How much of our progress in this world is hindered by innovation versus adoption?
My
biggest challenges throughout my career have not been related to
creating new innovations; but rather coaching, teaching and ultimately
selling the services and the production processes and resulting values
to my employees, peers and clients.
How
humbling is it to understand that most significant computer
“innovations” you and I regularly exploit today; and believe to be
quite state-of-the-art; were actually developed, built and introduced
to the public over 40 years ago!
· The mouse
· Cut, Copy & Paste within an electronic document
· The internet
· Hypertext (The basis for most web pages.)
· Keyword Searches
· Video & Audio Conferencing
· Online Collaboration & Object addressing
If you don’t believe this, simply watch these 1968 clips from what is now known as the “Mother of all demonstrations”!
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Another
humbling example for those in the design & engineering industry is
the following demonstration of a light pen based, graphical CAD system
created in 1961!
Intro Video
Video 1
Video 2
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To
assume the general public, large corporations or even more conservative
audiences such as local or state municipalities, are “riddled with
paradigms”, is often an underestimation. Resistance to new ideas is only the beginning of the challenges associated with the implementation of successful innovations.
In
fact, a simplified explanation I have often offered, where related to
the production methods used within my organizations, has been; “We have
a proprietary utilization of off-the-shelf technology.” Submitting
that whenever possible; I utilized readily available software and
hardware tools to perform task and create productions that were either
uncommon or quite different than the original toolset developer’s
intended application.
These were basic insights offered to try and minimize resistance; lessen the blow if you will. Often
only the slightest “stretching of limits”, is all that can be
reasonably adopted and sold to those willing to trust even the
slightest advances.
Michael Hulme
mail@michaelhulme.com
www.michaelhulme.com
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