|
|
|
| Authored by: rcsteiner on Thursday, June 14 2012 @ 02:22 PM EDT |
Some solutions only become "obvious" when a need arises to solve a
particular problem, driving people with the need in question to come up with a
viable solution for that particular problem.
If the need in question is based on something not in general circulation, or
something which doesn't actually exist yet at all, the number of potential
solutions will be small because the number of people actually working on (or
even thinking about) the problem is small.
If the need becomes widespread in a very short time, say with the release of the
first popular touch screen device to a general audience, the number of people
capable of producing the solution in question can increase drastically in a
correspondingly short time.
That means that innovation can sometimes legitimately occur in waves, often
being solved using very similar techniques in multiple places, and what is only
obvious to a few at a previous period of time becomes far less novel because the
problem in question is now exposed to mainstream inventors and developers, not
just specialists.
Until handheld computers came along with touch screens, for example, thoughts
and innovations involving touch screens and their usage was largely in the realm
of speculation, since there were no "real world" issues to be solved
using one. Once they became mainstream, solutions to various problems involving
touch screens become far less novel.
That doesn't lessen the value of someone coming up with a good idea first, but
it does mean that the creation of a particular idea or process is sometimes an
accident of circumstance, not an indication of any particular level of skill,
insight, or ability.
Just sayin. :-)
---
-Rich Steiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
