What box?

On Danny Boy's discussion forum a contributor started a thread with a criticism of Danny, arguing that Danny often talks about thinking outside the box, but never really doing it. His observation is that Danny doesn't really appear to know what "outside the box" means.

Part of Danny's response is --

I am a big believer in that the best way to figure out how someone thinks is to try and play as you think they would play. Erick, Josh, and I did these exercises at the Heads Up tournament this year, and I have done lots more experimenting in past years.

That's Danny's idea of what thinking outside the box means. To me, that's just a clear verification that Danny really doesn't understand the idea of thinking outside the box.

Thinking outside the box is thinking outside the norm, not just thinking that orginates with someone else. Trying to understand the way someone else thinks isn't thinking outside the box, it's just thinking inside someone elses box.

I think an example of thinking outside the box is my idea of bet odds in my book, The Complete Book of Hold'em Poker. Value betting draws was not generally considered a good idea at the time. Betting draws was considered a semi-bluff by almost everybody, not a value bet.