The Law of Un-Intended Application

This idea hit me this morning after writing this post yesterday: "For every designed invention, there will be many more unintended applications that may, in fact, be more useful than the original design use-case."

The creative process is not only having the ability to produce something new and innovative, being also being able to take an existing idea, or technology and then adapt it to a completely different use. I suspect if you look at the list of people who have really become very wealthy, that success will be down to adaption as much as it is to innovation.

Some examples of this can be seen in drugs (Aspirin to reduce heart attack risks), in technology (cellphones as location tracking devices or Microsoft's idea to use a touch display as a drinks-table), in office products (post-its were originally intended for use as semi-permanent bookmarks) and lets not forget the Army's amazing list of uses for the humble toothbrush. You get the general idea.

Perhaps I have invented a new idea.

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