The Current Frontiers of Insight Thinking
We have repeatedly uncovered interesting areas worthy of exploration.
During our investigation of the applications of Insight Thinking Methods(ITM), we have repeatedly uncovered interesting areas worthy of exploration. This document describes where we are currently looking and why. We anticipate that the list of application areas will continue to evolve.
The following topics either have been suggested by clients or have emerged from other applications:
• Research & Development Returns: How do you improve decision making to increase the odds of picking and funding the right ideas and halting the bad ones?
• Stock Picks: As with the previous area, how might you improve decision making on when to buy, hold, or sell stocks?
• Hospitality/Customer Service: How could the equanimity generated by the use of ITM improve customer service offerings in terms of quality of service, lower training costs, or both?
• Cancer Research: Why does the research in this area take so long given the staggering impact of this disease? Can it be accelerated?
Research & Development (R&D) Returns
Since clearer thinking and more insights improve decision making, we have begun to explore settings in which low average levels of "good" decisions are typical and considerable value might be generated by "moving the needle." One of these is R&D - can Insight Thinking make spotting winners less random and more frequent? It is well known that many R&D projects fail or fall short of the desired return, but because several "bets" do work out, they ultimately offset the ones that don't. One target area is pharmaceutical R&D. Vast sums of money have been spent on improvements to research processes (e.g., combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening), yet in recent years returns have been disappointing. With each successful new drug costing a reputed $800 million, getting better at making the right bets could either accelerate drug discoveries or lower the cost or both.Stock Picks
As with R&D, the average accuracy of choosing the best course of action with a stock in a portfolio is also quite low (less than 50% as reported in conversations with four of the larger financial services companies in Boston) and correspondingly, the value of even a small but real improvement in performance is significant. So far, we have found that the larger companies tend to be surprisingly conservative and firm in their belief that they are doing as well as possible. This is pushing us toward hedge funds, where thinking is reported to be more open and experimental. Despite this, the potential in the former area remains huge.Hospitality/Customer Service
We wondered whether Insight Thinking Methods' positive social effects could be applied to improving or ensuring the right customer impression at any point in the sales process. For example, how often has a perfectly good meal been spoiled by a surly waiter or waitress? Analogously, how many unfortunate situations could have been averted and unhappy customers calmed by an employee going that extra mile and dealing with the customer in a more human or compassionate manner? We are exploring trials with organizations that pride themselves on their service, with an eye toward finding out whether Insight Thinking is an effective way to ensure quality at lower cost or even to improve customer experience.Cancer Research
This area is broken out as a separate problem due to its magnitude and complexity, as well as its social importance. We believe that Insight Thinking could be of immense societal benefit: helping researchers solve some of the seemingly complex conundrums of this pervasive disease seemed like a good place to start. We have also heard that many of the barriers to advancing research are human or attitudinal. The story of Dr. Judah Folkman's research on angiogenesis* (the link between tumor growth and blood supply) is a good example of this. Why should a discovery take 40 years to move from idea to application? This area of exploration is in discussion and is currently intended to be a pro bono program.* In 1961, Dr. Judah Folkman stumbled upon a hidden secret about how cancer grows, a theory he then called angiogenesis. He postulated that tumors could not grow larger than the head of a pin without a blood supply and believed that the tumor secreted some mystery factor that stimulated new blood vessels to form, bringing nutrition to the tumor and allowing it to grow. He also proposed that if the new blood-vessel growth to the tumor could be blocked, that might offer an entirely new way to treat cancer. Folkman's hypothesis met indifference and ridicule for 20 years, but in 1983, his laboratory identified a substance that stimulates the growth of capillaries. Within two years, he had discovered a substance that inhibited this growth, and soon found dozens more. Skeptics charged that Folkman's test results could not be duplicated in other labs, but in 1999 the National Cancer Institute successfully repeated Folkman's experiments with Endostatin, and the compound is now being studied not only for cancer treatment, but also for the prevention of stroke and heart disease. Many scientists predict that when a pharmaceutical treatment for human cancer is perfected, it will be built on the work of Dr. Judah Folkman.
