09/01/2006 11:10:00 PM 
By exploring that new world, you hopefully can come up with some new and different observations.
Is it similar to what X brand went through?
Does the consumer approach this category in the same way as category X?
Looking at diverse categories can also help you to understand interesting similarities, but we just use them as mental models and leave them at that.
But what if you were to take it further?
Like the motor racing crews and the medical teams that Bruno Giussani points out in a recent post
What's great about Bruno's story, is that it's not a mental model, but something that really happened. In two instances, two crews met up and compared notes; one was a US ER crew at a NASCAR pit crew initiated by IDEO and the other was the Great Ormond Street Hospital in England and the Ferrari Formula 1 crew.
(If anyone doubts the teamwork and precision of a Formula One pit crew, please check out these pictures of the Toyota F1 team at Laguna Seca a few weeks back.)
The Great Ormond Street experience was amazingly successful.
"It transformed the intensive-care unit in a center of silent precision" where "the complications of operations have been substantially reduced"
If agencies were smart, they would, like IDEO, introduce their clients to each other, to see what they could learn, but also try and find non-competitive parties that experiences and learning could be shared with.
Taking the client out of their comfort zone and into a new business environment opens them new possibilities and ideas.
If anyone wants to learn something from the likes of MINI, Dwell, and IDEO, they are welcome to attend our conference on October 3rd in San Francisco.
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