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What are some effective ways to connect ideas from different fields to my work?

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Kunyu Wang Shanghai Longcheer Technology Co.Ltd Songjiang District, SH, China, Mainland

Extract core logic from other fields, apply their methods to your problems, combine their forms with your content, compare similarities, and test small cross-field combinations in your work.
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Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
Community Champion
Program Manager| HARPER SRL Santo Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
That’s an interesting way to look at it.
What has worked for me is focusing on the thinking behind the idea, not the method itself. Once you understand why something works in another field, it becomes easier to adapt it to your own context.
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1 reply by Anton Oosthuizen
Apr 14, 2026 1:07 AM
Anton Oosthuizen
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I agree, the what and how do not always translate across domains, but the why does. One of my favourite subjects is around thinking (critical, cognitive, creative), and the majority of my theories come from domains that are not even close to the ones I normally work in.
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Anton Oosthuizen Senior Business Analyst / Project Manager| Self Employed Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Apr 13, 2026 8:07 PM
Replying to Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
...
That’s an interesting way to look at it.
What has worked for me is focusing on the thinking behind the idea, not the method itself. Once you understand why something works in another field, it becomes easier to adapt it to your own context.
I agree, the what and how do not always translate across domains, but the why does. One of my favourite subjects is around thinking (critical, cognitive, creative), and the majority of my theories come from domains that are not even close to the ones I normally work in.
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Srikana Ray
Community Champion
IT Project Manager
You could start with a clear goal or vision of what you want to achieve. From there, identify the problems that need to be solved and apply your knowledge and skills to work through them. Throughout the process, you can draw on methods from different fields and compare approaches to develop more effective solutions. This combination of problem-solving, adaptation and comparison helps refine your idea and leads to stronger outcomes.

Additionally, using AI as a tool can support this process by helping you gather information, explore different perspectives and make meaningful comparisons more efficiently.
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Michael King
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Senior IS Project Manager| Baycare Health Systems Clearwater, Fl, United States
That is a great idea to take the best of one industry and import it into your service line to improve your quality and value.

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