Why aren’t we solving the greatest scientific problems of the world today? Innovation is critical to our nation’s scientific enterprise. However, creative thinking has been on the decline and is not generally taught in academic institutions. Renowned public health scientist and clinician, Dr. Roberta Ness, Dean of the University of Texas Health School of Public Health, believes that students, established scientists, researchers, and engineers can learn to be more innovative. Through her book Innovation Generation: How to Produce Creative and Useful Scientific Ideas, and graduate course on Innovative Thinking at the University of Texas, Dr. Ness provides the framework and tools to “think outside the box.” She shared these basic concepts in this one-hour lecture. Dr. Ness is a leading researcher in women’s health and widely known for her efforts to bridge from research to policy. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

1. Roberta Ness, MD, PhD
Dean, School of Public Health
M. David Low Chair and
James W. Rockwell Professor in Public Health
Vice President, Innovation
Houston Center for Innovative Generation
The University of Texas
Health Science Center at Houston

2. Center for Innovation Generation Website
https://sph.uth.edu/research/centers/ingen

4. http://youtu.be/B2pjN4Ne1ag

5. So You Think You Can Innovate?
University of Southern California
September 15, 2014
Roberta B. Ness, MD, MPH
James W. Rockwell Professor in Public Health
University of Texas School of Public Health
Vice President, Innovation
UTHealth
Presented by the Education, Career Development, and Ethics Program (ECDE) of the
Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI) in collaboration
With KSOM Office of Research Seminar Series & NIH T32HD060549 Training Program

6. Surprise in
the service
of health
and
prosperity
• Make existing
resources better,
faster, cheaper
• Create new
technologies,
breakthroughs
Innovation Defined

9. Teaching Innovation
Can innovation be taught?

10. Does It Work?
Clapham et al: Meta-analysis of 40 studies
Scott et al: Meta-analysis of 70 studies
2 – 3X increases in fluency, novelty, and originality
Improvements in problem-solving, attitude and work
performance

11. Does It Work?
Structured programs demonstrated effects
independent of:
• Age
• Gender
• Intellectual capacity
• Professional/academic setting

12. Conceptual Components
Recognizing and
finding alternatives
to habitual
cognitive patterns
Learning to use
tools that
enhance
generative
ideation
Aligning
divergent
thinking with
the scientific
method

13. Overcoming Habitual Cognitive
Patterns and Their Implications

14. Big “I” Innovation Means
Thinking Outside Frames
• Frames define human
communication and thus
thinking
• Frames are expectations which
we use to interpret new
information and draw
inferences

15. Little “i” Innovation
• Cell phone
• GPS
• Safety of Anesthesia
Big “I” Innovation
• Transistor
• Theory of special relativity
• Germ theory

16. Threats to Mankind Require
Big “I” Innovation
• Income/Education disparities
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Global warming
• Emerging infections
• Obesity

17. Example: Expectation in going to a
restaurant

18. Gary and Nancy are lying on
the floor dead. Around them
is a puddle of water and
some broken glass. What are
the circumstances of their
death?

19. Answer: They are fish
and their fish tank broke
– thus they suffocated.

20. Emotion
Remove
street signs
from city
centers

21. Metaphors and Frames
• War on
cancer
VERSUS
• Cancer as
neighbor

22. Tools that Enhance
Idea Generation

23. Tool 1: Finding the Right Question
• Right time and place
Example: Cervical cancer
as an STI - needed PCR to
identify HPV

24. Tool 1: Finding the Right Question
• Big questions
Example: Jeremy Morris,
father of physical activity:
“What about social class
alters CVD risk?”

25. Tool 2: Observation
• Normal observation
becomes complacent
• Normal observation is
biased by expectations

26. Tool 2: Observation
• Marshall and Warren win Novel Prize
for discovery of H. pylori

27. Tool 3: Analogy
• Kekule: Structure of benzene as a
snake seizing its own tail
• Bell: Electromagnetic vibration as
human voice
• Jenner: Cowpox protection as
smallpox protection

28. Tool 4: Juggling Opposites
Deduction and Induction
• Induction: Mendel observed
thousands of pea crosses
• Deduction: Einstein moved
from axioms to theorums

29. Tool 4: Deduction and Induction
• Innovation combines
induction and deduction
• Eg: Darwin observed
beak size variability in
finches. Through a leap
of logic he inferred that
some beaks out-competed
others in a
given environment

30. Tool 5: Change Your Point of View
• Darwin imagined
himself as a plant
• Einstein imagined
traveling at the speed
of light
• Montessori imagined
herself as a child

31. Tool 5: Change Your Point of View
• Imagine yourself as a teenager in
West Texas deciding whether or
not to keep an unintended
pregnancy

32. Tool 6: Broadening Your Perspective
• Ancel Keys: Father of
the Mediterranean Diet
• Expanded his research
network to create the
first international
comparisons of heart
disease: Japan,
Greece, Finland

33. Tool 6: Broadening Your Perspective
• How can we provide more
nutritious foods in America’s
lunchrooms?
• How do we get America to eat
better?

34. Tool 7: Reversal
• Serendipity: a “happy accident”
• Alexander Fleming: father of antibiotics
• Joseph Goldberger: presence of
infection vs. absence of nutrient as the
cause of pellagra

35. Tool 7: Reversal
• Medicine: Presence of disease
• Public Health: Absence of disease
• Implications for obliviousness to
absence
• Hard to get people excited
• Hard to get compliance

36. Tool 8: Reorganization and Rearrangement
• Functional fixedness: a
particular object implies a
particular use
• Candle experiment: attach
the candle to the wall
Candle
Book of matches
Box of thumbtacks

37. Tool 8: Reorganization and Rearrangement
• Combining disciplines
• Nanoparticle engineers and
pharmacologists to create new systems
for drug delivery

38. Tool 8: Reorganization and Rearrangement
• How might you
design a neonatal
incubator for
developing,
resource-poor
settings?

39. Tool 9: Brainstorming Group
DARPA: RED BALLOONS
Challenge: Ten 8 foot high, fixed bright red weather balloons at random
locations around the U.S. $40,000 to the first person or team to find all
10 balloons.

40. • “C” Factor
• Groups performance on wide range of
intelligence tasks
• Not strongly correlated with individual
intelligence
• Correlated with social sensitivity (e.g.,
inclusiveness) of group
Woolley, Science 2010
Tool 9: Power of Groups

41. Tool 9: Brainstorming Group
• Generates > 100 ideas/hour
• Divergent thinking first
• Convergent thinking next

42. Harmonizing
• Idea Generation and the
Scientific Method
Hypothesis Expectation
Inference Observation

43. Stepwise Harmonization
Define the problem
Gather information
Separate raw inputs from frames
Generate alternative, original ideas
Converge on most useful insights/hypothesis
Develop action plan to test hypothesis

44. Death:
scary, sober,
mysterious
Approach
with awe,
fear
Few people
have advance
directives
Thinking Inside the Box

45. Thinking Outside the Box
• Death and taxes
Ø Tax form for advanced directives

46. Summary
Innovative thinking can be taught
Key is thinking outside frames
Tools include:
Alternative framing and metaphors
Kenner observation
Awareness of cognitive biases
Analogy
Expansion
Reversal
PO
Etc