“The supposition that the future resembles the past is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is dereived entirely from habit.” – David Hume.

The suspension of beliefs is neccessary to enjoy the exploration and discovery of new ideas in your business or industry. The revolutionary potential in your business exists, but its emergent properties are dormant until you find the courage to see it with new ‘eyes’.

Look at your world twice. Sometimes asking the right questions can help you arrive at new answers. For instance, think of the worst possible idea for your company’s next product and then try reversing it. It can be easier to break group think by a reversal tact such as this.

An example could be for a Newspaper publisher. A bad idea like creating the newspaper with plastic and treating the paper with poison could be reversed. This could be transformed into a newspaper made from organics that moisturized your hands as you held it. While that may or may not be desirable, viable, or feasible, who are you going to let determine the answer? You or your competitor?

Be disruptive, suspend your beliefs.

Mark van Berkel is Founder and President of Hunch Manifest Inc. While managing business operations he also leads the team in designing semantic technology to provide personalized online presence and reputation management services. Prior to forming the company, he was consultant in enterprise software projects to companies including Panasonic, Shell, and General Electric and was an Architect for a world leading human capital management software-as-a-service. Mark holds a Bachelor of Information Systems from StFX University and did his graduate studies at University of Toronto, getting a MEng Industrial Information Engineering and an MBA, Strategy and Innovation from the Rotman School of Management. In 2006 he published a 170 page report as a researcher at the Semantic Technologies Lab at the University of Toronto and built a semantic technology prototype for SAP Research Labs. Connect with Mark on LinkedIn or Twitter. Mark is also certified in Google Analytics.