发表于:2007-12-07 15:44:00
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In a flash: Innovator Awards 2007
ControlDesign.com
Keywords: Innovator Awards and 2007 Innovators
Our second-annual Innovator Award winners and their machines were chosen based on end users who decided whether they caught lightning in a bottle for their applications or just a lightning bug.
By Jim Montague, Executive Editor
Blinding light! Wait a few seconds. Boom!
You know the physics. Impossibly hot and high-voltage for the briefest instant, lightning and thunder explosively rebalance the differing electrical charges between masses of fixed land and moving atmosphere.
Innovators perform the same role. They reset the stage—and are almost as dauntless as lightning itself. Or, as 19th Century French novelist Victor Hugo stated, "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come."
So, is that what’s the matter with all these guys? Leonardo DaVinci, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and all the other famous and nameless innovators through history seem to share one attribute—they just can’t leave well enough alone. They must know how things work, and seek to improve them.
Kite and key in hand, Franklin proved in June, 1752, that lightning was a stream of electrified air. And, he followed up his successful experiment by inventing the lightning rod a year later, and distributing it, despite the objections of religious officials, who reportedly believed it contradicted God’s will.
However, though innovation might seem unstoppable, it too meets its immovable force in the form of unimaginative colleagues, calcified managers, and even fearful friends. For instance, even the oldest useful idea or tool was new at one time. For every early hominid hunter that sharpened a stick or stone, there had to be bunch of others saying, "We’ve always used clubs. We don’t need to change. That pointy stick will never work." And, once sticks were standard, the chorus undoubtedly was, "We’ve always used sticks. We don’t need to change. That stone will never work." No wonder evolution takes so long.
Because of this inertia, innovation by one person can cause deep suspicion and resentment in others. People dislike being told to do something differently, no matter how beneficial or crucial it might be,