A Faster Horse
Here we are, just hours before Apple’s event where they are all but confirmed to announce a new/revolutionary/breakthrough tablet device. With each year and each new release, the amount of punditry grows. Reporters and bloggers everywhere weigh in on what Apple’s unannounced product will or won’t do. Consumer’s won’t buy it. It won’t save old media. It won’t revolutionize gaming.
The amazing thing is that Apple has proven people wrong year after year. Is it because they are smarter than reporters? Perhaps they’re just better thinkers.
The thing about a breakthrough of any kind is that it changes and challenges our existing notions. Pundits say they won’t buy an Apple tablet based on the technical specs that they formulate from existing technologies. But when something truly new happens, it isn’t a rearrangement of what’s already out there, it’s something different.
This is what separates most of us from being truly creative thinkers. Coming up with a new direction means actually first understanding the problem to be solved, not just jumping to solutions.
From the visionary Henry Ford, regarding the first car he ever built:
If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.
