Innovation Time

Way back in the 70′s, 80′s and even 90′s, we didn’t have nearly as many options for buying things or using things as we do today. It’s a “renaissance” or a “revolution” of sort for “choice or options”.

Some people don’t like to make changes, but it’s something that we can’t avoid. It has to happen. We have to grow — move on — improve! We’ll end up being stuck in a rut! And who wants to do that?!

But — and it’s a BIG But — it has to make sense and be relevant to helping us improve our lives. Otherwise, it’s just going to bog us down with way too many unnecesary choices — way too many time consuming and confusing decisions we have to make in order to deal with all of these choices.

When it comes to innovations from the corporate world, we’ve seen a lot of them come and go over the years. Many have been redundant and useless. We’ve had situations where a product line was suddenly replaced after many of us had invested time and money into using it. An example would be VCR’s, remember them — they didn’t last long before being replaced by DVR and DVD players. Although, the VCR’s deleted themselves — image wise — due to image quality breaking down over time.

But now enters HDTV, HD DVR’s such as Tivo, HD DVD’s and Blue Ray Discs. Due to industry changes, televisons will have to be HD Ready, which is a story all by itself. This will historically change television from what we’ve been used to in the past. However, the HD DVD is already poised to make an exit, before it was allowed to get on the “playing field” as a regular, due to the Blue Ray technology. I like technology, but all of these different changes are making my head swim!

Before I get this article written and posted, who knows how many changes have occurred. Quickly moving on to the impetus for this article, Fast Company Magazine, did an article this month, showcasing some of the “The World’s Most Innovative Companies”. All of these companies busy innovating, means more changes down the line for us. That could be good or bad! What a paradox?