Solve a problem or an old solution?

Resuming my comments about Dean Kamen's presentation, I would like to talk about something he said and we can easily proof on our day by day.

Dean tells his company story about a dialysis machine. People who created this machine ask his company to reduce its size (it was big as a refrigerator). Dean and his team worked a lot on this project and after some months the company ask him to stop the project. Dean stop to think about what that company wants and have concluded that they are hiring his company to turn an old solution better instead of create a new solution with a small machine.

So he starts to analyze the problem (dialysis) and not the solution (company's machine). From this point he took about one more year to create a new portable dialysis machine and that company acquired his project.

On our specific business we can face several situations as this one. Most of time people come to us to ask to solve its unsucceeded solutions instead of solve the real problem. It is much confortable to start from an existing point than invent a new solution but I can guarantee that you only will become a better professional and feel that taste of success if you invent a new solution every day!

If you would like to know more about Dean and his invetive mind, take a look at:

http://www.segway.com/ and http://www.dekaresearch.com

Cheers!