The Canadian company Ecobee launched a thermostat that can be controlled trough the internet.

“The ecobee Smart Thermostat is a 7-day programmable thermostat designed to help you conserve energy, save money and reduce your environmental impact. The ecobee Smart Thermostat provides ease and flexibility in the management of your home environment and comfort.”

In itself the Ecobee isn’t a great example of ‘out off the box’ thinking, but is a nice SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking) example. Specifically this is an example of the ‘dividing’ exercise where the functions of a product are split to see if they add value in that way. In this case the controls are taken of the thermostat and offered in a different way (the web). Another example of ‘dividing’ would be the remote control of televisions.

SIT is very powerful as it forces you to think in ways you are not used to leading to very creative ideas. The SIT workshops we run with our clients always lead to ideas that are pursued further. Give it a try!