Exaptive Triggers

Exaptive triggers is a method aimed at establishing novel, non-obvious links between knowledge objects and ideas, at an appropriate level of abstraction, for the purpose of producing exaptive, radical innovation.

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• Method is ideally positioned to the top right of the 2x2 matrix above, the dimensions of which are discovery, and ideation
• By combining distributed ethnography with distributed solution generation, as opposed to other methods that use expert knowledge on one or both dimensions, it also works as an aggregator of other methods suitable for those purposes

• Method is designed to overcome inattentional blindness, i.e. it facilitates the the establishment of unobvious connections, by drawing the attention towards them
• The word "trigger" refers to the realization of the "why these things a re connected with these other things"

The identification of potentially valuable connections between problems and solutions is made possible thanks to:

• the decomposition of both to an adequate level of granularity, so as to induce abstraction from their originating contexts;
• the interpretation of both along a common set of dimensions.

Both discovery and ideation can be performed in both ways. "Expert" will likely only catch "complicated" data, while "Distributed" is more likely to elicit "complex" aspects. If the purpose is radical innovation, the second is more likely to produce interesting results. Which one to adopt, however, depends on context and expectations.