BioInspired! So What? Now What!

Traditionally biomimetics or biomimcry is the application of lessons from nature to engineering, product or architectural problems. There are some great examples that are used to explain the biomimetic approach such as the Eifel Tower and Velcro. And whilst these may be disputed by the purist they get across the idea that nature can help us think differently about the problems we face.

Recent work at the University of Bath has shown that there is much more to this approach that simply copying what nature does.  For example did you know that if you take a similarly sized problem that nature uses a significantly smaller amount of energy to ceate a solution?  Here biomimetics can be used as the basis for ‘green’ thinking and a robust basis for green management.

The latest in biomimetic research carried out at Bath shows that biomimetics can be used to help change the thinking of a leadership team so that they can come up with different and typically better, solutions.

Phil Richardson founded the business transformation consulting company Thoughtcrew with a goal of "Breaking through current thinking using biomimetics to solve management challenges".  He presented "Business Creation with biomimetics" at BIONIS 2007 and posts on biomimetics in his weblog.