Sterling Terrell

smart ideas from books (mostly)

Industry That Needs A Major Upgrade

Industry That Needs A Major Upgrade

Asking what archaic industry could use a major upgrade might not be a bad place to start when looking to innovate.

  • What businesses still are using fax machines?
  • What industries adapt technology slower, and why?
  • Where can a significant impact be made in the most obvious way?

I mean, he thought this – and then went and did Paypal.

It’s conviction and focus on an amazing level.

In the years that followed, Musk considered starting an Internet bank and discussed it openly during his internship at Pinnacle Research in 1995. The youthful Musk lectured the scientists about the inevitable transition coming in finance toward online systems, but they tried to talk him down, saying that it would takes ages for Web security to be good enough to win over consumers. Musk, though, remained convinced that the finance industry could do with a major upgrade and that he could have a big influence on banking with a relatively small investment.

-Ashley Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (Amazon)

Experimental Innovator

Experimental Innovator

So I guess, in this context, if anything, I am an experimental innovator.

I tweak and change things, sure, but mostly I am following a system – trying to quantitatively produce enough subjective content to find quality at the end of it all.

And I could be wrong, but don’t people that “formulate a big idea and set out to execute it” still have to experiment and innovate along the way?

The time at which we reach our heights of originality, and how long they last, depends on our styles of thinking. When Galenson studied creators, he discovered two radically different styles of innovation: conceptual and experimental. Conceptual innovators formulate a big idea and set out to execute it. Experimental innovators solve problems through trial and error, learning and evolving as they go along. They are at work on a particular problem, but they don’t have a specific solution in mind at the outset. Instead of planning in advance, they figure it out as they go. To paraphrase writer E. M. Forster, how can I know what I think until I see what I say? According to Galenson, conceptual innovators are sprinters, and experimental innovators are marathoners.

-Adam Grant, Originals

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