I recently had the pleasure to listening to Guy Kawasaki speak about innovation at the IABC World Conference in Toronto. His Top Ten items for Innovation really resounded with me. But it was his example for number 6, Let 100 Flowers Blossom, that really stuck with me. Guy was a member of the original Apple Macintosh design team. As Guy explains it, when they launched the original Mac, the team thought they had created a great computer to compete with all the other computers of the time that let users manipulate data in early spreadsheets. But a little known desktop publishing program called Aldus Pagemaker was also just starting to bring desktop publishing to the masses. Well people soon realized that the icon-based Graphic User Interface (GUI) of the Macintosh, worked hand-in-hand with this new program and the popularity of both grew. Pagemaker eventually evolved into Adobe InDesign, still a desktop publishing powerhouse. And we all know what happened with Apple. According to Guy, “Aldus Pagemaker saved Apple, if we had been restrictive of what the Mac could do and stuck with spreadsheets, Apple wouldn’t exist today.”
Guy had other examples of products being used for pursuits outside it’s original purpose, such as AVON Skin-So-Soft being used as a bug repellent. His advice, “take the money, let the 100 flowers blossom.” My question for you is what unforeseen purpose, product or service helped make your business a success? For me, I was asked to help a business communication organization I belong to revamp its Philadelphia chapter’s website. The result was having to learn WordPress on the fly and design the site at the same time. WordPress development and customization has become a majority of my business, but who knows if it would have happened if I didn’t volunteer for the website redesign assignment. What unforeseen event or product use helped make your business a success?
Let me know, until next time, Tim
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