Discussion about the Trefoil Inc. approach (An Opinion Piece)

Develop special objective ideation contexts (virtual thought spaces) to facilitate invention

The activity of inventing high-value, high-potential solutions to important, safety-critical, objective problems is extremely complex, and highly vulnerable to a host potential confounds that cause failure.  Like space exploration, our focus for innovation must be done with: extreme care, deliberateness, seriousness, commitment, and a zero-tolerance safety culture.  It can be intense, but for those of us who love empirically digging into, and solving important objective problems, it is a joy.

In general, there are very many different perspectives for framing thinking and for using language (and probably others that have not yet been invented).  And, of these, the method is best for a specific situation depends on what one is trying to do, with whom or what, and why.  For example, even a single language, like English, is routinely used in different ways for different purposes.  English (words, syntax, grammar, etc.) can be simultaneously used within different frameworks, with different perspectives, for different purposes, and with incompatible meanings.  If two people using English in different ways are brought together, although they both use English, they will not be able to understand each other or collaborate without translation support.

To rephrase… Thinking and using language are cognitive activities.  Languages, and their different uses, can be characterized as meta-technologies that people have created to enable various kinds of activities.  We describe the diverse ways of thinking and using language as cognitive meta-technologies, invented by people, that are differentially useful depending on the type of activity being performed.  And a single person may learn multiple cognitive meta-technologies, and use them differentially depending on the situation.

Trefoil Inc. has developed a unique cognitive meta-technology to structure ideation and language use for innovation.  This method is designed to drive our activities toward success, while mitigating a host of risks.  The Trefoil Inc. way of thinking and talking (i.e., the unique objective ideation contexts we develop, or our unusual cognitive meta-technology) may be odd and require some learning and practice to use, but it fits our mission.

An analogy from science fiction may illustrate

Going back to the space exploration analogy…  A fictional situation may be useful in explaining the Trefoil Inc. approach…  Suppose that two characters from the Star Trek fiction (Ref., Gene Roddenberry; Paramount Global), Mr. Spock and Mr. Scott, are stranded somewhere together, and responsible to collaboratively solve a difficult, safety-critical, objective problem (perhaps mechanical or electromagnetic).  As the reader, if you are familiar with these fictional characters, you might envision how Mr. Spock and Mc. Scott would structure their thinking and talking as they collaborate (their chosen cognitive meta-technology for this joint activity).  Their structured thinking and talking would be very different (more narrowly focused and work efficient) in many ways than that of typical human-human conversation.  Their chosen cognitive meta-technology, however, would be the right tool for this job, and would enable success.  [And, when the project is completed, they would be free to switch to another different cognitive meta-technology that is more appropriate for personal social pursuits (except Mr. Spock, who never switches).]

In reality, most people are not often involved in collaborating on important safety-critical objective problems, but are instead participating in other, much more common, types of human joint activities.  An extreme majority of humanity are deeply focused on participating in: pursuing their own psychological core needs; affecting human social relationships; and contributing to the commercial aims of corporations and governments.  To operate successfully within these multiple social- and psychological-based primary joint activities, people select cognitive meta-technology tools that have been developed and refined to match the kinds of real pressures and trade-offs that characterize this activity.  And these cognitive meta-technologies are very different than the one we use for innovation.

The variations of cognitive meta-technologies people have adopted and learned to deal with social settings are each appropriately useful in multiple different ways, including: establishing and maintaining boundaries; establishing and maintaining social relationships; and in pursuing other kinds of socially-dependent personal needs and wants.  The degree of utility of the various cognitive meta-technologies in this category is relative to how well they allow a person to deal with other people who are also pursuing social-values. 

These structured ways of thinking and using language were designed to optimize gaining access to self-centered values (focused on pursuit of core personal psychological and social needs and wants), and include highly-strategic: negotiation-based framing; prioritizing pursuit of enjoyment, status, fame, and power; competition-based framing; role-based scoping of joint activities; conservation of effort allocated for work (thought, emotional, physical, etc.); emotion-based framing (fear, anger, etc.); use of honesty/dishonesty; shaping others’ perceptions for leverage in future negotiations; politeness in language use; cognitive blindness to others’ problems or large-sale problems, and short-term gains. 

[It is possible for some kinds of individual organic proclivities, like empathy or reservedness, to negatively interfere with adoption and use of some socially-focused cognitive meta-technologies (e.g., “nice guys always finish last,” and “fortune favors the bold.”]

Operating socially with humans is complicated and can easily require the dedication of all of a person’s cognitive resources (attention, inference, memory, etc.) to take part.  An individual who is with such concerns, may have zero (or very little) cognitive resources available to participate in solving any kind of object problem.  And attempting to ideate for innovation while using a socially-focused cognitive meta-technology, always results in destruction of any chance for progress from thought contamination by the many socially-founded sources of bias and distortion.  Trefoil Inc. mitigates this risk by creating and adopting a special work cognitive meta-technology that is separate and isolating from social pressures.

How we develop an objective ideation context for a new project

We combine market analyses with empirical studies of objective problems negatively affecting organizations and the essential workers they field, to identify potentially high-value, high-potential opportunities.  Getting right down into the problem first-hand, is then essential, to estimate whether a potential pursuit for a solution is worthwhile.  This analysis phase is free of biased pressures for the use of any particular technology, and needed to produce clean system requirements focused on customer value.  An interdisciplinary ideation synthesis phase is conducted next that brings in every technology with specific relevancy to the requirements.  This can create novel uses and combinations of different technologies that had not been considered before.

[Further discussion about the use of formal processes for innovation efforts]