Seth Godin wrote a blog, "You don't know Lefsetz?", about knowing published works in your field of expertise. How can we be experts if we don't study what others are doing? We put all of our efforts into our own work and miss the importance of knowing the work of our peers. He calls this "too much doing, not enough knowing." This applies not only to your field of knowledge, but to seemingly unrelated fields as well. By limiting your view to only those doing similar work, you just might be missing a break through.
Roboticists have been turning to entomology because nature already has the answer to locomotion and solving complex problems through swarm behavior. These seemingly unrelated fields have together produced brilliant solutions that would have been missed had people not ventured out from their doing.
We can apply this to our own lives as well. Tackling a complex problem at work that doesn't seem to have a perfect solution? Before settling on "good enough", look around to see how others have solved problems. Look beyond the superficial similarities and scratch the surface to find broader connections. Search out analogies in areas that would otherwise seem to have little in common with yours. Stop doing for a few minutes and start getting to know.
Link to Seth Godin's "You don't know Lefsetz?": http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451b31569e201b7c78b2ec0970b
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