“I am not permanently scared by your ideas, just perfectly disgusted.” – reaction from client to Meta Magic Studio “Outside of the Box Thinking” proposal

I can not tell you how many times clients tell me, “we want you to think outside of the box” which is code for we want the ideas you come back with to be different, unconventional, and from a new perspective. They are demanding novel, creative and smart thinking. They want to be “WOWED.”

Yes, of course you want creativity and novel approaches. Everyone does.

But do they really want ME to think to be outside of my box?

Now this buzz phrase of “Thinking Outside of the Box” has been around for a long time and has much history.

The origin of the phrase is somewhat obscure; John Adair claims to have introduced the problem in 1969, management consultant Mike Vance has claimed that the use of the nine-dot puzzle in consultancy circles stems from the corporate culture of the Walt Disney Company, where the puzzle was used in-house. Both Martin Kihn of Fast Company and the Random House Word Mavens concur that the phrase relates to a traditional topographical puzzle called the nine dots puzzle.

According to Kihn, consultants of the 1970s and 1980s tried to make their prospective clients feel inferior by presenting them with the puzzle. The challenge is to connect the dots by drawing four straight, continuous lines, and never lifting the pencil from the paper. The puzzle is easily solved, but only if you draw the lines outside of the confines of the square area defined by the nine dots themselves. Thus, the phrase “thinking outside the box” was born. The Word Mavens refer to Prof. Daniel Kies of the College of DuPage, who observes that the puzzle is only difficult because “we imagine a boundary around the edge of the dot array.”

Source – Wikipedia

I can remember the day I first saw the infamous 9 dot box. The solution was not obvious, but once seen made perfect sense. The “Thinking Outside of the Box” (TOB) concept was introduced to me in the 1980’s as I taking business classes and it was very prevalent in the 1990’s with my interation with consultants when I was doing a stint as a market researcher. It was a mantra that I heard almost every day. And one that I became to hate.

Originally I loved thinking outside of the box. It was exciting to explore new concepts, to travel the mental highway of thought and to stretch the immagination. And IMNSHO, I became very good at it. Solutions that seemed obvious to me were murky and dark to others. These solutions were not due to some large mental capacity that I magically have, but was an outcome from spending so much time outside of the box.

Soon I came to realize that my box was different from others. That in the process of looking outside of the box, even how far out you looked was being limited. Thus I realized what was being asked was to think outside of some one else’s box.

All of this is understandable. I mean, my box is completely different than the mass majority of people I work with. My box is a skewed when compared to others. It is most likely a whole lot bigger, different and unconventional than most people in corporate America. Think about it, I design, develop and manage 3D social spaces and I do so from a small four person shop in Santa Cruz.

But do they really want ME to think to be outside of my box?

So now when I hear the infamous “TOB” statement, I realize I need to understand the “limits” of some one else box. For those in corporate jobs, there are limitations and barriers that can not be crossed. For others, there might be cultural norms that must be respected. For me to be successful as a developer, I need to define each person, their box and what is considered to be outside and what is to far outside in order to come up with their perfect TOB concept.