·Conceptual Blockbusting·

Sitting in my graphical data analysis lecture, Michael Martin, my funny and like-to-speak-nonsense lecturer uses an example to make us have some critical thinking, which is particularly good. I like the way his example strikes me as if I was an idiot, try imagining a question that even a 3 year old kid can solve, and I ended with zero solution, yes, it's that stupid.

Conceptual Blockbusting, A Guide to Better Ideas, a great book he introduced, addresses the manner in which prejudices, blind spots, and tunnel vision can be recognized, managed and overcome. The blocks in question are those that hinder mental creativity or conceptualization or, as Adams (13) says, ‘mental walls that block the problem-solver from correctly perceiving a problem or conceiving its solution.


.............................................Some quotes from the book.............................................

Edward de Bono, from New Think in which de Bono writes: "Logic is the tool that is used to dig holes deeper and bigger, to make them altogether better holes. But if the hole is in the wrong place, then no amount of improvement is going to put it in the right place. . . . Vertical thinking is digging the same hole deeper; lateral thinking is trying again elsewhere.

Conceptual Block
1. Fear to make a mistake, to fail, to risk
2. Inability to tolerate ambiguity, overriding desires for security, order "no appetite for chaos"
3. Preferences for judging ideas rather than generating them
3. Inability to distinguish reality and fantasy

Cultural Blocks
1. Taboos
2. Fantasy and reflection are a waste of time, lazy, even crazy
3. Playfulness is for children only
4. Problem -solving is serious business and humor is out of place
5. Reason, logic, numbers, utility, practically are good; feeling, intuition, qualitative judgments, pleasures are bad
6. Any problem can be solved by scientific thinking and lots of money
7. Everyone should be like me