Topic 3 - Identify Frames and Metaphors

Topic 3 - Identify Frames and Metaphors > Frames defined > Frames Defined
Topic 3 - Identify Frames and Metaphors > Characteristics of frames > Characteristics of Frames
Topic 3 - Identify Frames and Metaphors > Frames grab you > Frames Grab You
Topic 3 - Identify Frames and Metaphors > Breaking frames > Breaking Frames
Topic 3 - Identify Frames and Metaphors > Discussion of stop & thinks > Discussion of Stop & Thinks
Topic 3 - Identify Frames and Metaphors > Topic 3 Wrap-Up > Concept Review

This week Eggbert will lead us to the I in PIG In MuD, identify frames and find alternatives.
How does anyone come up with a transformational idea? The answer lies in our habitual ways of approaching problems; what linguists call frames.
Frames are the expectations and assumptions we bring to interpreting new information.
Frames are typically unconscious, more so than you might imagine.
Because frames are beneath our level of awareness, they are hard to identify and even harder to change.

In an experiment conducted by a famed to Yale psychologist, students standing on buses asked seated strangers to give them their seat.
When the student politely offered a good reason, such as feeling faint, the seated person often did switch places.
The stranger less often rose, when the student asked for the seat wondering out loud to an accomplice, whether it would be all right to ask someone for a seat.
In one context, a good reason, the stranger’s assumption was that the student needed help.
In another context, an unsupported request, the assumption might have been that the student was maddeningly entitled.

Metaphors are a language device we use to convey frames, and they turn up the emotional heat.
Thus, metaphors, like frames, grab at our heartstrings and leave a lasting impression.

Without frames, it’s unclear how complex societies could evolve.
Since frames are subconscious and embedded, we’re often unaware of what they are, let alone how to break them.
Finding alternative frames can be helped using an easy four step approach.
Identify the current frame using metaphors, consider the consequences – good and bad – of the existing frame, devise an alternative frame, consider the consequences of the new frame.

Frames are thus ubiquitous, contextual, and emotional.
They constrain innovation by setting powerful norms that are hard to identify, let alone break.
Successful frame breaking is the very essence of disruptive innovation, a skill that, if you master it, will take you far as a budding innovator.

Topic 3 – Identify Frames and Metaphors