There’s this well-known adage from the business world that states one has to “think
outside the box.” This phrase is used whenever there’s a need to challenge assumptions,
address a situation with a fresh creative approach, or when old solutions and “tried-and-
true” techniques don’t seem to work any more. “You gotta think outside the box!”
The phrase came from the challenge of the Nine Dots. Take a piece of paper and draw
nine dots in a square made up of three rows of three dots each. The challenge? Take a pen
or pencil, and connect all nine dots using just four lines and without lifting the pen or
pencil from the page. The secret to the solution is that you have to go beyond the
boundaries of the square of the nine dots – outside the box.
Even though use of the catchphrase is so common, actual examples of outside-the-box
thinking are as uncommon as common sense. One local example of this can be found in
the formation of FIRM (Fair Insurance Rates in Monroe). Rather than simply complain,
get petitions signed, and call legislators, FIRM continues to fight Citizens Property
Insurance and the National Flood Insurance Program on their own turf. FIRM collects
local information and combines it with sound actuarial data to prove that there was no
justification for the outrageous rates Keys property owners are being charged. FIRM has
done what few grassroots groups have been able to do: effect real policy change at the
highest levels of the state and nation. While we still are subject to rate increases, they
would be much higher if not for FIRM.
Netflix is an example of a company that was started by people thinking outside the box.
We already had video rental stores, so why would we need or want videos by mail? Two
things really helped Netflix take off, the first being the changeover from bulky VHS
cassettes to small flat DVD discs. The other contributing factor was late fees charged by
rental stores to customers who kept the movies too long. Netflix offered the solution that
enabled their customers to rent a certain number of movies and keep them as long as they
wanted for one monthly fee. When the customer returned a disc, he could select
another movie to take its place. Simple, friendly and no late fees.
And when everyone went from DVD discs to streaming, Netflix started its own
streaming network. Like a real network, it produces its own programming as well as
offering streaming of existing movies. Sometimes reinvention is the key to business
longevity. Just ask Blockbuster Video.
Haagen-Dazs sounds like some high-dollar imported ice cream from a Scandinavian
land. The company was actually started in New York, and its founder wanted a name that
would convey an image of an old-world crafted ice cream. Although he did use all fresh
ingredients and made a good product, there is nothing intrinsically European or Old
World about it. Haagen-Dazs doesn’t even mean anything in whatever language the
company’s founder was trying to emulate. Still, thinking outside the box led to one of the
most successful premium ice cream brands.
And sometimes it just takes money and repetition. SpaceX lost more than a few Falcon
rockets in the early stages of their development. Also realizing that the future of low-cost
spaceflight was in reusable components, SpaceX spent a lot of time (and a lot of rockets)
perfecting the landing of their booster stages on a ship at sea. Now, their almost perfect
success record enables SpaceX to place people and cargo into orbit with booster stages
and even fairing halves that are recovered and reused.
Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are using reusable technology to promote space
tourism. William Shatner just became the oldest person to venture into space, crossing
the Karman Line at the youthful age of 90. Hopefully, private and public space ventures
will continue thinking out of the box so we can make the technological advances we take
for granted.
When people, businesses, and even governments stop and challenge closely held
assumptions and core beliefs, that kind of soul-searching can lead to revelations and ideas
that would never have surfaced otherwise. Think outside the box – it’s a better
perspective!
Catch John Thursday at Sparky’s Landing, Friday on Facebook Live, Tuesday at Dockside, and Wednesday at the Key Colony Inn. www.johnbartus.com
