Stetoscope

Yesterday, I had a discussion with a PR professional about the possibility to make pearltrees a mass market interface immediatly. I think, it is just impossible for now (and the next following months). However, I am certain it will be a huge success by the next 4 years. The issue there is what does make a success that slow?

Have you ever been confronted to pure novelty? Something you have never seen before and you do not even know what is it? The chances for you to be interested in that “thing” are very thin. So the possibility for you to find the right use of that “thing” and for you to use it the right way is just impossible. That is I think the main “brake” to innovation today. The world is no more drived by inventors like the beginning of the 20th century but by business that is not very tolerant to long term bet. Conclusion, we are living in a world of repetition and not innovation.

Fortunatly, stubborness, marketing and communication do exist! Stuborness because, when you have something very new to offer, you have to knock every door and to come back unlessly to present, explain your innovation… Marketing, because it is the art of selecting the people that are the most about to understand your innovation. And communication because, it will help you to use known symbol in order to make the innovation understandable.

The maccintosch is the very good example for this. All the work was to invent a friendly interface in order to give the more people possible a direct an simple access to computers. How did they make it? A computer was a tool for work. So the whole interface is based on a analogy with the most familiar thing for a worker : his office! That is the very role of communication : to create common.

So how to make an innovation a success :

1. Be stubborn : never desperate or give-up your ideas
2. Be a good marketer : you are alone starts by meeting the most adequate people others does not matter at the beginning
3. Communicate : use common pictures to symbolize every function of your innovation