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Technology

What is the value of an idea?

by Chuck Green at ideabook.com

What is the value of an idea? Though Steve Jobs and Apple are credited with the introduction of the iPad, it was not a new idea. Roger Fidler, the Director of Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab, and his team had mocked up a very similar-looking and working tablet fifteen years earlier—yes, fifteen years earlier. And, before that, Arthur C. Clarke spoke about a “Newspad” device as early as the 1960s.

Which brings to mind the fact that an idea or design is just a small part of a complex equation. To succeed in launching a new product or service, you, more often than not, will draw on the insights, inventions, and skills of many others. I dare say it should humble us.
Though tablets were clearly not a new idea when they first showed up in the early 2000s, making the iPad a reality required much new and innovative technology, the development of a groundbreaking interface design, ramping up of a massive manufacturing chain, a worldwide of sales and distribution network, and much, much more.

Is there value to intellectual property? Of course. But this is a great reminder of the fact that just thinking of an idea doesn’t make it a success.

Thanks to Jim Green for pointing us to it.

From 1994: The Tablet Newspaper: A Vision for the Future…

Of course Arthur C. Clarke spoke about the “Newspad” in the sixties…

The controversy as reported by The Washington Post…

Article from the New York Times, August 1995 announcing the shutting down of Knight-Ridder’s research lab…

An interview with Fidler…

Posted in October 2017 / Chuck Green is the principal of Logic Arts, a design and marketing firm, a contributor to numerous magazines and websites, and the author of books published by Random House, Peachpit Press, and Rockport Publishers. Contact.

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