Card #14 – ”Adapt”

Card #14 – ”Adapt” from the Creative Whack Pack

Available on the iOS App Store and as a physical deck of cards

The inventor Thomas Edison gave his laboratory colleagues the following advice:

“Make it a practice to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in it adaptation to the problem you are currently working on.”

• Polymath John von Neumann analyzed poker-table behavior to develop the “game theory” model of economics.

• Football coach Knute Rockne got the idea for his “Four Horsemen” backfield shifts while watching a burlesque chorus dance routine.

• Ancient Roman cryptographers modified the 12-sided dodecahedron to create an intricate coding system that allowed military commanders to send secure messages to each other.

• World War I military designers borrowed from the cubist art if Picasso and Braque to create camouflage designs for artillery pieces and tanks.

• Contemporary military designers borrowed from the geometric fractal designs of mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot to create more efficient camouflage designs for uniforms.

— What resources can you adapt and modify to new uses?

Scroll to Top