Innovation through
Re-application

By Jonathan Halls

IN THIS ARTICLE:

• It's easy to become fixated on an object and its primary purpose

• Looking beneath the surface can show other purposes for an object or service

• The key to innovation through re-application is being clear on purpose

Reapplication requires you to dig below the surface of an accepted idea or practice and review the very values on which that idea or practice is based.

Consider the paper clip. Often in creativity workshops I ask delegates to brainstorm alternative uses for a paperclip and we get lists of twenty and thirty things we can use a paper clip for.

However, if I always think of a paperclip as merely something used to clip paper together, I would never consider using it to pick a lock, act as a clumsy hairpin or hit the reset button on an electronics item.

Reapplication opens up your possibilities

Reapplication is very powerful when thinking of print communication. Just think about a photographic image and how it could tell many tales.

For example, if I had the photograph of a traffic jam, I could reapply that image to mean a lot of different things.

For example it could illustrate a story about people going on holidays, environmental pollution caused by cars, traffic congestion or indeed even the age of the motor car.

Consider some of the needs we may have when knocking out a story for the web. You know your story, its purpose and who it’s aimed at.

What tools can you use to better explain your story to your audience?

Consider you’re explaining the techniques a famous footballer uses when he kicks a goal. The easy and conventional way is to explain the goal using text.

It’s natural for us to think of writing a description because traditionally that’s how we’d do it for newspaper.

Often we find our minds stuck in the “newspaper” mindset. So, good writers will research the topic and probably interview the footballer for a quote.

That’s easy and straightforward and, of course, essential if writing for print.

Good newspaper journalists will also throw in a photograph to help the reader get some sort of perspective on the big kick. Usually, they’d choose a close-up of an anguished facial expression.

Going beyond the way we normally do things

But, is text really the best way to explain the technique? If I’m telling a story on the Web, I’m not actually restricted by paper. I’m not tied down to operate in the newspaper mindset anymore. I need to free myself from that mindset and think outside the box.

Which of these would better explain my story? Okay, video may be good to show how this works.

Not only does it make the site look sexy and hi-tech but it actually shows the posture and balance of the footballer as he kicks the goal.

But wait a minute, I still have to explain the actual physical process of how he lines his body up with the ball and the angle his foot hits the ball.

So maybe video is not as effective because it still requires some explanatory text.

How about a Flash or Shockwave animation that features dotted lines demonstrating how he lines up the kick, superimposed over an animated sequence?

This would in fact be the most effective way of describing how this footballer kicks the winning goal.

If we were in newspaper mindset, which is entirely appropriate when publishing newspapers but not the web, we’d have missed an opportunity to tell this story in a new, fresh and creative way.
 

In search of the purpose

Reapplication is about going beneath the techniques we are comfortable with and asking, what are you trying to do?