From the Chemistry Dept of the University of Wisconsin (warning – PDF document) comes this interesting quote. It turns out that this quote appears all over the place online, but it’s remarkable.
The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in the course of time as important as the petroleum and coal tar products of the present time.
Rudolph Diesel, 1912
I did a presentation a couple of weeks ago in Sydney in which I made reference to innovators breaking paradigms. Often paradigm change is bought about by people who are free to challenge the status quo.
To illustrate, here’s a great example from New Scientist.
“Barry Marshall studied medicine at the University of Western Australia. In 1981, while working at the Royal Perth Hospital, he met pathologist Robin Warren and they began investigating bacteria Warren had observed in stomach biopsies. They later found out that these bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, caused stomach ulcers and cancer. Warren and Marshall were awarded the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 2005.”
Why did you discover this, not the specialists?
Many people built careers on researching ulcers, but they were barking up the wrong tree. It was much better for us to be coming from a position of ignorance. We didn’t have a plan to find a cure for ulcers – we were simply trying find out what these bacteria were. If people don’t have an investment in the existing paradigm, they are free to invent a new one. There is a lot of inertia in research. People running major research projects can’t suddenly change tack and move the whole lab into another area.”
Last week I presented at an internal innovation conference of a very large Australian financial services company. I focussed on the innovation that occurs when you leverage the fringes and look at the edges of a sector. The message was well received, even though I included a skateboarding video at the start to wake everyone up (early morning and after lunch presentations require those little extra wake-up calls).
Now, back in the office – fresh after the presentation – I’m thinking about the fringes even more so than usual. Which prompted me to blog this post from John Hagel. It’s an old post, but one that bears reading if you have not already done so.
Edges often provide the most significant shaping opportunities. This is one more reason to seek out, rather than avoiding, the edges on the business landscape.
The full post is here.