Thinking Differently: The "Inside the Box" Maverick Who Changed How We Innovate
Jacob Goldenberg is an international celebrity in the competitive world of innovation.
Jacob Goldenberg's journey is a tale of research in innovation shaped by unexpected twists and turns. Growing up in Israel, a country that thrives on creativity and resourcefulness, he is inspired to make a difference. Life for Jacob is never linear; there is always a twist. He often says, "I am wrong in my planning but right in taking advantage of the opportunities that appear in front of me." From his early days as an aeronautical engineer in the Army to his current academic achievements, Jacob's story is one of embracing failures and turning them into opportunities.
Israel, the Country Where Innovation is the Go-To Tool
Jacob's passion for innovation was sparked by his life in Israel, a nation where creativity thrives. A young country with limited resources, Israel has always relied on its people's ingenuity to overcome challenges and build a brighter future. This spirit of innovation is seen everywhere, especially in technology and startups. Faced with obstacles, Israel became known for its clever solutions, particularly in defense. Here, innovation isn't just about economic success; it's about survival and achieving the extraordinary.
Innovation is a cornerstone of Israel’s success
In a country with limited human resources, every person’s contribution is vital. This is how Jacob’s story in innovation begins. After graduating as an aeronautical engineer, he joins the Army, ready to make a difference.
Finding Tools for Innovation
In the Army, faced with limited resources for developing defense technologies, Jacob stumbled upon a powerful tool: ARIZ, an advanced problem-solving method derived from TRIZ. Created by a student of TRIZ pioneer Altschuler, ARIZ captivated him. It held the key to transforming constraints into springboards for innovation. Fueled by this discovery and a burning desire to unleash the full potential of systematic approaches to creativity, Jacob charted a new educational course once he completed his military service.
ARIZ empowered Jacob with his first structured approach to innovation.
As he considered his options for the future, including pursuing a PhD focused on inventive problem-solving, he was accepted into a joint program in Business Administration and Physics. Just as he was preparing to embark on this academic journey, fate intervened...
The Advertising Agency
Jacob's journey took a surprising turn when he received a call from a local advertising agency. The head of the agency said, “You engineers are cheating. You think you like creativity, but you don’t need it. We, in advertising, need it 10 times a day.” He then challenged Jacob: join the agency once a week to learn their methods and develop a way for them to be more creative. Jacob couldn't resist the opportunity.
Jacob begins his innovation journey at an advertising agency
Working with the agency, Jacob heard another important idea from the leader: “Creativity in advertising is not really the big deal. The big deal is innovation for new products.” He understood that he had found his true passion, researching how to generate new products. Whether by chance or fate, a new door was opening. With this new understanding and the successful trial at the advertising agency, Jacob decided to change his PhD research topic to one that took advantage of these learnings.
The Paper That Redirected Jacob’s Path
Jacob and his mentor were excited about their progress in new product development and decided to publish a paper on his research. However, the paper was rejected, a common yet disheartening experience for many academics. Instead of feeling crushed, Jacob chose to learn from it.
He realized he had written the paper in the language of a physicist for a business audience. He needed to understand the needs and language of the business community. He also saw that some essential experiments were missing and that he had submitted his paper to the wrong journal.
Overcoming rejection, Jacob's path to innovation leads from Israel to Columbia University for postdoctoral studies.
Learning from these mistakes, Jacob revised his work and submitted the new paper to relevant prestigious journals. This time, his work was accepted, leading him to Columbia University, where he was invited to complete his post-doctorate education by one of the most prominent authorities in the field, who also became his mentor.
Lessons for Personal Growth
Jacob is very grateful for the rejection of his initial paper. It allowed him to present his research and the method he developed, Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT), in a way that was more accessible to a larger audience. It also taught him priceless personal lessons:
Summary of Jacob Goldenberg’s personal lessons for innovators
Embrace failures: Jacob learned to take advantage of failures.
Value of failures: Failures provide more valuable lessons than successes.
Collaboration: Things happen through working with others.
Simplicity: Always find the simple form of things.
Passion: Be excited about what you do.
Love the question: Be in love with the question you are solving.
Innovation Inside the Box
A pivotal conversation led Jacob to his next academic achievement. A colleague told him he lacked real influence, saying, “Who reads your papers? If you want to influence the world, you need to write a book.” Inspired by this, Jacob wrote "Inside the Box" with Drew Boyd. This seminal book challenges the traditional "think outside the box" approach to creativity and introduces Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) to the world for fostering problem-solving innovation within closed contexts. The book became a major success and has been translated into 19 languages.
"Inside the Box" flips the script on "think outside the box," providing a structured approach to innovation with existing resources.
'Inside the Box' became a global guide to innovation (Available in 19 languages)
Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT)
SIT is a structured method for creative problem-solving, based on predictable patterns in innovative solutions.
Key Principles:
Closed World: Use existing resources. Innovation happens inside the box, not outside it.
Qualitative Change: Transform or eliminate problems to find solutions.
Cognitive Fixedness: Overcome fixed perceptions to generate fresh ideas.
Function Follows Form: Start with a solution and find problems it solves.
Path of Most Resistance: Use constraints to drive creativity.
Visual overview of the SIT principles for innovation
Main Templates: SIT uses five specific thinking patterns to guide innovation:
Subtraction: Remove essential components.
Multiplication: Add copies of existing elements.
Division: Separate components.
Task Unification: Assign new tasks to existing components.
Attribute Dependency: Change relationships between variables.
Visual overview of the SIT templates for innovation
SIT focuses on common patterns in inventive solutions, helping users apply these principles and templates to create new ideas.
The Systematic Approach Becomes Digital
Recognizing the systematic nature of SIT, creating a digital platform for innovation was the next logical step. Jacob and two other scholars founded Omnivati, a digital platform that speeds up the ideation process to solve problems and create new opportunities. The platform saw widespread adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic by university online courses that required ideation. Omnivati has recently been upgraded to include integration with OpenAI's GPT4 to make SIT template-based innovation faster and much more productive. This includes integration with DALL-E 3, OpenAI’s model for generating images, which provides AI generated sketches for users' innovative ideas.
Omnivati is an AI-powered tool that applies SIT for on-demand new product ideation
Conclusion
Jacob's story is a powerful example of how embracing life’s unexpected twists and turns can be a motor for research in innovation. From his early days in Israel, where he learned to thrive on creativity and resourcefulness, to becoming an academic, Jacob consistently turns challenges into opportunities. His belief that failures are more powerful teachers than successes allows him to open new doors for research and discovery. Jacob always sees in the unknown new possibilities and answers to clever questions. By embracing failures and learning from each experience, Jacob not only advances his own career but also contributes to the broader field of innovation. His journey reminds us that life's path is rarely linear, and seizing opportunities can lead to personal growth and benefit the larger community.
Jacob's journey shows how challenges fuel innovation: failures lead to discoveries, benefiting both him and the field.
About Jacob Goldenberg
Jacob Goldenberg is a professor at Reichman University, a visiting professor at Columbia University, and a writer. His research on innovation, especially SIT, is widely influential in academic and business circles. Goldenberg has authored many books and papers, focusing on practical methods to enhance creativity and problem-solving. He currently lives in Herzliya, Israel.
If you want to learn more about Jacob’s work and how he is facilitating new product development and innovation, please visit jacobgoldenberg.com, omnivati.com, and follow his insights on LinkedIn at Jacob (Yanco) Goldenberg.
