Although understanding your bias is important to effectively analyzing a situation, the first step in improvement is to identify your problem. What motivates you to make a change? The key to innovation is desire: the desire to do something better, faster or more easily. Consider the following thoughts on innovation:
“Discontent is the first necessity of progress.”
Thomas Edison
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
George Bernard Shaw
When a particular event or circumstance bothers you, consider it an opportunity. Reed Hastings, the founder and CEO of Netflix, was charged a $40 late fee after he rented Apollo 13 in 1997; his unhappiness at that event prompted thoughts that created Netflix, the company that brought Blockbuster to its knees and generated $2B in revenue in 2010. Like George Bernard Shaw said, Reed Hastings was the “unreasonable man” who saw a problem and went out looking to fix it.
When there’s an ache, you want to be like aspirin, not vitamins. Aspirin solves a very particular problem someone has, whereas vitamins are a general “nice to have” market. [The Netflix idea] was certainly aspirin.
What problems have you identified that you’d like to remedy? How can you become the aspirin for problems that you and your customers frequently face? Share with us in the comments.
Sources:
How Netflix got Started
Netflix Image
