ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how to extract technology ideas by expanding and examining lifestyles, using a conceptualization method and/or an action decomposition approach based on ontology engineering. The action, defect, and spiritual affluence nodes, along with way nodes, help us structure the actions that will make up a lifestyle. It also creates a visual reference for the environmental constraints, social issues, and spiritual affluence that give rise to the lifestyle. The top of the decomposition tree starts with broad, conceptual actions. Quite apart from the expansion of a lifestyle, decomposing actions has the extra merit of using simple vocabulary with limited numbers. It is an extremely useful system for reaching a common understanding between people of different educational backgrounds and cultures. The action “obtain fuel” can be decomposed further into a chain of actions as the “bacteria decomposition way”: “obtain plant-based materials,” “store plant-based materials,” “make bacteria multiply,” and “decompose plant-based materials into liquid fuel.”
