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But as my research progressed, it became clear that analogies do more than just persuade; they also play a catalytic role in innovation and decision making often with dramatic consequences. From the bloody Chicago slaughterhouse that inspired Henry Ford's first moving assembly line, to the "domino theory" that led America into the Vietnam War, to the "bicycle for the mind" that Steve Jobs envisioned as a Macintosh computer, analogies have played a dynamic role in shaping the world around us.

In sum, the art of analogy is the art of cultivating and communicating ideas-revealing fresh connections and relationships between things that are not only useful and make intuitive sense, but also bear up under honest scrutiny. Because while all analogies obscure complexity and some reveal simplicity, only the very best approach truth. The perfect analogy makes things as simple as possible, but no simpler.

when we think more rigorously about the analogies we encounter or employ, we become more able to challenge conventional wisdom and more creative in our problem solving. This in turn equips us to discover new, unexpected possibilities that just might be hiding in plain sight. Ultimately, people who become truly adept at analogy are better able to avoid costly missteps, free their imaginations, and persuade others more effectively.

To search for better analogies is to search for truth, however elusive or subjective that truth may be. Sometimes, that search requires us to step back. At other times, it means getting close. Always, it requires a leap. Because analogies, like puns, are intellectual hyperlinks that establish or reveal relationships between disparate ideas.

Steve Jobs once told Wired magazine that "when you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people." People who lack the experience or ability to see these connections and conceptual overlaps, Jobs said, "end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem."