Intellectual Arbitrage... from the George Costanza School of Management

Had the good fortune of meeting Frank Arrigo the other week down in Dallas for some training.  Good time.  While Frank's head looked smaller in real life, it was chock full of good stuff nonetheless.   :-) 

He got me thinking with a recent post here reviewing a book called: "Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite".  

Of course, it appears to be from the George Costanza School of Management, which would ordinarily make you discard it outright.  But hey -- even George got a job in baseball with this theory! So maybe there's something to this "opposite thinking" idea?  (Wait -- does this mean we're back to "no merit" again, as the opposite of my last thought?  wheh, my head hurts).

Ok -- seriously:  I haven't actually read the book Frank points to, but the concept strikes me as a sound practice on occasion.  Here's why:

Conventional wisdom may often be true, it's not always *necessarily* true, and finding those little nuggets, those "unnecessary truths" can be a great inspiration for innovation.  It's essentially intellectual arbitrage between perception and reality.