Our world is witnessing a rapid increase in the use of hybridized (mixed) ideas. This trend brings along many emerging opportunities in different sectors of our lives. They range from learning and teaching to writing characters for screenplays. Other opportunities fall in advertisement, conducting meetings, enhancement of engagements, holding company meetings, self-publishing. Cultural hybridization and hybridization of plants to produce new fruits are two more examples.
We know of the hybridized electron orbitals that have new properties and different from the orbitals that mixed. Nature has examples of seeds of two neighboring plants falling on each other and producing hybridized seeds with new traits leading to the growth of plants producing hybridized fruits.
The advancement of technology has created new potential for expanding the use of the idea of hybridization into many fields. This post aims at covering briefs of these trends and the opportunities they create for the creative minds to use and come up with fresh products, services, and offerings.
Hybridization Approaches:
The degree of hybridization varies with the methods employed for hybridization. A good example of such a method is the work this reference describes. The shared thread among all hybridization techniques is taking two or more concepts and uniting them, thus creating a different concept.
Hybridization by Functionality– as the name implies a popular functionality of one field and applies it in another field. For example, taking one property of a seed of a plant and hybridizing it with different seeds from another plant.
The same applies to the seeds of ideas. Decide a useful trait in one idea and hybridize it with another idea seed so that a new hybridized idea seed may float. The layering of onion was the idea seed to apply in 5-whys analysis to identify the core of a problem.
The fishbone analysis borrowed the idea of the structure of fishbone and applies it in classifying in the fishbone analysis of problems.
Hybridization by Aggregation– instead of taking a selected trait of a product this time we mix two whole concepts to generate a new one.
One example is merging the concept of shower enclosure with personal relationships. It sounds strange, but hybridizing the two concepts led to the offering of Linkmirror, a digital shower enclosure with which to make video calls.
Two Examples from the book by Hat Rabbits serve as two good examples of employing different techniques of hybridization.
In the first example, the hospital had a problem with safety procedures in performing surgeries. Brilliantly, the hospital asked in which other fields the same problem is significant. It turned out to be in the airline sector. The hospital hybridized the concept of the “black box” idea from the airline industry and made its own. The equivalent to the black box is recording videos while performing surgeries for monitoring and detecting inconsistencies and then correcting for them.
The second example again shows how very different seeds of ideas mA steel company hybridize to offer new solutions.
A steel company that encountered inconsistencies in its thousands of kilometers length of rolled steel each hour. How to detect such inconsistencies? The hybridization of the powerful technology that astronomers normally use to scour the universe looking for very small changes in the night sky.
Selected Hybridization Fields
Hybridization of Words– we notice the increasing trend of hybridizing words such as simplexity from the mixing of simple and complex.
Hybridization of the Virtual World with the Physical One– examples are many such as in teaching, holding conferences, running seminars, exhibitions and marketing, advertisement.
Recently, Farooq Omar shared a post in which he discussed the metaverse- the hybridization of shared virtual space with the actual domain, which incorporates computer-generated reality, expanded reality, and the web…
The Metaverse Is Coming And It’s A Very Big Deal post explains more on the emerging metaverse. This field invites creativity. Examples are many and I cover a few of them below:
Advertisement and Marketing– Burger King used an expanded reality to upgrade their burgers with AR promotions. In 2019, Burger King delivered an AR promotion crusade where clients could “consume” advertisements of Burger King’s rivals, acquiring them a free burger. The increased experience showed a contender’s promotion going up on fire. The “Burn that ad”https://ewhabrandcommunication.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/what-if-we-can-burn-the-competitors-ads/ campaign attracted huge interest and highlighted the trait of the strength of Burger King and that is fire.
Hybrid Learning – accommodating both at-home and in-person instruction and how to make enhance this hybrid is an ongoing challenge.
Self-Publishing– One great example is the Self Publishing Live Show. This show attracts over one thousand attendees. However, many more could not attend physically. The Self Publishing Show Live has made all of its recorded sessions available for a small fee of $25 with a money-back guarantee. This is a great way to generate more income.
Hybrid Event Ideas– A hybrid event is any event — conference, training seminar, trade expo, etc. — that combines live, in-person elements with digital, online components. The interested reader may explore 18 event ideas with examples to learn more. The general theme is the in-person gathering and then streaming the entire sessions online.
Hybridization in Agriculture– Seeds grown from a hybrid could exhibit traits of one or both parent plants or be something very surprising. Again, this field is open to creative ideas. For good reviews on some of the possibilities, this reference serves the interested readers.
Cultural Hybridization– this is the mixing of people from two different cultures. This is a big topic and I shall deal with it separately in another post.
Conclusion- hybridization is an old concept, but its roots are yielding new fruits. Watch out for developments in this field. Be creative and seize the opportunities this trend is offering.
Very interesting, relevant and informative by example and reference – value adding.
Being a hybrid profile (fields) I would naturally think so. Hybridity also implies diversity, combination and integration (interface is probably more common) as you mention within ideas and concepts – and hence humans. Your examples illustrate a most valuable insight that holds much potential – the use, reuse, modularity and composability potential of idea & concept cross-pollination and hybridization. Historically, philosophy is perhaps the most excellent example of hybridization of thought (along with differentiation, segregation, converging-diverging etc.).
Regulation of hybridization is a huge topic as Aldo also touches upon within AI ethics, tech ethics as examples and when we move to change organisms as within GMO implications on the design on our future existence cannot be neglected. Thanks for emerging new thoughts and bringing old back from oblivion – the ancient topic of generalist-specialist will need revisiting 🙂
PER BERGGREEN- your comment is sharp, eloquent and adds value to the post.
I love the historical background that you covered. Indeed, hybridization is an old concept with self-renewing skin for new potentials, applications and ideas.
. Reading your lines thoughtfully ” Hybridity also implies diversity, combination and integration (interface is probably more common) as you mention within ideas and concepts – and hence humans”. I may say that the ingredients of creative ideas are present in hybridization. We know that in diversity, combination and integration are tools for creating new ideas. Hybridization have all of them within.
One idea in your comment in particular is worthy of pursuing and I mean “Regulation of hybridization”. I shall study this idea in the near future.
I am grateful for your enriching and elevating comment.
Lovely and insightful addition to the post, Aldo.
.The hybridization of AI and Human intelligence is indeed a worthy example of mixing the physical world with the virtual one. The emerging entity is different from both of the concepts that hybridized and this requires, as you highlighted, responsibility and precaution because of the newness of the hybridized world.
Very interesting and informative article.
i think that in general the world is going towards the hybridation between human intelligence and algorithmic power. Fears of a future dominance of machines over humans are widespread but also exaggerated. However, to avoid this risk and ensure proper management of the technology, it is essential to develop at all levels an articulated critical thinking based on the principles of responsibility and precaution.