Category: Great Innovators

The Hostility of Tribes

Why are tribes so hostile to those who depart from the norms of the tribe? Joseph Palmer was born in 1791 in Massachusetts, one of 14 children.  He grew up to be a successful farmer. He took to wearing a beard which was a most uncommon practice at the time.  The local people in Fitchburg took strong exception to this.  Children threw stones at him, women crossed the street to avoid him and men cursed... Read More--

Focus on the Problem, not the Customer’s Request

Image by William Iven from Pixabay.   The best innovations solve real problems.  They provide solutions that customers are prepared to pay money for.   So it seems to make sense that we should listen carefully to customer requests.  But this can be a mistake.  In the famous words of Steve Jobs, “It isn’t the customer’s job to know what they want.”  The customer will often express... Read More--

Think like Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury in England in 1809.  His grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, a renowned doctor, scientist and poet. His father was a doctor who wanted Charles to become either a doctor or a clergyman and he was disappointed when his son chose a career in natural science.  Charles graduated from Cambridge University whereon his botany professor John Henslow suggested that he take... Read More--

Change the Point of Attack – Insights from Nelson

On October 21 1805, the French and Spanish fleets, consisting of 33 ships under the command of Admiral Villeneuve, were intercepted by a British fleet of 27 vessels under Admiral Nelson, off the coast of Cadiz in Spain. What followed, the battle of Trafalgar, was to determine the balance of power on the high seas and across Europe for the next century. In those times naval battles were fought by two... Read More--

Bypass the Naysayers

Mickey Schulhof’s parents, both Jews, fled Hitler’s Europe in 1939 and settled in Long Island.  Mickey was a brilliant student and gained a doctorate in physics from Brandeis University in 1970 before joining CBS to work in their music records division.  In 1974 he joined Sony and rapidly rose up the ranks becoming vice-chairman of Sony USA and then the first American to become a board member... Read More--

Turn the Shop Around

Consider the shopping experience for a housewife in the 1920s.  She would go from one small store to another – meat from the butcher’s, bread from the bakery, fish from the fish monger, cans and vegetables from the grocer’s, household items from the hardware store and so on.  At each shop she would have to queue behind other customers as the shopkeeper fetched each item the customer wanted... Read More--

Protect the Areas that are not showing Hits.

Abraham Wald was born  in 1902 in Transylvania which was part of Austria–Hungary and is now in Romania.  His family were devout Jews who would not allow the boy to attend school on Saturdays so he was home-schooled by his parents. He was a brilliant mathematics student and he graduated  with a Ph D from the University of Vienna in 1931.  However, because of discrimination against Jews it was... Read More--

A Revolutionary Idea – Thinking Inside the Box

McLean in 1957 Containerization was a massively important innovation which powered the expansion of global trade but it was a difficult idea to implement. Before containerization,  goods were physically manhandled as break bulk cargo. At the factory or warehouse goods were loaded onto a truck, driven to a port and then offloaded to await the next suitable ship.  The dockers (aka longshoremen) piled... Read More--

Today’s Common Practices will become Obsolete

Joseph Lister In 1865 an eleven year old boy, James Greenlees, was run over by a cart in Glasgow.  He was rushed to the Royal Infirmary with a gashed leg containing a multiple fracture.  The normal outcome of this kind of injury at the time was either amputation or death through infection (or sometimes both).  Fortunately for Greenlees, the surgeon who treated him was Joseph Lister, At that time... Read More--

The Geek who Changed the World

Tim Berners Lee Sir Tim Berners Lee is known as the inventor of the World Wide Web.  He created its three fundamental components: the formatting language HTML, the address system URL, and the HTTP system for linking sites.  He was born in 1955 and grew up in London.  As a schoolboy he was an avid trainspotter. He learnt about electronics from tinkering with a model railway.  He gained a first-class... Read More--