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(post promised to Alex) why aren't all innovators the same

Innovation isn’t just about technology. It is however always about solving a problem. Many years ago I was introduced to an old tale. I’ve always thought that it represented both a path and a model of innovation.

There was once a shepherd deep in the mountains of Spain. His job was simple throughout the long winter he was to protect the sheep. The first year he lost five sheep to the wolves. The second year he lost four sheep to the wolves. Each lost sheep was food off his families table. He thought long and hard over the summer of a solution.

When that winter arrived, he carefully tied the skinned fur of four wolves to four of his sheep. That winter he lost no sheep. He did the same thing the next year and again didn’t lose any sheep. That went on for a long time many years in fact. He passed that new way of doing things on to his son, his son passed it on to his son and so on.

It was an innovative way to fix a problem. That is what innovators do. They solve problems that they are facing in their lives. Sometimes they are even sheep in wolves clothing.

This is a preamble to a work I published more than 5 years ago now. I’ve updated it a couple of times and will share more this week!

  • Question of

    Do you know someone that is an innovator?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    It is ok to look for new ways to do things, right?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Does Duct Tape solve everything?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Did you know the invention of posit notes was a mistake?

    • Yes
    • No

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What do you think?

18 Points

Written by DocAndersen

One fan, One team and a long time dream Go Cubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

31 Comments

  1. I know a couple of inovators, and I love conversations with them, very clever people. Inspiring. Although we all are some kind of innovators throughout our life in one or another way.

    1
        • Now see, as a person who is lazy by nature, I think innovators are lazy. I hate doing things I don’t need to.

          I once had to scan nearly 2000 pages of text.

          I found Omnipage, and corrected the 2% error rate.

          Much less work overall long before OCR was good.

  2. I think innovators are also very clever people. BTW your post picked up just the right tag words. In the ad below your post, I have the choice of duct tape and two books on innovation. Way to go.

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  3. I do not know any innovators … for what kind of thing I am an innovator … probably I’ve already tried something to make my work easier

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