Paul's Posts — 19 February 2012
By Paul McGowan
I get asked a lot about why we spend so much on innovation. ”Why not just milk what you already have and save some money?” Certainly a lot of companies do this, but not us.
I’ll share a little secret with you. We innovate to help us figure out what’s next. Discovering the new means you have to step outside the old.
Imagine for a moment staying inside your home and never venturing outside. There’d be plenty of benefits: comfort, safety, familiarity lower cost. But compare that to the adventurous fellow who is outside mixing it up with whatever comes his way. Sure there’s downsides: uncomfortable situations, fear of new things, unfamiliarity, higher costs.
The bigger picture is that while the person staying in the house is comfortable he doesn’t grow and discover what’s outside while the more adventurous learns, grows, meets new friends and winds up in a place he could never have predicted.
We innovate because each step in the innovation process happens as a result of putting one foot in front of the other to get to the new. We don’t know where we’re going because we’re inventing the future.
I guess I am just not an indoor kind of guy. :)
Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers
Related Articles
Share
About Author
(4) Readers Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Soundminded
“But compare that to the adventurous fellow who is outside mixing it up with whatever comes his way.
Look at Google Earth starting with a street view in front of your house or one like it. Then zoom out. How far out should you go? High as a tree? As a bird in flight? As a high flying jet? As the space shuttle? Zoom out as far as you can and you’ll see the earth about the way you would from the moon. But you haven’t gone nearly far enough to see the solar system, the galaxy, the universe. Each order of magnitude increment you take puts you farther and farther from what is familiar and comfortable but it’s the only way to learn the truth. Looking back on the people who remained inside the house they sure seem small, insignificant, and clueless about how things really are. More to be pitied than held in contempt for their prejudices no matter how intolerant they are of the heresies you’ve brought back with you.
“Sure there’s downsides: uncomfortable situations”
How far you can travel depends on how much of what you think you know you are willing to put at risk, set aside, hold in abeyance pending further verification or refutation. Would you put it all at risk? Most people won’t. If everyone were so lacking in adventure we’d all still believe the world is flat but that wouldn’t make it any less round. There is still a Flat Earth Society. Some people will not let go of their dogmas no matter what happens.
When you travel in uncharted waters or space there’s no 911 to call when you get into trouble. Nobody to ask for advice. Anything that goes wrong must be figured out and fixed by you or it just won’t get fixed at all. What does this mean? It means that the promise of much better sound reproducing systems that create the spatial and temporal dimensional experiences of live music and even more will not be possible within the context of the current technological paradigm. You will not see the galaxies or hear the music of the spheres from inside your comfortable house and you will not make them non-existent by insisting they aren’t real or convince those that have been out there for themselves that you already know them.
Paul McGowan
Boy you hit the nail on that comment. Thank you.
Terry Franklin
Successful innovation leads to tomorrow’s standard infrastructure. Back in the very late 80s I designed the first two relational databases for my agency. It did not take long for that to become the standard practice of IT. Relational databases became mandatory because of the sudden high demand for data retrieval. In the old days it was complicated to retrieve data. Complex programs were customized for data extraction. That equaled time and money. Relational databases became possible when the cost of disk storage declined.
Paul, you will be successful if you have correctly anticipated a demand for what you are developing.
Adolf
Why are kids learning so much and so fast. They don’t believe in the advice of their parents. They must get their own experience. Any trial will lead to their empathic findings. Thus kids are very positive, very enthusiastic but never conservative. Adults believe to know everything. This is misbelieve, because it leads to standing still. Nothing will change from then. But is that life worthwhile?
So Paul and your team be kids and never decide to stand still.