Innovation, life and the impacts be create

A large part of Innovation thinking is to be open to inputs from the World around us and in a sense be hyper-engaged with the same in order to derive valuable insights. Didn’t someone say, “Things happen for a reason?” Isn't the reason to teach us?

This point has been brought to me many times courtesy of life experiences that for most people are just life’s passing and go unnoticed and unexamined. The other day I had such an experience that taught me a good lesson and motivated me to write this entry.

As I have noted before in this blog, it has been my philosophy to look for insights wherever one can find them. In fact I have made a practice of recording these insights on the go via personal recording devices, journals, photography, etc…In no other time in history, by the way, has this been easier to accomplish. If one is open to receiving, accepting and exploring, digital technology is making it easier by the day.

Case in point is the mobile phone.

If you permit me a digression: Most mobile phones (in my opinion they should no longer be called a mobile phone, but instead a palmtop, digital assistant, personal device, hand computer, whatever) come with voice recorders. In fact, just recently a new startup created an application that will turn your recording or voice mail into text and send you an email of it. Wonderful, isn’t it? This is what I call productive innovation.

My thinking is that you never know when an insight might come in handy when you are trying to solve a problem, create a new product, whatever, so why not record it for when you may need it?

Ok, back to the story. The other weekend I was going on my habitual long bike ride. (I am a long distance bicyclist and on the weekends I will usually go for longer distances.) In any case, my route starts the same way every time and thus I go through the same neighborhood on my way out to the scary world of inattentive drivers in large SUV’s chatting on mobile devices. This one time I was riding by the house of a gentleman that is always working on one of his three BMW’s. A motor head, I thought, the many times that I had ridden by him. As I was approaching his house it was the same scene; him under the hood of one of his cars with a buddy next to him. This time it was different. As I was riding past his driveway he lifted his head from his work and yelled: “How many miles are you riding today?” I was a bit stunned and very intrigued since I had never even had a word with him. In reply I answered back with my mileage estimation for the ride. “Have a good one,” he darted back.

Continuing on I started analyzing and looking for an insight into the surprised engagement, when I came upon the next experience of the ride a couple of blocks later. As I was waiting for the red light doing circles waiting for the light to turn, a car pulls along the side and there is this kid, no more than 5 or 6 years old, staring at me as if I was an apparition from Jupiter. I can only imagine that my cycling clothing, helmet, sunglasses and blinking red lights (all purposely colorful to alert drivers of my presence) and my bicycle must have made an impression of the third kind on him. The intensity of his gaze was fascinating and somewhat alluring. At that instant the insight consolidated in my head and is the following:

As we move about in life, we have/create/make impacts on those around us, even when we think we are not. Further, the extent of these impacts is unknown to us, and we can choose to make them positive or negative.

I sincerely hope and believe that that day I made an impact on that kid; perhaps I planted a seed in his brain about cycling as an alternative transportation and lifestyle, perhaps he will grow up taking care to watch for cyclists, perhaps he will be forceful with his parents to take him out riding. As far as the gentlemen and his cars, every time I ride and he is there, I wave and we have the same exchange starting with: “How many today.”

For Innovators this is an important lesson, as the innovations we create can and will have impacts beyond what we scantily try to estimate with our MBA derived metrics and analytics.