Monday, July 17, 2006

I really like this short post by Rich Kaarlgard on his Forbes Blog:

More often than not, what is called innovation is really a recombination of the existing. Steve Jobs married Moore's Law to pop culture ... and he still does, better than anyone. Howard Schultz married the Italian streetside cafe to the American franchise model. SUVs wedded the American family wagon to a truck. Bill Walsh took a fast-break basketball offense and adapted it to the gridiron. George Lucas took Lawrence of Arabia into space.

Putting things together is a fun way to get business ideas: New York style tourism (food tours) and Austin. Flickr and (you name it -- food, wine, clothes, etc....). Staying on the cutting edge -- being "trendy" -- helps you have some cool cutting edge models to apply to *other* businesses.

This would make for a great presentation on imagination & innovation. Show pictures of the pairs of things, have your audience guess what the two synthesize to become, show the answer on the next slide.