Your deodorant and innovation
June 14th 2008 13:53
I drew the short straw. I was going to be the last person on the agenda of a long day of presentations. My allotted time was 4.30pm on a Friday afternoon. How was I going to get everyone to turn off their Blackberries and tune-in?
I had been chewing my nails trying to think of an interesting way to start a presentation. The training session was going to be about "Developing a questioning mindset". I was looking for examples of how a questioning mindset can create profits. My kids were leaping around, climbing the walls, begging to go on an excursion. Finally, I shut the computer and we headed out to Melbourne's Scienceworks.
As I wandered around the larger-than-life hands-on exhibits, there it was! Inspiration. A poster on the wall showed a tube of roll-on deodarant along side a ballpoint pen. I walked up and started reading. Turns out that the ball-point pen inspired roll-on deodorant. Before the roller-ball, deodorant was in a cream form. I guess someone was chewing their pen one day then took a lateral leap -- "hey, what else could this be used for?" A question led them to a very profitable new product idea.
So that was my opening story. I held up a ball point pen, and a tube of deodorant. I asked if anyone knew the link. They were hooked!
The picture is licensed under the GNU Free Document License, and is from Wikipedia's article on ballpoint pens.
I had been chewing my nails trying to think of an interesting way to start a presentation. The training session was going to be about "Developing a questioning mindset". I was looking for examples of how a questioning mindset can create profits. My kids were leaping around, climbing the walls, begging to go on an excursion. Finally, I shut the computer and we headed out to Melbourne's Scienceworks.
Where will this ball pen lead your audience?
As I wandered around the larger-than-life hands-on exhibits, there it was! Inspiration. A poster on the wall showed a tube of roll-on deodarant along side a ballpoint pen. I walked up and started reading. Turns out that the ball-point pen inspired roll-on deodorant. Before the roller-ball, deodorant was in a cream form. I guess someone was chewing their pen one day then took a lateral leap -- "hey, what else could this be used for?" A question led them to a very profitable new product idea.
So that was my opening story. I held up a ball point pen, and a tube of deodorant. I asked if anyone knew the link. They were hooked!
The picture is licensed under the GNU Free Document License, and is from Wikipedia's article on ballpoint pens.
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