Continuing the thought from yesterday's blog, there is much in Charles Handy's The Age of Unreason that shaped my thinking. My favorite Handy quote: "It is often the little things in life which change things the most and last the longest."
Yesterday, I shared the examples from the book of the chimney and the telephone line. Two others (not from the book) that have had a disproportionate impact for their size:
> The UPC code. A simple concept, based in part on the Morse Code, was developed to expedite the grocery store check-out process. It spawned an entire industry to do coding for inventory, tracking, bee migration and product identification. It is estimated that the UPC code is scanned 5 billion times a day!
> The research mouse. The tiny lab rat has been used in science experiments since 1909 and has been instrumental in research involving polio, rabies, cancer, transplants and genome mapping. The little rodents have similar gene structures to humans and in a year, "a pair of mice can produce the equivalent of a century's worth of human descendants."
The beginnings of change do not have to be lofty. Almost always, significant changes begin with new applications for existing things. The next time you have a problem, evolve your thinking to include adapting ideas from other uses to help you create the change you need. It could just be the start of something big.
-- beth triplett
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Source: Fast Company, Agenda Items, June 2001
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