An Exercise in Avoiding Boredom

Dirk Riehle’s ramblings on life, the universe, and everything

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Thinking out of the Box

June 14th, 2008 · 2 Comments

The 2007 SAP Research Report is out… Subtitled: thinking out of the box… Wished they had asked a native speaker. At least my thinking doesn’t come out of a box. It sure is unique! I hope the readers of this blog can attest to it.

If you use Google as an oracle, it shows to be a common mistake. “Thinking outside the box” gives us 961,000 hits today, and “thinking out of the box” gives us 214,000 hits. So there was a 20% chance to get it wrong. Stuff happens…

Tags: Something funny · Straight from Germany · Technology

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Tim // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:46 am

    Maybe what they mean is out-of-the-box thinking? That’s thinking straight from the brain without any customization (similar to off-the-shelf thinking or over-the-counter thinking). ;-)

  • 2 Dirk Riehle // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:22 pm

    Hi Tim, I guess you are right. Using Google as an oracle is rather precarious :-) as social proof can be wrong at times. Or, in this case, both options are possible with slightly distinct meanings. Hope life is good for you!

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