Goggles Vision Sensitivity

Specialized goggles for seeing in the dark rely on heat sensitive sensors. They pick up signals not otherwise paid as much attention to except in certain cases. The Goggles Frame allows us to do that, pay conscious attention in more detail to what is going on anyway, but with an eye to picking up nuances. This is both a strength and a weakness of this and other  thinking tools. You can gain deep insight just by looking purposefully and rigourously at what is already out there, which can give the complacent sense ‘we already do this’. Yes, but not really, in most cases. As Leonardo da Vinci lamented in more detail, “we look but don’t really see.”

Goggles has us role play by looking equally objectively at positives, negatives and interesting perspectives of a thinking focus issue. This gives, effectively, a 360 degree, 3-D look at an issue. This assessment can be done quickly, say in 3-5 minutes, or be delved into at great depth and detail over months.

 We can practice the thinking Frame itself  by using a ‘silly’ example.  

• Thinking focus issue: what if humans could fly?
•  (role play as many as you can in a set timeframe or set a number limit, say 3 or 5. When you are fair and objective, you can take alot of the emotion out of assessing issues at this stage)-
• Positive points-   Easier means of short-haul travel, Reduce fossil fuel emissions, can downsize number of cars needed, it could be fun, we’d get sufficient Vitamin D,
• Negatives/downsides- air route congestion, breathing difficult at high altitudes, can only carry minimal luggage, potential of accidents high, severe sun exposure, difficult to regulate, security issues
• Interesting- would having a bird’s eye view of our world change how we think and act?, would sunlight be blocked out on the earth? Would we eventually adapt breathing capabilities for high altitude? Would there be a global agreement about flying over national airspaces? Would we have wings and feathers or jetpacks we’d strap on when needed to fly?

The InSight Frame gives you insight within a particular frame of reference. It does not make decisions for you or tell you what to think. Rather, it lays out a stall of possibilities. Depending on the quality of the information, gaps in  knowledge, and the rigor and excellence of the thinkers, you will have a variety of outputs.  With the outputs from the Goggles Frame, together with whatever other information you have, you then use Design Thinking to piece together a viable and effective approach to your issue.

A more advanced strategy is to look at even the ‘silly’ responses, and extract underlying concepts or ideas which could be made realistic and useful. There are loads of them in this example.

And finally for now, sometimes the number of points on each view (positive, negative, interesting)  has no bearing on it’s outcome. You might have many reasons why it’s great to fly. But if under negative here we put ’will kill anyone who does it’, then it’s less likely to happen anytime soon. Although that agenda of items to ‘iron out’ can then become the basis of the action plan. Additionally, I have found that very often it’s what comes up under ‘interesting’ that leads to the best discoveries, developments and breakthroughs.

Now, you chose a real life issue you are facing and follow the same pattern.