One thing I definitely love is the way we can learn from history. But seldom do.

There might be a reason for that. Often the lesson is so obvious (now, to us, years after the event), we can't understand why nobody thought of it at the time, so we don't think it's important. We undervalue the importance of the lesson, and ignore it.

A good example is the way the Titantic sunk.

Anyone who has seen the film will know that the Titantic, the biggest ship of its day and the biggest passenger liner in the world up to that point, was sailing across the Atlantic and, in the middle of the night, hit an iceberg. It caused a massive slash down one side of the ship, water flooded in, and the liner sank in an hour an a half. Most of the passengers died, mainly because there weren't enough lifeboats for everybody, and, even the ones that were there, couldn't all be launched safely, (as the boat started listing to one side). So, that's it, right? More than half the passengers drowned. Nothing could be done.

Well, James Cameron doesn't think so.

He's the director of the famous film. He's made a special study of the event. Dammit, he's been down in a submarine to look at the wreck. He said, in a recent TV documentary, that the people could have been saved.

How? Well, the liner hit the iceberg and the engines stopped. But, they were still working. If the boat had tried moving forward it would have forced water into the hole in the hull, and it would have sunk more quickly. But it could have gone backwards. For a while.

The Captain knew that there was another ship about ten miles behind them, parked up for the night. He could have slammed the Titanic into reverse and steamed back to within hailing distance of the other boat. Then the passengers could have been ferried across in the few lifeboats they had working. Why didn't he do that? Maybe he didn't think of it. Maybe he was so paralised by fear and dread, he couldn't think at all. After all, the Titanic had been described as 'unsinkable'. It was equipped with waterproof bulkheads, so any leak should have been contained. (But, unfortunately for those guys in 1912, the iceberg had caused a gash in the boat that went past several of those sections, and once one of them filled up, the water overflowed - since the watertight bulkheads didn't go all the way up through the boat. They stopped after the lowest few decks!)

If you've seen the film, you will have seen the Captain looking a bit depressed. That's probably accurate. Once he got it into his head the ship was going to sink, he just stood around and felt miserable, right up to the last minute.

Unfortunately for him, there was another way out too.

James Cameron said, on his TV show, that 'they could have landed the people onto the iceberg'. It sounds fantastic, too silly to be true, but, as he points out, the ship could have re-started the engines and edged up to the iceberg, which, as he says 'wasn't going anywhere'. It would have been straightforward, he said, to dock the boat and attach themselves with ropes. Then, using the masts and cranes that the ship possessed, they could have run out gangways onto the ice and people could have simply walked across onto something solid. They would have had to wrap up warm, of course, and take a few rugs with them to sit on, but there was a good chance, Cameron says, that the passengers could have sat the night out, at least until the rescue ship arrived in the morning.

So simple. Why didn't they think of it?

Aw, common, be honest. Would you? The damn iceberg had just cut a hole in your ship and was about to doom the boat and most of the people alive on there. Would you have wanted to cosy up to that ice mountain and risk the lives of the people, slithering around on the ice and snow? Well, yes, if there was no alternative, and the only other choice was to jump into the icy waters. (If you've seen the film, you would have seen that. Why - why on earth would people choose to try swimming, especially at sub-zero temperatures? Because they had no other option, not right then!)

What can we learn from this?

Well, if the Titanic crew didn't think that the iceberg that had caused all their problems might also have been the thing that could have saved them, could we? Suppose you got sacked by your employer and were made redundant. Would you want to go back to them and offer to work as a freelance consultant? Would you snuggle up to the iceberg?

The point is this. The Titanic was sinking. People were going to drown. What could they do? The answer, says the film director, was right in front of them. They didn't see it. Well, well, well. How often are we told - 'Think outside the box'. Hang on, why not look inside the box, first? The answer might be right there, staring back at you.