The principle of Weight Compensation, or Anti-Weight, is used to solve a problem or improve a product in one of two ways:
1. To compensate for the weight of an object, merge it with other objects that provide lift.
e.g. Use helium balloons to support advertising signs
2. To compensate for the weight of an object, make it interact with the environment using aerodynamic, hydrodynamic, buoyancy, and other forces.
e.g. Hydrofoils lift the ship out of the water to reduce drag.
In other words, this principle allows you to adjust your product or system to compensate for an existing weight. As you’ll recall from Chapter 10, an important aspect of TRIZ is the idea that contradictions have to be eliminated.
Weight compensation solves a classic technical contradiction or tradeoff. For example, a product may get stronger, but the new components increase the weight. Using the lens of weight compensation, the inventor or entrepreneur can find a solution that counteracts the added weight, thus solving the technical contradiction.
Sink or Swim
Submarines use the principle of weight compensation to float both above and below water. Subs float because the weight of the displaced water is equal to the weight of the ship. The displaced water creates an upward force known as a buoyant force. Buoyant forces act opposite to gravity, thus keeping gravity from pulling the craft down.
Ballast or trim tanks, which can be filled with either water or air, allow a submarine to control its buoyancy and sink or surface on command. When the submarine is floating on the surface of the water, the tanks are filled with air; thus the sub’s overall density is less than that of the surrounding water. When the sub goes under, the air is released and the tanks fill with water. The water in the tanks causes the sub’s overall density to exceed that of the surrounding water, allowing the sub to sink.
Companies use the lens of weight compensation all the time to move inventory. Slow moving inventory can be bundled with a hot product. Because people want the hot product in the first place, the slow merchandise add-on adds perceived value. People feel like they’re getting more, and will often pay a higher price for the bundled product even though they probably wouldn’t have purchased the slow merchandise alone. This trick works wonders for getting rid of inventory sitting in a back room taking up space.
The Best Bonus Feature Ever
A friend of mine, Phil Baker, has a great story that exemplifies the weight compensation principle.
Phil was 17 and had a 1965 Dodge Dart convertible he wanted to sell. He said the car was a nice vehicle at one time, and ran just fine, but by the time he wanted to sell it there was hardly any paint left on the body and the car looked terrible.
He put the car up for sale and waited a few weeks, but he didn’t have any takers.
Phil also had a younger sister. All of his buddies were constantly begging Phil to set them up on a date with his sister, but he wasn’t having any of that.
Then one day he put two and two together. What if he bundled a date with his sister with the car?
He spread the word around about his new and improved “product,” and told his friends that if they would buy the car, he’d get them a date with his little sister. The next thing he knew, he had three or four different eager buyers. Two of the guys actually came up with the cash for the car.
The car was “dead weight,” but a date with his sister was a hot commodity. Phil took two things he already had access to: his car and his sister, and bundled them together to create a new, much more appealing product. He compensated for the condition of the car by attaching a desirable feature.
Salary v. Profit Sharing
Much like the other lenses, the principle of weight compensation is not restricted to tangible objects or literal interpretation. For example, consider the difference between a salary and profit sharing. Both provide financial benefits to employees, but the two different forms of compensation each carry a weight.
Sometimes a fledgling business owner will want my help, but can’t afford my salary. When this situation arises, I often give the business the option to forgo the salary altogether and instead give me a percentage of their profits. A combination of salary and profit sharing can also be utilized.
TRIZ Bitz
- Carbon credit trading system for greenhouse gas emissions
- Computer time-memory tradeoff where the memory use can be reduced at the cost of slower program execution, or vice versa
- Al Gore lifted his popularity by attaching himself to global warming
How can you make your product or service better by compensating for the weight, whether literal or figurative, of another object?
To learn more about TRIZ, attend the Da Vinci and the 40 Answers class at Wizard Academy taught by Mark Fox and Roy Williams.
This is Chapter 18 from the book Da Vinci and the 40 Answers
