海角大神

The US political news stream, as observed from my computer screen of late, is all Trump and all Clinton, all the time. But flipping through my magazine pile, I more often meet the steady gaze of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as he looks out from the covers of publications doing their big assessments of the Obama years.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek鈥檚 recent Oval Office interview was headlined, 鈥淏usiness tips from the 颅鈥榓nti-business鈥� president.鈥澛�

What caught my eye, though, was a hyphenated phrase the president used as he discussed the value of workforce education:
鈥淸T]here are a number of things we could do right now that don鈥檛 require some out-of-the-box policy initiatives and that would really make a difference in boosting productivity growth.鈥�

Is 鈥渙ut of the box鈥� like 鈥渟hovel ready鈥�? Remember that one? Mr. Obama mentioned 鈥渟hovel ready鈥� infrastructure projects in a television interview in early 2009, and the phrase went about as viral as anything connected with infrastructure is ever likely to go.聽

In the BusinessWeek interview, though, the president is talking about something else.

There are two distinct 鈥渂ox鈥� idioms, one with roots in the world of technology and the other rooted in management-speak. It took me a couple of readings to figure out which one (I think) the president meant.

Out of the box, sometimes intensified as right out of the box, refers to 鈥渢he immediate usability or functionality of a newly purchased product, typically an electronic device or a piece of software,鈥� as the Oxford Dictionaries online put it.聽

An 鈥渙ut-of-the-box feature鈥� or functionality is one that 鈥渨orks immediately after installation without any configuration or modification,鈥� according to the collective wisdom of Wikipedia. Such features work for all users by default, and without their having to pay extra, either.聽

A related concept here is 鈥渙ff the shelf,鈥� meaning 鈥渘ot custom-made.鈥� Equipment that鈥檚 鈥渙ff the shelf鈥� generally works 鈥渙ut of the box.鈥澛�

But when President Obama spoke of actions 鈥渢hat don鈥檛 require some out-of- the-box policy initiatives,鈥� he was alluding, in the negative (鈥渄on鈥檛 require鈥�), to the other major 鈥渂ox鈥� idiom: 鈥渢o think out of, or outside, the box,鈥� meaning to 鈥渢hink in an original or creative way.鈥�

鈥淭hinking outside the box鈥� is widely traced to the 鈥渘ine dots puzzle,鈥� familiar from management training seminars. Presented with an image of nine dots, in three rows of three, one is asked to connect all the dots with just four lines (three, in some versions) without lifting one鈥檚 pencil. It鈥檚 a pretty familiar puzzle by this point, but what used to keep people from getting it was that they saw a box that wasn鈥檛 really there.聽

But the president鈥檚 message, if I understand it right, was that the needed initiatives are things we already know how to do; they won鈥檛 require us to expend our creative energies inventing them. And we don鈥檛 need to spend time thinking our way out of boxes that aren鈥檛 really there.