Invent the Future that Has Already Happened
Original Post at: http://macromental.blogspot.com/2008/07/invent-future-that-has-already-h...
Peter Drucker once noted that companies that seem to have the most success “invent the future that has already happened.” Nice quote, but what does that mean exactly?
I think what it is trying to say is to look for successes in other industries or processes and copy them in yours. Case in point, Dell took made to order and catalog sales (what Sears used to do with their Craftsman houses), and applied it their computer manufacturing. Or how Keller Williams combined the success of ERA with Mary Kay’s multi-level-marketing (MLM) approach to become one of the largest realtors in the nation.
Essentially, how you invent the future is to take something that worked well in one industry, and see if it can be translated (moved) into what you are trying to do. Great companies are able to “steal” ideas, methodologies, and processes that worked well in a totally different and sometime alien industry.
In addition and from my experience, creating a future that has already happened means that you do NOT want to do anything that has to 1) change human nature or be too complicated. You do not want to re-invent the wheel. You do want to invent better uses for it though. That is not to say you cannot make anything new, you just have to make it similar to what people are used to. Remember the mantra: “Cheaper, Faster, Better.”
As an example: DVD players. Even though DVDs have superior quality compared to VHS tapes, it was not until manufacturers incorporated the same features found on tape players (including the flashing 12:00) that there acceptance in the mainstream became assured.
Humans are funny, we do not to really work at learning anything new, but we can learn something new if we feel that the gain will far outweigh the pain (of the learning curve). It amazes me how many people start off their business plans with the phrase, “The will revolutionize the world of….” News flash: Very few things revolutionized the world: the printing press, electricity, flight and maybe x-rays. Everything else took decades and generations before the “revolution” or more precisely the “evolution” took place. (ARPANET was formed in 1968).
Still, if you really want to profit from your efforts, look how to use what is already successful in other industries. You may not be able to predict the future, but you sure can create it.
- jeteye's blog
- Login or register to post comments
"Borrowing" ideas and concepts, parallelism if you will, is common. I seek methods of encapsution of highly volatile materials. It therefore stands to reason that the perfuem industry as an example, may hold the solution to some technical challenges. Reinvention of the wheel is often a "fools work."
Also look in the drug industry. There is a guy in town (a Greek) Papa-somthing, who is a master of time release and drug encapsulation.
FYI
Thanks. I'll try to dig him out (does he own a restaurant too?). I noticed at least two typos in my last comment, but I dare not re-edit for fear of falling prey to the dreaded "admin" vacuum.
Worry not, I'm probably down over 100 points due to the edit bug.
Not worried, just amused. All of the programming capabilities and "boom," a bug.
OK ok ok ok we'll get that fixed!
OR maybe you just have to make sure to say it right the first time. :)
It has made me proofread my posts much more carefully, which is not a bad thing!
Better proof reading is the answer.
My wife tells me so too!
No, I do not think so..
The application I see in terms of web-based business is leveraging what's already out there. For example, I use Twitter to send new door64 post titles out to the Tweetsphere. It's a cheap (well, free) way for me to enable anyone looking for a job or wanting to be notified of newly posted events to keep up-to-date, either via Twitter on the web, in a third-party app, or on a mobile phone or device. There's no need for me to figure out how to get stuff to mobile phones and such; Twitter takes care of that already. So I'm just leveraging what they do best to make door64 more useful (hopefully). In other words, I'm not reinventing the wheel.
Regarding the aim to revolutionize, I think the less-ambitious-sounding term is to be disruptive -- a term that reminds me of a kid who drinks a bottle of Jolt just prior to History class. Perhaps received with the same amount of annoyance, companies who are disruptive tend may surprise the competition with a different POV or positioning of their product. That may be pretty close to "inventing something new", but perhaps to a lesser degree.
Cool! I use Feedburner and Digg. Glad to see there is plenty of innovation right in our back yard!
What is innovative or inventive? We could debate the concept of innovation versus "disruptive" from now until the Austin-San Antonio metroplex has hourly high-speed rail travel (with local and express services)...Personally, I happen to have an extreme distaste for the concept of "disruptive" since it appears that to some people (not you specifically), a technology is not innovative unless it qualifies for the elusive disruptiveness.
Use what is available before you attempt to invent. Borrow concepts from other fields in your own field of use. Pay licensing or royalties to the owners of the IP if it exists. Very often, it is cheaper to borrow than to develop.
Like you sense of humor too! Yes, most GREAT ideas are NOT disruptive, but innovative. Read my blog on "The First Idea may not be the best."