ForeThought: Eureka! (Archimedes)

April 29, 2010 | Janet Preus

A recently unveiled competition is designed to encourage and reward excellence in our industry, and it's an intriguing new idea. The Industrial Fabrics Foundation Innovation Award program seeks to inspire companies to lead the way into uncharted territory and "not only come up with great ideas, but make them happen," with new processes, equipment and machinery, and end products.

I found this inspiring to write about, but first needed to find a suitable quotation for the top of this page. I found a good one, but there were many more, so I thought I'd use them all in an imagined conversation among a decidedly eclectic group, which you might visualize split-screened on CNN and moderated by me as the host. I rarely watch an entire television show, so we join it in process.

Host: Welcome back. We're talking about the importance of innovation in industry. To follow up on your point, John, it's hard to be creative, isn't it, when daily problems can be overwhelming?

Gardner: We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

Hock: Actually, the problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out. ... Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.

Host: So it's more of a passive activity?

Camus: Great ideas come into the world as gently as doves. Perhaps, then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear amid the uproar of empires and nations a faint flutter of wings; the gentle stirring of life and hope.

London: You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. (Everyone, except Camus, laughs.)

Edison: To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. (Another laugh. Camus smiles, at least.)

Host: We've all been understandably preoccupied with rescuing the bottom line.

Muzyka: A focus on cost-cutting and efficiency has helped many organizations weather the downturn, but this approach will ultimately render them obsolete. Only the constant pursuit of innovation can ensure long-term success.

Host: That's a little frightening, though, isn't it, and carries risks.

Cage: I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of old ones.

Host: But mistakes happen ...

Pearce: To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong.

Host: Well, we'd all like a crystal ball for minimizing risks, wouldn't we, but foregoing that, what?

Kay: The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Host: On that note, we'll wrap it up for today. Thanks to our guests for their thought-provoking ideas. Let's hope our viewers take up the challenge and enter the competition. Be sure to visit indfabfnd.com for information, or contact Beth Hungiville at +1 651 225 6545, or blhungiville@ifai.com. But do enter-and good luck!

(The credits roll)

Janet Preus is the editor of Specialty Fabrics Review.

Tonight’s guests were avant-garde composer, John Cage; Nobel prize-winning author, Albert Camus; inventor, Thomas Edison; statesman and author, John W. Gardner; the founder of Visa, Dee Hock; computer scientist, Alan Kay; author, Jack London; Daniel Muzyka, Dean of the Sauder School of Business; and Joseph Chilton Pearce, author.

Comments

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  Joe

  Apr 30, 2010
  12:09 pm CDT

  Great article and fun to read!