If No One Sees It, Is It an Invention?

What a cool/smart guy. The key insight:

"Mr. Lee encourages innovators to ask themselves, “Would providing 80 percent of the capability at 1 percent of the cost be valuable to someone?” If the answer is yes, he says, pay attention. Trading relatively little performance for substantial cost savings can generate what Mr. Lee calls “surprising and often powerful results both scientifically and socially.”"

It's relatively common (and good) advice but it's super convincing in the context of the article...

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." -- Einstein

I always think it's a bit of a shame when a smart innovator doesn't have a business head on his shoulders.

Apparently Mr. Lee says he doesn't have one: but I dont buy that :D posting his ideas to Youtube was a very smart move...

(I loved that video when it first appeared!)

Just as an idea is worthless without it actually being implemented, a new innovation is worthless unless someone actually feels they need it.

Good for him!

this ties in beautifully with yegge's recent post about marketing