I used to say that "Million Dollar Ideas" were a dime a dozen unless they were implemented. But that was before I began to realize how many people have no imagination, no innovative ideas whatsoever.
Imagination and innovation not only give an existing business the competitive edge it needs to survive, they also spark the vision for developing new products and services that create entirely new market segments.
Two years ago, I drew up a list of some innovative concepts I'd had over the past 25 years but wasn't able to pursue. Here are just five:
1981: network messages/packets for distributed simulations — eventually first proposed over a decade later as an IEEE standard as Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocol data units (PDUs)
1983: cellular telephone services — introduced in the mid 1990's
1998: video "on demand" in order to provide individualized television & movie schedules — now offered by Comcast
2001: e-commerce feature to allow potential buyers to check product availability in a local store's inventory before placing an online order for local pickup — now offered by COMPUSA
2002: a web-based application to develop and host customized databases — now offered as "Quickbase" by Intuit
As I've said elsewhere, my broad technical background enables me to quickly pick up the basic principles of an emerging technology and to foresee its importance and applications. Not a bad talent to have on your high-performance, entrepreneurial team, wouldn't you say?