Preface: Most good ideals are the result of building on existing ideas or working together via collaboration to develop ideas. Good ideas take time and energy to develop. Good ideals lead to great ideas.
Where Will Ideas Lead Your Marketplace?
Credit: Donald J. Sauder, CPA | CVA
Innovation will always be with us. Insights leading to extraordinary developments in civilization have been occurring before the day a group of men built a truly preposterous boat called the Ark. The Ark was a fabulously good idea in its time, but so innovative that it drew ridicule towards the one in charge of building it. The first lesson to learn from history–when someone has an idea you think is preposterous, don’t ridicule them. Instead, say something like, “That is a unique idea.”
Good ideas take time to become great ideas. In 1799 Sir George Cayley presented the first design for a fixed-wing aircraft. Numerous attempts were made to implement Sir George Cayley’s idea during the next century. On December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first controlled, sustained power flight. This led to the development of aircraft into a useful means of transportation.
Airplanes have developed significantly since 1903. Today billionaires fly in private Boeing 757s with a $100 million price tag. If that isn’t surprising, consider Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal’s “Flying Palace,” a specially-designed luxury Airbus A380 for $500 million. Sir George Cayley’s idea in 1799 has followed a path of incredible innovation to today. Where will innovation lead in the next century for your marketplace?
Let’s bring this to a practical level. Most good ideas are the result of building on other ideas or working together to develop ideas. Good ideas take time and energy to develop. Good ideas lead to great ideas. The idea for the Ark came to Noah for a reason, and he put all his energy into implementing that idea, just like Wilbur and Orville Wright put all their energy into their building and flying an airplane.
Microsoft isn’t a business developed from a flash of insight. Years of tinkering with mainframe computers in high school led Paul Allen and Bill Gates to see what computers could do in a developing world. A vision developed over time–a computer on every desk and in every home, with Microsoft software, of course. Microsoft was incorporated on April 4, 1975.
In 1977, Ken Olsen is famously quoted, “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” An engineer who co-founded Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957, Ken helped build computerized flight simulators and was an accomplished pilot, a very intelligent entrepreneur and engineer. Ken was named by Fortune magazine as America’s most successful entrepreneur in 1986. Avoiding fancy trappings, he kept a simple office in an old mill building, and when his staff built a modern and lavish office he refused to use it. In 2011 he was listed as #6 on the list of top 150 innovators and ideas from MIT. When you think about innovators in the computer industry, however, Olsen probably isn’t a name that comes to mind. But his ideas were key to developing the technology innovation that spurred Microsoft’s vision.
Microsoft believed in ideas such as flight simulators being so commonplace that they could be used for young people’s entertainment. Microsoft developed ideas that people like Ken Olsen engineered years earlier.
Consider the innovation in the agriculture industry in the recent century, from plows to no-till drills; or communication and mobile phones; and yes, there is more innovation in science laboratories and on CAD (computer-aided design) software files for the future. Where will those ideas lead your marketplace?
In summary, have a great vision and purpose for your business. Strive to further that purpose and vision every day, because future innovative ideas are sure to take your business industry to places which today you may think are impossible.