Fill in the blank: Sun rises from the ______?

If you thought 'East', meme below will give you something to think.

Of course, you were also taught in your elementary classes about the solar system and the planets orbiting around the stationary sun.

So, why do we still teach students that sun rises from the east? 

Let's park this thought and return to it after a small detour.

As a child, I loved studying mathematics. It was intuitive and easy and helped in getting good grades in school. I have come to appreciate some of the concepts in their wider application long after I aced them in my school examinations. It really feels wonderful to distance yourself from the concept and context and then apply it in another context.

As part of academic curriculum, we were introduced to the concept of co-ordinate geometry (Cartesian) quite early. It was easy to visualize it in everyday things. A very important, often taken for granted, part of that system is choosing the origin. This singular point defines the relative position of any other point in the planar space. Once you have 2 axes (2D system) and a point of origin, any point can be defined as the perpendicular distance from the 3 axes.

The interesting consideration there is that you are free to choose a set of new axes and/or a new origin to get completely different co-ordinates. Different but still equally valid. This is called a frame of reference.

Now returning back to our case of Sun and its direction of ascent. 

It should be quite evident that both statements related to rising of sun are correct and depend merely upon the frame of reference chosen by the observer. That is not the point of this post. It would have been much more easy to create another meme with one more line at the bottom of it explaining the frame of reference angle.

This post is about how sometimes this concept can be used as a model to brainstorm new ideas - just change/flip the reference. Let me explain this with the help of some examples -

Normal scenario - Restaurants are physical entity. If you have to eat, you choose to go to a restaurant.

Flipped scenario - Restaurants can come to you and remind you that you should eat. They can nudge you to eat when you may not even be thinking about food at all.

Normal scenario - Construct a building by mixing and joining materials at the site, with due time for curing and levelling each step of the way.

Flipped scenario - Make the building blocks outside and assemble the pre-fabricated parts on the site. Curing and levelling can be outsourced, thereby increasing accuracy and timelines.

Normal scenario - Buy an item. Use it to experience. Pay first and then use.

Flipped scenario - Get trials for free. Try an item and then buy it. Use first and then pay.

Normal scenario - Process prioritizing careful building approach to get better: Plan -> Do -> Check -> Act -> Repeat

Flipped scenario - Process prioritizing fail fast approach to get better: Act -> Check -> Repeat

I can go on as this idea morphs into multiple domains - companies, products, campaigns, etc. The important thing is to question the origin. If you flip the reference, you may find an area of opportunity waiting to be tapped.