Think about the way refrigerators and condensers work. These machines use the phase transition of gas to a liquid. As high-pressure, superheated vapor travels through the condenser, the vapor loses heat and undergoes a phase transition to become a cooled liquid. The heat can then be extracted and used to heat a home. In a refrigerator, the heat is taken from inside the fridge and released into the environment. Have you ever felt the warm air on your feet while standing in front of the refrigerator? The heat is the byproduct of the phase transition.

One of the biggest selling points of Guinness beer is the creaminess of the drink. The creamy texture is achieved by injecting nitrogen into the beer. The nitrogen changes the phase of the beer, making it a more gaseous, and creamy solution. The phase transition of the beer gives it unique properties not found in other ales.

Did you know that hot air balloons run on propane? Most people think of propane as the gas or vapor stored in their barbecue grill tank. However, the average hot air balloon is approximately 90,000 cubic feet and requires a lot of pounds per second of fuel. A standard propane tank doesn’t work because you have to burn a lot of propane quickly to be able to generate enough energy to heat the entire balloon.

You can’t burn vapor and have enough energy per second, and you can’t run vapor from the tank to the burner because you can’t move enough pounds per second. So, hot air balloons use propane tanks that differ from your traditional barbecue grill tanks. These tanks allow liquid propane to come out of the tanks, up to the burner, and run coils around the flame in such a way that you’re moving liquid in a much stronger and larger mass up to the burner. The propane changes from a liquid to a vapor at the flame point.

The only way to get enough pounds per second of energy to the burner is to have a phase transition and turn the propane from a liquid to a gas immediately before it is burned. Hot air balloons require that the propane undergo a phase transition.

Would a phase transition make your product or service more efficient or profitable?

TRIZ Lens - Parameter Changes

The principle of Parameter Change is usually applied in one of four ways:

1. Change an object’s physical state to a gas, liquid, or solid.
     a. i.e. Freeze the liquid centers of candies and then dip the centers in melted chocolate, rather than handling the messy, gooey, hot liquid.

2. Change the concentration or consistency.
     a. i.e. Liquid soup is more concentrated than bar soap, makes it easier to dispense in the correct amount, and is more sanity when shared by more than one person.

3. Change the degree of flexibility
     a. i.e. Vulcanize rubber to change its flexibility and durability

4. Change the temperature
     a. i.e. Lower the temperature of medical specimens to preserve them for later analysis

Melts in your Mouth, Not in Your Hands
Once again, the medical community provides a great example of the application of this lens. Medical plaster, used to make casts, begins with a soft material. The soft material can be wrapped around the affected area, and when it cures, the plaster turns hard.

M&Ms also utilize this principle. M&M’s “melt in your mouth, not in your hands.” The parameter change was to put a candied coating around the chocolate so the candies don’t melt until you put them in your mouth.

Parameter change also refers to flexibility. With gas prices at all-time highs and continuing to rise, many people are finding ways to work from home. Working from home is an example of a parameter change in your job.

Temperature change is also a variation in parameter. For example, you raise the temperature of food in the cooking process. Cooking at a higher temperature changes the taste, aroma, textures, and chemical properties of the food.

How can you change the parameters of your product or service to improve the physical state, concentration, consistency, or flexibility of your product?