Over at Endless Innovation Dominic points out that GE, “the very company that gave birth to the light bulb is scaling back its light bulb business,” as energy efficient bulbs take over.

Dominic points out that as a symbol of innovation, the light bulb is completely overused, and I thoroughly agree. He poses the question – if GE is killing the lightbulb what is the new symbol of innovation?

Here’s my suggestion – the Daffodial.

Now those of you who aren’t thinking – “Damn – that’s brilliant!” , are probably saying “What the hell??”

It’s quite simple really – there’s so many parallels between innovation and daffodials :

1. Daffodials are bulb flowers that get planted in the ground with a lot of energy and fuss, and then forgotten about for a while.
2. Because they’re planted underground, people can quite happily walk over them until something starts to appear.
3. Some of them die off when they are still deep in the ground, but nobody worries too much – it’s part of the process.
4. When they flower, people smile.
5. Flowering daffodials attract crowds.
6. When they do flower, they look fantastic, and people gather around to make sounds which generally include the letters “a” and “h”. As in “Aaahh, don’t they look great.”
7. Some people try and pick some of the flowers to take with them hoping that they will have a little of the magic. They forget about the months the plant spent underground.
8. Daffodials come from bulbs, bulbs were the old symbol of innovation and so….well…you get the idea.
9. Daffodial flowers look great. Almost as good as the margin created when an innovative product disrupts a market.
10. And last but not least, too much manure will kill the daffodial.