How Timing Impacts Success
By Jack Lander
Let’s talk about opportunity. Hmmm … on second thought, let’s address success. Actually, timing may be more to the point. What I’m getting at is how timing affects opportunity and success.
To get a clear perspective on how timing relates to opportunity and success, I’ve devised a gamut that ranges from 50 years ago to 50 years in the future. It could be more or less, but 100 years is a nice round number. Its intervals are labeled with common terms except for the present time, which I call zeitgeist, a German word that means “the spirit of the age.” We don’t have an adequate single-word English equivalent.
|——————–|——————–|——————–|——————–|
Obsolete Settled Zeitgeist Visionary Fantastic
50 yrs ago 25 yrs ago present 25 yrs hence 50 yrs hence
Zeitgeist is especially fitting for the art of inventing. “Geist” (spirit) suggests inspiration based on an intangible something – perhaps the “collective unconscious,” as psychologist Carl Jung called it. A few down-to-earth examples may better illustrate what I’m getting at.
Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray filed papers with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the same day for the same invention of the telephone.
Newton and Leibniz invented calculus about the same time.
Darwin and Wallace came up with the theory of evolution at the same time.
The point is that the spirit of the age conditions us for great inventions that are timely.
No point working on buggy whips made from Kevlar
We could argue that Bell and Gray, and no doubt other inventors whose names we’ll never know, were influenced by the existence of the telegraph. If one could send vibrations (rapid dot and dash pulses) over wires, why couldn’t sound, also a vibration, be sent over wires? Bell and Gray were inventing “on purpose,” not merely allowing any old problem, need, or want to occupy their minds.
Now, what’s all this got to do with practical inventing? Before answering, I must describe the three main kinds of inventors as I see them.
- The stumbler. The inventor who stumbles onto problems, needs and wants.
- The “on purpose” inventor who discovers a timely opportunity and addresses it.
- The visionary who invents things that won’t be practical for years to come.
Most inventors are stumblers. We confront a random problem, need or want; work on a solution; and come up with an invention.
The downside to such inventions is that most often they fit into the “settled” segment of the gamut. The peripheral needs and wants they spawn have nearly all been filled, and protected by numerous patents. Niche opportunities may still exist. However, the closer the basic inventions drift toward obsolete, the fewer and fewer niche opportunities we find.
No point working on buggy whips made from Kevlar, or a new composition for sealing-wax.
It would seem, then, that “on purpose” inventing in the zeitgeist segment is where the greatest opportunities lie. True. But here we are competing with corporations that have deep pockets, and far more technical resources than independent inventors have.
If, like Bell and Gray, we invent something about the same time as a sponsored industrial inventor invents it, we are likely to lose it to a company in the business. Our shallow pockets can’t finance an adequate defense.
The visionary isn’t much better off. The dictionary defines a visionary as a dreamer and an impractical person. The visionary’s inventions may seem impractical at first, and take a generation to be adopted. Einstein was a visionary for many years before his general theory of relativity was accepted.
Do we have the endurance and resources to be successful visionaries? Most of us don’t. And the inventions of visionaries have a high failure rate.
The covers of Popular Mechanics magazine long ago illustrated personal helicopters and fixed-wing planes that doubled as automobiles, as dominant forms of future (our present) transportation.
So, where lay the practical opportunities – the optimum time? Most likely between “settled” and “zeitgeist.”
Important inventions create niche opportunities, and the closer we are to zeitgeist, the more likely that we will discover untapped opportunities and be able to patent them or produce them and drive them to market.
Should “stumblers” change into “on-purpose” inventors? Should visionaries become design engineers? I’m not proposing change. I’m suggesting that we all be more aware of how timing affects the difficulties and opportunities for capitalizing on our inventions.
I’m suggesting that we challenge ourselves every time an idea pops into our heads, and sort it according to the probability of our succeeding, which depends on our resources, our competition, a large measure of luck, and timing.
I gotta run now, and do some on-purpose, zeitgeist thinking about next month’s column.
Visit www.KarlaAndJack.com
Editor’s note: This article appears in the March 2010 print edition
