Technique to stop repeating what is known. Creativity = not repeating what has already been done. Creativity is often mistakenly defined as “complete freedom” or “no rules” but that is not the case. Innovation requires strong rules to refuse existing rules, patterns, tools, habits and worldviews.
Blocking is a refusal and the beginning of a process of experimentation: “if we no longer can do this, what can we now do?” Blocking, while it might sound simple or crude is a sophisticated form of “enabling constraint”. It enables a difference to be nurtured by constraining the norm, but only if the choice of what to block is well chosen. Blocking is a nuanced activity that first requires knowing the existing rules patterns techniques etc. so that they can be effectively blocked. The key to blocking is to disclose an existing paradigm or world, and this is itself a phase (Disclose) of innovation.
See: Disclose, World, Rules, Enabling Constraint.
