TRIZ and Politics

    ������Social and economic situations in the former USSR since the late 1980s urged or forced many TRIZ specialists, who had much experience applying TRIZ to technical problems, to change their main activity field into services, business management, etc. and they are still using TRIZ.

    ������Main interests in interviewing these people are: what aspects of TRIZ can be used and what kind of extensions of TRIZ are necessary in the new fields of business-related areas?

    ������Sergey Faer, (St. Petersburg, Russia) changed his dedication from technology to advertisement and Public Relations area in 1990 and now he is working actively as chief of a political consultant group. He is a developer of more than thirty advertising campaigns for various firms and services. As part of his career he has successfully organized fourteen election campaigns in the past several years.

    ������Sergey Faer has elaborated and tested in political campaigns 140 methods and stratagems. Many of 73 tactical methods and stratagems, described in his book "Methods of Strategy and Tactics of Election Campaign" (1998), are published for the first time. They entitled by original names and explained with formulation, comments and even with his own statements of each problem written with poetic diction of Japanese haiku-style poetry.

    ������There is specially allocated the essence of each method - the aspect of contradiction, and formulation demonstrates that maximal task (contradiction), which the given method is capable to solve. Besides, the widely known methods are submitted also in the book. They are marked by *. Some of them meet in the literature under the different names. In this case author has kept most settled. Attention: a stratagem is more, than the tactical method, but is less, than a strategy. A stratagem is a system of the several coordinated tactical methods. One more remark: The presence of methods does not exempt from the solution of tasks. Sometimes it happens that the use of a method can cause the necessity of solution of a new subtask, smaller, than basic, on scale. It's not the reason for refusal of method. The meaning of a new subtask is reduced to retention of pluses of the solution and elimination of the appeared minuses. Typical mistake - the attempt to find the one method solving all problems at once.

    ������While talking to Sergey Faer, being in St. Petersburg, Dr. Toru Nakagawa (Professor of the Preparatory Office for Faculty of Information Science, Osaka, Gakuin University, the editor of "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" http://www.osaka-gu.ac.jp/php/nakagawa/TRIZ/eTRIZ/, E-mail: [email protected]) recalled the 36 tactics stratagems written in ancient Chinese literatures, and Sergey Faer showed him his citation of them at the end of his book:


    Some of these valid methods functioning already for three millenniums:

    • To make noise in the east, to attack in the west
    • To extract something from nothing
    • To hide a dagger behind a smile
    • To be unified with a distant enemy to win near
    • To do mad gestures, not losing balance
    • To decorate dry trees with artificial flowers
    • To transform a role of the visitor into a role of the host
    • The plum tree dries up instead of peach

    ������"They are similar to invisible knives which are hidden in a human brain and sparkle only when you decide to apply them. The human life is a struggle, and in a struggle, the stratagems are necessary. Each man stands on the front-line. The one who is able to apply stratagems, always will keep the initiative in his hands. Military people and scientists, merchants and diplomats - are using them. In a palace or in a hootch they are always useful. They should be carefully hidden from the foreigners"

    ������Sergey Faer is pointing out the following main Inventive Principles of TRIZ he uses in the political consulting:

    • Contradiction (Find, formulate and resolve)
    • Ideality (Formulate an Ideal Solution)
    • Convert Harm into Benefit (Utilize harmful factors or environmental effects to obtain a positive effect)
    • Resources
    • SOME FORMULATIONS OF THE ASPECTS OF CONTRADICTIONS AND INVENTIVE METHODS OF AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN (BY S. FAER):

    A) Contradictions.

    • To Strengthen so as to Loosen
    • To hit the competitor not touching him
    • The "nays" should vote "yeas". (Those electors who were against our candidate - should vote in the affirmative)
    • Everybody knows but secret is respecting
    • The candidate is self - competitor
    • The event not happened yet but the result already known
    • The absence of the enemy is a step to defeat

    B) Ideality.

    • Using of the emptiness
    • Ideal camouflage: competitor knows about our plan but he can do nothing against it
    • Ideal attack: stronger than attack is its absence
    • The competitor himself carries out the requirements of the Candidate
    • Problem remains but harm disappears

    C) Convert harm into benefit.

    • Competitor badly beats our candidate with a slander - it's better for a candidate
    • The voters choose competitor polling for our candidate
    • Make an advantageous loss

    D) Analysis of Resources.

    • Maximum participation with minimum interest
    • Remind not repeating

    E) Moving to new dimension.

    • To win in the city not waging the local city campaign

    F) Combining.

    • Many competitors should be equal to one competitor

    G) Inversion. Instead of an action dictated by the specifications of the problem, implement an opposite action.

    • We help to our future opponent to become a leader

    H) Nesting. (Principle of Nested Doll - Russian Matreshka) Contain the object inside another which, in turn, is placed inside a third object.

    • During the propaganda for election campaign people do not want to read the flyers, they can only take a glance. So, the main messages should be written not directly but in a way people can natuarally go further in their mind.

    I) Ideal object is not existing but his function is working.

    • Ideal flyer is the rumors.

    ������Sergey Faer says that the most important message he obtained from TRIZ is "Be brave to solve problems". He believes TRIZ is applicable to life in many other areas. He loves his new application fields because the responses of his trials come back in a day, instead of months or years when he makes a technical invention.


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