Innovation Before Its Time
Product driven companies, inventors from all backgrounds and market researchers have long studied how some innovations take off while others fizzle. So, why do some innovations gain traction? Given two similar but competing inventions, what factors lead to one eclipsing the other? Why do some pioneering ideas and inventions fail only to succeed from a different instigator years, sometimes decades, later? Answers to these questions would undoubtedly make many inventors household names, but as is the case in most human endeavors, the process of innovation is murky and more of an art than a science. Author and columnist Matt Ridley offers some possible answers to the conundrum. From the Wall Street Journal: Bill Moggridge, who invented the laptop computer in 1982, died last week. His idea of using a hinge…