Creativity Templates depict discernable, measurable and learnable regularities or patterns in innovations and novelties emergence. They enable us to understand general mechanisms of past product alterations, as well as to foresee the next alteration in the series.

The Creativity Templates approach is a counter-intuitive view for product emergence and a novel method for ideation, yet it does not contradict any current marketing theory. It does, however, add an important perspective to the process of product innovation by drawing on the primacy of the idea itself as a driving force toward new product success. Creativity templates are derived by inferring patterns in the evolution of products, such as those that can be inferred from the following illustrations.

Gates, computers and extraterrestrial intelligence

Thomas Alva Edison – Life Magazine's “Number One Man of the Millennium” – was one of the outstanding geniuses in the history of technology. Listed under his name are 1,093 US patents (including the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph and the motion picture projector). Many tales are told of this colorful personality.

One legend about Edison tells that Edison's guests were always complaining that the gate to his house opened with great difficulty, and they were required to exert great force in order to open it. Jokes were rampant about the obstinate gate and the clever inventor who could not find a way to fix it.