Think You Have No Unexamined Assumptions? Think Again

If you're stuck on a tricky problem and can't find a way through the mental block, the solution may be in re-examining your assumptions. Think you don't have any? Derek Sivers begs to differ.

In this three-minute mind opener of a TED presentation, music marketer (speaking of problems in need of a radical paradigm shift) Sivers attempts to shake up his audience's thinking and demonstrate that even our simplest understandings often rest on unexamined assumptions, and that other cultures view these same day-to-day issues quite differently. If seemingly obvious things like assigning addresses depend on fundamental conceptualizations we're usually not aware of, imagine how many unexamined assumptions underlie your difficult business problems? That's a lot of opportunities to blow past your mental block.

(Hat tip to the excellent economics blog Marginal Revolution for the pointer.)