Have you ever been in a wood that just looked like a random assortment of trees and then when you take a few steps to the side you see that all the trees are laid out in neat rows? Sometimes we are standing in the wrong place to see an obvious answer. We have to deliberately take a different point of view and come at the problem from a new direction before we have a chance of creating a radical solution.

When you combine two ideas to make a third then two plus two can equal five. In the ancient world one of the great discoveries was that by combining two soft metals - iron and tin - you could create a strong alloy - bronze. In a similar way combining two minor inventions - the coin punch and the wine press - gave birth to the mighty printing press. Try combining your main product or service with a range of foreign concepts and see what you get.