Julian, in hindsight, my attraction to the more interesting examples of
Biomimicry (Lotusan, Interface carpet tiles) may have led me to over-
emphasise the difficulties. The overview of TRIZ by Glenn Mazur at
http://www.mazur.net/triz/ suggests that a simple form of the TRIZ
methodology can be applied to develop a set of useful solutions, although
perhaps not as inventive as the full ARIZ methodology. I'm all in favour
of going after the 'quick wins' in the early days.
Which raises some questions. Aside from potentially defining new mappings
of contradictions to Inventive Principles, the study of biology will add to
the list of 'effects' that can be accessed by their function. The only
time I've seen mention of an 'effects' database is in relationship to the
software tools (Ideation International or Invention Machines). What is the
quality of their databases? Will it be easy to add additional biological
information, or are you planning to create a separate database?
How are you planning to gather the raw data and then analyse it? I saw a
reference to a web form in the proposal abstract, but couldn't make out the
details. Is there value in building a distributed network of 'gatherers'
under guidance of your team? Is there a way to attract more people like
Marco Aurelio de Carvalho, to help ferret out (and translate) existing
published materials?
Can we get some 'quick wins' to build momentum? On an ongoing basis, how
can we track success? One of the challenges that I see with Biomimicry is
that a lot of it is going on, but there doesn't appear to be any central
repository of 'good stories'.
Thanks, Norbert
