more on ambitions and lightbulbs

John begs to differ on my last post in his post here.

(He has a prob with his comments set up so we decided here's the place to discuss...)

John argues against my lightbulb and assembly line examples:

"They were issues. Kerosene and candles caused fires and people died. People could look at the concept of electric light and say 'this will make lighting my house less dangerous'.

Workshops had lousy quality. The lack of quality was costing the owners, and they also had to hire and train a lot of people in order to meet demand. Assembly lines were demonstrably more efficient and produced higher quality results. Interchangeable parts were a huge hit when they were first demonstrated."

No doubt about that, but the question is how would they have solved the "problems" of fire risk and quality when the new and yet unknown alternatives were... ehh... unknown?

I would venture that:

Fixing the "kerosene and candles causing fires" as such would probably have led to better lamps, less flammable kerosene (heh!), asbestos tablecloths and lampshades.

Workshop quality problems could possibly have led to an early version of Six Sigmas (the former popular Three Sigmas :)

The lightbulb and the assembly line were not "fixes to a specific problem at hand", they simply made many former problems moot by changing the underlying basics.

And they changed whole industries and the life of the user as well. That is innovation.

The task at hand, what you hear from your boss and what the venture experts suggests is mostly - "fix a problem!".

That is limiting.

"Fixing a problem" is not evolution innovation.

Shooting for evolution innovation is ambitious. Fixing problems is a daily task.

Edison and Ford and Daimler and the Wright brothers had ambitions.

(Do not think Edison was focusing much on the "fire problem", his laboratory caught fire quite a few times while tinkering with the lightbulb :)

Boss tells you to fix the leaking windows:

Get a carpenter? Get out that silicone tube? (Fixing the problem.)

Or start tinkering with everybody working from home, virtual offices using collaborative software and broadband? (Evolution Innovation)

Problems with Sarbanes-Oxley section 404?

Add more IT systems and accountants?

Or try replacing organisational hierarchies and "how stuff is done"...

Problems with competing with production in China?

Negotiate lower wages locally?

Or redefine your whole business model...

"Fixing a problem" is inherently not ambitious I say.

"Disregard the problem" and look into more sweeping changes that makes many problems moot, that is ambitious I say.

(And more fun too if you're so inclined :)

[Note: JohnO rightly righted me in my confusing use of the word "evoulution" (too small-steps-progress in that, meant bigger leaps), sorry, now stricken out while keeping "innovation".]

Comments

[dermot casey]

My father used tell a story about when rural electrification first happened in Ireland (from the 1930's to the 1950's). One old lady, Mrs McGrath, had "the electricity" installed in her house. As night fell she would turn on the light in the house and then use it to find the candle and matches. She'd light the candle and then promptly turn the light off again. She did think Electricity was a great innovation to help her light the candle. :-)

[sig]

Dermot, perfect!

That says it all... love that one! (Will use in future ;)

Thanks

[JohnO]

I think evolution is the wrong term for it, innovation definitely. Evolution is the incremental change. I don't see how changing the entire fundamental framework/philosophy of something is an incremental change :P

But that is how market leaders are displaced. By changing the game. You can't beat Microsoft at their game (Desktop). So Google changed the game, and played it on the internet, where Microsoft has a history of sucking. Microsoft is largely irrelevant now. Google will get knocked off when someone else comes in and redefines the problem space and framework/philosophy

[sig]

John, I agree fully (had a iffy feeling about that one, got stuck in the progress part...)

Maybe "innovation" is enough, or "progress by leaps and bounds" :)

Think innovation is enough... shall do a strikeover in the post, bye bye "evolution". Thanks!

[James Brunskill]

I don't think there is an easy way to say "X" is a innovation and "Y" is fixing a problem.

For example in the light bulb case the problem they were fixing might have been having to regularly refuel the lamps. It might have been to reduce fire risk. Eletric light solved both of these "problems" they were probably some of the reasons that eletric light has been such as success. If your product solves a problem (regardless of whether anyone else considers it a problem currently) it is far more likely to be successful than one that does solve anything! Often we are seduced by "cool" and "new" stuff, but looking at how something solves real life problems is a good way to ensure that your product has some usefullness out side of a geek's toolbox.

So I think you are right, if we think in terms of "how can we solve problem X" we are not particluarly likely to come up with a revolutionary solution to the problem, on the other hand we need to remember that if we don't solve any problems, we probably aren't going to get very far :)

[sig]

James, (sorry for responding late but the chaps at Typepad had a couple of bad days I think :)

Absolutely - fixing problems is a necessity, like dressing up in the morning and having breakfast - without that nothing works.

It's like I've found works for me - get all the "little issues" and problems out of the way as fast as possible then lean back and focus on the big picture and the generally important stuff.

As individuals I think we are able to look past many problems-at-hand, after an initial "ouch, frustrated, angry" period that is...

I guess my biggest issue is with the "command and control structures" where your boss defines the issue and give a specific order - that leaves not much room for creative beyond the issues ideas... unless you're a stubborn and brave subordinate :)

A system fault, not so much a human issue perhaps...