This week I enjoyed reading about a new surgical instrument that a parasitic wasp inspired. Not so much the parasitic wasp part 🐝, but the origin story of the innovation.
Biomimicry
A team at Imperial College London are rapidly developing a robotic, flexible needle that can bend to reach difficult locations. The mechanism is inspired by female parasitoid wasps, which use a bendable needle-like ovipositor to bore into wood to lay eggs in hiding host larvae.
Serendipity is a beautiful thing! I stumbled on the unique qualities of this particular wasp when Professor Julian Vincent, who is a friend and colleague, explained at a dinner how the curved ovipositor worked. Suddenly, I wondered whether we could mimic this attribute in robotic medical technology to improve the delivery of treatments. … we now have a medical-grade, clinically sized working prototype, which we hope will ultimately improve outcomes and recovery times for patients with brain diseases.
Dr Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena, Imperial College.
This is an example of biomimicry. Might you be more familiar with the classic Velcro invention story? The hooks on plant seeds that help them disperse inspired George de Mestral to create the first hook and loop fastener.
Did you know that Velcro is a portmanteau of “velvet” and “crochet” (literally, “hook” in French).
Biomimicry is a practice that learns from and mimics the strategies found in nature to solve human design challenges — and find hope along the way.
Biomimicry Institute
Drawing inspiration from natural solutions requires a mindset ready for serendipity. The following mental model explains the reason why we often miss these moments of inspiration.
The Streetlight Effect
The Streetlight Effect can explain one block to new ideas and innovative solutions. You might have heard of this observational bias, demonstrated in the story of the drunk looking for his keys:
A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, “this is where the light is”.
The Streetlight Effect
Sometimes people look for the next breakthrough idea in the most accessible place. They filter for ideas closely related to their work or too similar to their context. That search is doomed to mediocrity. At best, it was a marginal alteration and not the breakthrough they were hoping for.
It may be easier to look at what the school down the road is doing, but that limits what is possible.
The streetlight effect is a helpful bias to reflect on when we develop potential solutions.
What more can we do to counter this bias?
Explore Beyond Your Industry
The strategy that might be the key to your next breakthrough is to explore beyond your industry.
A lovely example that I often think about is the emergency doctors who consulted with Ferrari F1 mechanics to improve their intensive care unit handoff practice. The doctors at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital had their moment of serendipity whilst watching the motor racing.
Another healthcare example is Rotterdam Eye Hospital, which implemented six aviation industry innovations such as black box recording, risk analysis, patient taxi service, and valet parking.
Observations indicated that the innovations positively affected quality and safety in the hospital: Waiting times were reduced, work processes became more standardised, the number of wrong-site surgeries decreased, and awareness of patient safety was heightened.
Diffusing aviation innovations in a hospital in The Netherlands.
Let’s have a look at some actions to make a start with some of these ideas.
Your Next Creative Step
To explore beyond your industry or analogous idea exploration is a powerful technique.
It encourages you to:
- remain open to possibilities and inspiration from unlikely sources,
- avoid the baggage of precedents and escape old ideas,
- reflect on the problem with a new perspective,
- clarify the impact you want,
- adapt and create new alternatives.
The next time you are at the idea generation stage, hit the pause button and recognise the bias of looking for inspiration in familiar places. Identify and explore similar experiences.
You might need to break out of your industry to find breakthrough ideas.